I'm guessing that none of you reading this knows this about me, since my blood kin is entirely ~ and deliberately ~ unaware of the existence of my little world here... but for a very substantial part of my younger life, I was absolutely obsessed with becoming a fighter pilot (though of course, without the fighting component of the job description). In fact, I used to yearn so badly to fly one of those amazing supersonic birds I would actually cry in my impatience to grow up faster so I could join the airforce. Some of my fondest, most exciting childhood memories included going to the annual Abbotsford airshows and hearing the sonic booms of the screaming jets flying overhead; totally beat playing in crappy and annoying piano competitions, that's for sure. Oh, how I sooooo wanted to be a fighter pilot.
The F-15 Eagle and F-18 Hornet were the jets I'd picked out for myself (the imagery of flying an F-14 was entirely sullied later on by a certain smarmy maverick of an actor, though I always thought the delta-position capabilities of the TomCat and MiG-23 were entirely too cool for words), and I had fantasies of experimenting with how many G's I could pull before experiencing tunnel vision and nearly passing out. So silly, I know.
But my intense longing to learn how to fly ~ and prevailing love of aircraft ~ has not waned, nor my weakness for watching landing gear come down and lock into position. (Really, there's something wickedly amazing and amazingly sexy about mobile landing gear: it's an example of the marvellous perfection in modern engineering, and it's also kind of cute!) Though I don't foresee taking flight lessons anytime soon, I boarded a plane again yesterday afternoon... and flew solo for the first time in years.
After saying a fond goodbye to the sweet clan, I began my voyage to visit Saint Cat and the Smithsonians with just an overstuffed carry-on duffel bag (for two weeks and two days worth of playing dress-up), a laptop case... and a trusty little point-and-shoot. Counting down to take-off from the moment the pilot pulled the throttle, I got the camera out to share my exhilarated thrill of flying with you!
So counting 30... 29... 28... 27... 26... 25... 24... 23... 22... 21... 20... 19... 18... 17... 16... 15... 14... 13... 12... 11... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 0...
And we're off!
Got delayed at Chicago O'Hare because my changeover plane was sick, sick, sick... so sick, in fact, that my fellow flightmates and I had to change gates twice before we finally boarded a healthy A320. We arrived in DC after 1am ~ over an hour later than scheduled. However, that was a gift in itself, as I not only got to see the absolute HUGEST pair of juggies I've ever witnessed in my life at O'Hare (my sister-in-law wears a J cup, and these were, like, triple that), but we also arrived at the most gorgeous and empty airport terminal I have ever beheld. My dears, welcome to Reagan International.
Long story short, got a cab and befriended my lovely Afghani driver, drove past some of the incredible sights (I can't believe how stunningly beautiful the architecture here is. All I could think was, "Oh my gosh, I never realized: This is the modern, Western-world equivalent of ROME. This is the Rome of the Roman Empire!" To which Cat responded when I told her my observation: "And Rome is falling."), found Saint Cat's wonderful little apartment, caught up a bit on exciting news (Saint Cat had just come back from Doha the night before from covering the US election at company headquarters in Qatar), had a smoked-chicken/arugula/fontina/chopped-sundried-tomato panini, and a massive glass of red. Sleep finally came after 7:30am EST.
And that... was yesterday.
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