GOODBYE
Before leaving our palatial house in San Miguel, just before the shuttle arrived at 8:30 a.m. to take me and Lucretia, who was also leaving early, to Leon and our flight to Dallas/Fort Worth the yoga group gathered in a circle and did a yoga exercise which I photographed in spatial video from within the circle. It was my goodbye to the group.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/00bHt_N_wfGfk1GADaAHc99ig
After the hour and a half shuttle ride to Leon we had breakfast in the Leon airport and boarded our plane on time with no warnings about delay because of snow.
In the Dallas/Fort Worth airport I sat down in the first of the wheel chairs that I saw. I was going to enter the United States as a bent over octogenarian who certainly appeared to need insulin to stay alive. The guy pushing the wheel chair, actually he pushed two wheel chairs, in and out of elevators, down corridors, around the huge line going through immigration to the much shorter wheel chair line, then on to pick up and the redeposit my checked bag which he did for me and the woman with me, then on at great speed to customs, but customs never appeared, only the Nothing to Declare gate which we flew through. To my great relief I was past customs without anyone looking through my bags and charging me 25% for everything I had bought in San Miguel, without my having to show the letter proving that I needed insulin, without my having the insulin confiscated out of spite, without having to explain anything.
My first regret was that I hadn’t brought in twice as much insulin and not just the legal 90 day supply. But then I just felt relief.
It was only days later when I read in a Paul Krugman article that all of Trump’s tariffs from everywhere on earth must be causing understaffed customs a huge amount of effort trying to collect all the proper tariffs that I realized that there was no way under the sun that they were going to spend half an hour grilling an 88 year old bent over in his wheel chair. I wasn’t worth the effort. Someone else was paying the 25% tariff.
I was dropped at my gate, but the day wasn’t over. The gate was changed and everyone moved. I no longer needed a wheel chair and could appear spry again. A delay was announced, our plane was being repaired. We were then moved to another gate. Then we were told that a new plane and crew had arrived at another gate, a long way away. I trudged along with the group as we shifted again and this time, an hour and a half late we were off to Asheville where my son picked me up at 12:30 in the morning.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 