zen.org Communal Weblog

It’s nice to be back in our own bed, ya know?

Traveling was a long day. Thank the goddess for JetBlue and the live DirecTV personal monitors. If they didn’t have Nick Jr, we’d have been in trouble. 🙂

Problems started when we got to Boston, finally got checked in and through security. We hadn’t eaten since about 8am, so we’re all starving (this is at about 4p). Went to a “nice” place (according to one of the check-in attendants at Aer Lingus), sit down, inside the security area. And ended up having this skanky bitch ho for a waitron. Now, I’ve waitressed. I know it’s not easy. I know it sucks. But the *second* I said “Our son has food allergies….” she got this blank look on her face. Like she didn’t want to hear it. Anything we asked her about, she would roll her eyes, sigh deeply, and huff away. After the last time, when she cut me off in the middle of explaining P’s allergies by saying “Yeah, my grandkids have food allergies too”, she just walked away. I shouted after her “Then WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?!?!?!” She didn’t come back to us. I went up to the hostess after 10 minutes (of waiting with a cranky, hungry 3 year old) and asked for a new server. We got a lovely woman named Sandra, who had some food on the table for P in about 5 minutes. They gave him something that wasn’t on the menu (pasta) and he was thrilled. So we tipped her. Handsomely.
When I talked to the manager later, I explained that I was a waitress, and I know it’s not easy. But for fuck’s sake, that woman needed a slap upside her head. B and I were wondering how she deals with her grandkids.

Even worse, when we got on the plane, we checked about our special meals. Only one. DAMMIT. I called the day before the flight, was told that there were two vegan meals, no toms, no nuts. That P’s wouldn’t be overrode by the fact that he was a kid (that happened once before). They managed to get a veggie plate on the plane as well, and that helped. The vegan food, by the way, is a keeper. Since food on airplanes has to be over-seasoned and have TONS of flavor (apparently your tastebuds don’t work so well up there, dunno why), I have had some excellent vegan meals on airplanes. This one was grilled tofu with rice and steamed veggies. The sauce on the rice was a fake-butter (I hope!) sauce, but it had curry powder in it. YUMMY. With the tofu it was faboo.

And P is recognizing things. He looked at the airplane (distinctive logo on it) and said “E-lingus!” Um. Okay. It’s Aer Lingus tho. “NO, E-LINGUS!” Okay, kid, whatever.

Thankfully, P crashed out during taxiing for takeoff. Didn’t wake up til 15 minutes before landing at Shannon. So he didn’t really eat. And I scarfed down tons of food :-). We all slept decently, but we were still out of it yesterday. And it’s 12:18 now, and I’m still in bed (love the laptop!). About to get up tho.

It’s nice to be home 🙂

I was searching for something or other I can’t remember and I found maps.google.com. Though I think it’s only good for US sites so far, and still has some bugs, it’s still really cool.

There’s a great article to help you learn about John Gilmore’s efforts to call the government’s bluff, insisting we shouldn’t be tracked like felons when we want to fly around the U.S.: Grounded: Millionaire John Gilmore stays close to home while making a point about privacy.