Thursday

Sunshine's mother arrived at Tân Sơn Nhất Airport shortly before ten thirty this evening. She'd been airborne since about ten pm last night (my time zone), and her route brought her from Kentucky through O'Hare and Hong Kong. Because of last minute re-routing, her great arc from Chicago took her over the pole and much of Russia. She said she could see Siberia, for example. I'm not sure why this was a change of plans--looking at my globe I cannot see any shorter way to go. I'm somewhat annoyed with myself for turning down the option to fly through O'Hare when I visit the US in late April. I've never seen the pole before. I'll be flying to Hong Kong, Los Angeles, DC, and on to North Carolina. I'll go over Hawaii, yawn, just like everybody else. Tonight I went to the airport. I like picking people up. For one thing, I love going there when I'm not getting tense about flying. I love watching new arrivals pause when the damp heat smacks them in the face (though it didn't seem overly wet or hot tonight). I like milling around with the crowd of people waiting for the plane to land: the welcoming families, office workers with paper signs, cabbies trying to collar unsuspecting backpackers with "good deals" on an otherwise metered ride. Most of these drivers are great, but sometimes temptation gets a little out of hand at the airport. Maybe they, too, are giddy not to be flying. Tonight, our return driver tried asking for twice the price of a trip downtown, telling us his meter was broken. While tapping it, however, he accidentally turned the machine on. We all had a good laugh about it while he got us to our apartment very cheaply. [Cavin]