methinks

6:00 a.m. Departure

The biggest challenge one faces when leaving on a 6:00 a.m. flight is knowing for when to set the alarm. Half experience and half gamble, you have to decide exactly how long you can sleep and not miss your flight. You've pre-packed everything, laid out clothes for the flight, showered, double checked everything you've packed, unpacked the tolietries so you can use them tomorrow, and now you hold the alarm clock estimating times to the minute.

Dress, brush teeth, load car...10 minutes tops. No, that's far too fast. Make it 15. You'll have to hussle. Drive to the airport, always the biggest gamble. There could be an accident, or your car could break down, or you could get a speeding ticket because you understimated get-dressed-time. You settle on 19 minutes. You've got luggage so you'll have to check-in before the flight. The monkeys at the TSA say arrive two hours before departure. You scoff, but secretly worry they'll be right this time. The airline insists that luggage be checked an hour before the departure. You wonder how it is that the plane is ready for people only 30 minutes before departure, but for luggage 1 hr is the cut-off. What are they doing to your luggage? You're a check-in guru and know you could get from parking lot to gate in 15 minutes if only everyone traveling was as efficient as you, but they're not. You fear getting in-line behind question-askers. "Do you know how long the flight is? Where is gate A10? What's the weather like there? When can I board? Is this seat going to be noisey?" You decide to arrive 1 hr before departure. 5:00 a.m. Ugh. 5 minus 19 minutes travel time, minus 1 for parking time, minus 15 for get ready time...4:25 a.m....minus five more just incase the alarm clock doesn't wake you at first. 4:20 a.m. wake up call.

What if the power goes out? There is no way you will naturally wake up at 4:20 a.m. without an alarm? Should you sleep with your watch on?

The power lasts through the night and you snap out of bed to roboticly execute the plan of action designed the evening before. You arrive at the airport exactly as planned, 1 hr before departure, and breeze through check-in and security like you were the only one there. You look around and realize you nearly are. You sit down at the gate. 50 minutes till departure. For an instant you wonder if you could've slept a few more minutes, but you realize if you'd cut it any closer you'd have been too nervous to sleep at all. Next time you'll pay the extra $40 to leave at 8:00 a.m. You thought that the time before this, too.

Baseball

During the two years I was in Little League, I was often hit in the head by the ball, usually from the rear. I'm not sure what the misunderstanding was, but I didn't seem to grasp the concept of forcing an out. A ball thrown from the outfield to either second or third - where I played before being exiled to right field - would arrive unexpectedly.

Certainly my coach or father or exasperated teammates explained this basic rule to me, though I have no recollection of it; perhaps it was an oversight, a rule so basic that it was assumed everyone knew it. Truthfully, I probably attempted to catch the ball more times than I was pegged by it (more out of fear than genuine understanding), but the times I did get beamed left an impression.

After that, baseball's never been my thing, so when my grandpa invited me and the whole extended family to watch the local minor league team, I reluctantly accepted. I envisioned sitting in the sweltering summer heat, watching stocking clad men swing away at a tiny leather ball. Sometimes they'd hit it, most times they'd miss it. And this would go on for hours. The only exciting parts would be homeruns, violent slides into home plate and the occasional hit batter. Sure, there would be hotdogs and beer, but I don't eat hotdogs and had to drive home. How could this be enjoyable?

As it turned out, the events I anticipated came true. It was hot until sunset, and men in stockings were obsessed with a small leather ball for over three hours. The players of the Louisville Bats missed far more than they hit, and only managed to get a man around the bases four times. The visitors, the Durham Bulls (no sign of Kevin Costner), almost tripled the home team's score. Added to that were lethal foul balls that blasted into the brand new yet still minor-league sized stands, punishing delinquent fans who'd not watched the pitch.

What I didn't anticipate is how enjoyable all of that would be. The misperception I had - and I think is commonly held by non-baseball fans - is that the appeal should lie solely in the game play. When you think about it, nearly half of the three hours it took to complete nine innings was not spent actually playing ball. It was warming up between innings, switching pitchers, the catcher talking to the pitcher. It was the "bat dog" fetching bats and taking the umpires bottles of water in a wicker basket. It was the tricycle race around the bases. My point is that half the evening was spent watching a game - which admittedly was more exciting than I remember from my Little League days, though the incoming foul balls did trigger a few painful flashbacks - and half the time was just a relaxing summer evening out-of-doors with good company. I can understand now how people could stay for a double-header of baseball.

After the game, a thoroughly enjoyable evening, a mantra of sorts I learned in the Peace Corps came to mind. "Never say no," was the advice of a long-time Peace Corps trainer. "You didn't come half way around the world to stay at home and watch TV, you came for an adventure. So no matter how tired you feel, how overextended you imagine yourself to be, how uninteresting the proposition sounds, when someone invites you to do something, Never say no. Just go. At the very least you'll have another story to tell."

Good advice then and now.

Looking Back

The mini-van was stopped across the middle of the intersection before me. Tired profanities littered the night.

"F*** you, you asshole," she shouted out the driver's window as he, shoeless and in shorts, rounded the back of the van from the passenger's side, finished crossing the intersection and headed for the sidewalk on his left. He replied with mumbles.

"You hit me first," she continued to shout, while parked on the bit of pavement I had intended to use.

"Oh, I hit you first," he incredulously retorted. In his version, she had undoubtedly hit him first.

Once he was on the sidewalk, she let off the brake and slowly idled forward.

"Pack your things when you get home and get out," was the last thing she said before pulling up to next light a short block away.

"God damn straight," he shouted over his shoulder as she drove away.

I turned and pulled up behind her at the next light. At that instant, the whole scene seemed so clichéd, so routine that I had trouble empathizing with either of them. Other than speaking loudly, neither of them seemed to be emotional. She didn't speed away or run the next light. He wasn't a stranger to walking home at night. Then there was the fact that they would be, after the left turn she intended to make, headed in the exact same direction but just one block apart. Clearly the car would get home first, and - were this cliché to continue - clearly this fight would be repeated once he got home.

As she began her left hand turn I could see her face in her side mirror. Her right upper lip was slightly broken, as if he'd backhanded her from the passenger seat. Physically it wasn't severe, and emotionally she didn't seem disturbed. She wasn't sobbing or, from what I could see, even crying. She was angry but in control and driving home. Then in an instant, one flash of the eyes, everything changed. Looking back, she saw me in her mirror and knew that I saw her. And she became ashamed. She dropped her head and let her shoulders fall with a quick heavy sigh. She didn't look in her mirror again.

Driving the rest of the way home, I began to wonder what - if any - effect our brief encounter would have on the inevitable conflict she faced when he arrived. Her shame signified that she did not want to be the woman who gets hit and shouts curses in the middle of the street. That shame was a link to a memory of a time without that shame. I wondered if her shame would stir her pride and overcome her hurtful routine. I'll never know.