Honeymoon, Nov 17, 2012

SATURDAY NOV 17: the trip home

WIW: navy blue cotton sweater, navy sport coat, jeans

WRW: white and grey checked shirt, navy sport coat, grey trousers

Woke up around 6:10 AM. Lounged about for a bit, took a shower, dressed, and went down to breakfast around 7. Very nice young man of possibly Indian origin working the dining room. Only one other person there.

Back upstairs, finished packing, quite a few hugs, we were both a little sad to be going home. We hauled our luggage down to the lobby, checked out (two minutes tops). Philippe and Jean were a few minutes early, bless their hearts. SO generous of them to drive us to the airport, they really are the dearest.

Had a pleasant and quick trip, less than a half hour. Checking in took a little longer than it should because I needed special handling (big news there). We had an anxious young American guy behind us in line for the special handling. Richard asked him if he was going to New York, and he said, “Nah, I’m going to San Francisco. I was in Italy and stopped in Paris. I was supposed to go to Barcelona and Amsterdam but…uh…there’s some stuff going on back home.” Later he said, “God, I’m like gonna have a mental breakdown.”

We got checked in and went to our gate. Richard, the dear, went and bought a bottle of water and a cookie.

RICHARD: That’s such a sharp jacket.

ME: Thank you. Isn’t this a good looking outfit?

RICHARD: No, you look terrible. You look like you just got off the ship in Puerto Vallarta.

Later…

RICHARD: Look at me. A little to the left.

ME: Are you on booger patrol? Do I have a cliffhanger?

RICHARD: No, you have a nose hair. A tiny hair coming directly out of your nose.

ME: [lost in seizure of giggles]

RICHARD: It’s very small. I can only see it from a certain angle.

ME: It’s starting again.

And later, a discussion on vents in men’s sport coats - - this is the slit-like opening or openings in the bottom back of a jacket. I don’t care about mine, but Richard is very particular about wanting a center vent or no vent, never a double vent.

ME: That guy over there - - could he use a center vent on his jacket?

RICHARD: No, he’s smart to have no vent.

ME: It seems clingy though. It cups his butt in a way that I don’t find attractive.

RICHARD: That’s a size issue, not a vent issue. He probably put on twenty pounds since he bought it.

ME: Or maybe it’s new. Maybe he likes it that way.

RICHARD: That’s even worse. There was a guy at breakfast this morning, his shirt was so tight, if it had exploded at any minute, you wouldn’t have been surprised.

We were told to go to our gate and wait for instructions on taking a bus to the plane. There was a well-built American guy in his fifties at our gate wearing an orange shirt. We’ll call him Mr. Orange. He was very jittery about being in the right place and doing the right thing. He recruited a thirty-something French woman, we’ll call her Mademoiselle Buttinski. The two of them stopped anyone walking by, in any uniform, and weren’t pleased with any of the answers they got. Finally they started walking around and causing headaches. Our flight crew approached the gate. The phone started ringing at the gate, and Mademoiselle Buttinski answered the phone! I said to Richard, “Now I’ve seen everything.” Someone from the flight crew approached her and asked that she hand her the phone. Can you imagine.

I realized on the plane to London that I never did my Claudine Longet impersonation for Philippe and Jean, though Richard had requested it. We should all be grateful.

Richard had a tomato juice and I had a sparkling water on the plane, and we both had a little bag of potato chips. I had a Snickers in my bag, we split that, we were starving. Our flight was just over a half hour long. We went through passport control and security, which was all tiresome but not so bad. There was a small child, probably a year and a half, in his father’s arms, screaming his head off. Some random passenger went up to the kid and started screaming HIS head off. This amused the people around us, but did not amuse us. And it didn’t stop the kid from screaming.

We had lunch at Wagamama, an English chain of pan-Asian restaurants, Richard loves them. Our waitress was very beautiful, I don’t know where she was from but she had some kind of accent and her name was Aida. This, of course, led to me doing my Leontyne Price impersonation. I had the tofu pad thai, Richard had something with chicken, rice, and red onion. I loved mine, he wasn’t too impressed with his. There must have been something magical about my chopsticks because I had no trouble with them at all. We gave Aida a nice tip and she was very pleased.

We took the shuttle to our gate and more or less walked right onto the plane. It was a smooth trip home, and though we were happy to be back in our own bed that night, we were sad to have to finish our honeymoon.