Planes, Trains, Cats, Tats and other things

Traveling is fun. Delayed planes, forgetting important items, running from gate to gate, worrying what else you forgot to do. Much fun.

Now sitting in airports -- THAT is fun. While I admittedly don't always like people (!) I do indeed like WATCHING people -- so airports are like a candy store.

In C-bus I noticed the guy beside me had a different looking bag -- yep had an animal in it. A BIG black cat. So we became best friends (Oh yea and I talked to the man too!). He was very nice, told me all about his cat (13 years old, mostly outdoor cat, have to put out some potting soil in the winter snow to get him to do his business, goes over to the neighbors to eat (sound familiar), etc etc) and then asked if I would help by pushing the cat carrier through the metal detector. You see, he has to take the cat through the detector with him. And apparently they have to touch the cat to make sure it is alive -- Ewww.

So I did of course -- simple tasks I'm good at. He had trouble getting the cat through -- forgot to take off the collar. So he puts him down on the floor -- MAN you should have seen the TSA lady freak!!! The cat wasn't going anywhere but she didn't know that - -funny! He actually was going to let him walk through the detector! I'm howling -- so I agree to hold the cat (Wow -- that was a stretch yes!) while he took off collar, etc. Great fun.

Traveled with a nice couple and lucked out with aisle seat. See on SW airlines it's first come first serve and I was in the C group. But smarter than the ordinary bear I knew from the airport they were a couple so "assumed" she would prefer to move over and sit next to him. Plus I scored her goldfish crackers! So to make up for it I got their bag down for them -- really stretching it today.

Of all people Cindy's plane to Newark was late -- very late leaving Pittsburgh. Dave confirmed my text she did make it but we landed at same time and she had 25 minutes to get to gate, get to shuttle, and head over 2 terminals, find her new gate. And I'm sitting here for 2 hours. Go figure.

So I'm in Florida - sunny florida. I'm currently not overly impressed -- it's Florida for Pete's sake -- but the airport is the same temperature as Columbus -- nope, not overly impressed. But I still have the Fort Meyers airport so we'll see.

Funny people watching. There are several types here -- the blackberry/i-phone typers, on their phone folks, ear phones folks, i need my space folks, and the please don't look/talk/acknowledge me folks. Quite fun! Here and there people are actually talking to each other, rare so very curious to observe.

And airports are full of those Huh moments. So if you are extremely large -- do you really need to wear a T-shirt that says XXXXXL on it? We know that, we can see that -- you don't really have to tell us too.

The couple with the little boy with headphones watching DVD. They've probably been to Disney and apparently M&D have had it -- with the little boy, with each other. Ahh -- you can feel the love from here. I hope they are close to home.

There is another Dad, sleeping on the floor in front of the seats. Here comes Mom with a toddler in had and 2 different ones in a stroller -- ahh -- that explains Dad sleeping.

There is the Goth crowd. And the Tat crowd. I'm trying to discretely figure out what is all over his arms. I'd describe the one arm as Paisley but somehow I'm thinking that is NOT the affect he was going for. I might have to go ask!

If you follow Twitter I've started a -- huh I don't know what they are called? but you can go to twitter.com/lechatestnoir.com and I might post some quick musings. I think they're really called tweets (by the way they just crossed the 10 BILLION tweet mark -- is that a good thing?)

More from sunny Florida later.