lwood

With one thing and another, especially my cell phone's trusty alarm clock, I was up at 9:30 and out of the house by 10:15. Not bad, considering that I'd allowed a half-hour each to find the airport, return the car, and take the jitney to the terminal from the off-site rental car place before my two-hours-prior airport arrival.

Then the coincidences started piling higher and deeper.

The rental car handoff went smoothly. I trundled my once-anonymous black rolling suitcase around to where the jitneys wait to whisk you to the terminal, and lo and behold the shiny blue Alamo bus was bus number 9. For the audience at ome, that's Odin's number. "Hunh," I said, but filed it away without much comment.

No line at the Northwest counter (my flight is a Continental codeshare). I start running the electronic check-in. My seat for the Minneapolis/San Jose leg is some wretched purgatorical middle thing because that's the best I could manage when I originally booked.

I tried again. No windows, but there was a nice aisle seat available, with an unbooked middle beside it.

9-C. The airline colors, by the way, are red and dark blue.

Watch the cards now, kids. This'll be an interesting hand... nines and threes, which given the spiritual weather in my life lately means Odin (colors: black, dark blue, and grey) and Eshu (colors: red, black, occasionally white) are both taking a keen interest in my travel plans. However, my internal barometer tells me I've nothing to worry about as long as I'm alert, so I press on.

One brief sidebar about the Tampa Airport, though: the elevator banks in the Tampa Airport are named for famous aviators: Armstrong, Yeager, Lindbergh. And that's all fine and appropriate.

But I refuse to get on the Earhart Elevators—they might randomly vanish me halfway to Baggage Claim!

The flight from Tampa to Minneapolis left from gate 9, and took three uneventful hours (albeit with some turbulence). Once in Minneapolis (home of Mirella Wintering!), I have a 90-minute layover. The first food court looks decidedly uninteresting, but the next restaurant is a TGI Friday's (colors: red, black, white) so I have lunch there. The Minneapolis airport is decorated in blue and grey when it's not antiseptically white.

It winds up being a Good Thing that I got a new seat near the front of the plane as my bank and I needed to have a serious discussion over whether I was allowed to pay for lunch, which takes half an hour to straighten out. I got to my gate long enough before they call my row that I can use the bathroom and catch my breath.

The airplane, as was the last one, is upholstered in dark blue with some red details.

The punchline, as delivered by the airplane pilot, is that it's three hours, thirty-three minutes' flying time to San Jose.

This set of amusing and suspicious coincidences brought to you by Odin, Eshu... and Stephen King.

Don't worry, that's only supposed to make sense if you've read Wolves of the Calla. Astute readers of his latest work will note that the letters of today's sponsors add up to a number that will make said Constant Reader cringe but it's not my fault!.

-- Lorrie, writing this somewhere over the Midwest, from seat 9-C. Not checking the third row for Mister Wednesday, Manni caught todash, or ANYONE ELSE.