We may as well go home

So I took spaceroo to the airport, necessarily extremely early in the day. He tried the theory of staying up all night in the hopes he'd sleep on the plane; I tried the theory of getting a few hours of sleep since I didn't have a plane to sleep on. But since it required getting up outrageously early I used my usual pre-airplane tricks to sleep lightly, like turning the air conditioner up .. er ... down ... er ... making it colder than usual. Thus I got fitful, uncertain sleep, waking up several times, including a stretch where I kept my eyes closed, sure the alarm was about to go off but intending to stay in bed as long as I could, until I noticed it was an hour before the alarm time. The result is I had a perfectly rotten night of sleep, even with a nap when I got home, and I shouldn't have bothered trying to get up to go in to do work today, but there were chores ...

We had a nice stretch in the Viewing Mall, enjoying the sight of a few planes landing or rambling around, and spotted his plane while it was still at the gate way before boarding. And spaceroo paid a bit of money for an upgrade to ``Economy Plus'' service, with a few extra inches of seat space, which -- it occurs to me -- is the service I always get when I do fly Economy, since I don't think the seats were nearly as cramped as he'd described from the flight over. We'll find out, anyway, in a few hours, or you will, since I'll be in bed by that time.

After spaceroo went through security into the gate within -- I'm sorry I didn't predict ahead of time it'd be gate C22, since that's what it typically is for me, and I'd have been right -- I wandered over to the food court and got breakfast. I don't usually eat breakfast, taking a slightly early lunch instead. Then I went back to the Viewing Mall, and watched the plane from leaving the gate all the way to taxi and takeoff. (I'm the sort who, yes, waits at the airport until he's sure the plane has not been unexpectedly cancelled -- or, for that matter, taken off and turned right around.) When it seemed to be safely off, I wandered out and absentmindedly ate a second breakfast. That'll happen.

Trivia: Five pocket mice, species Perognathus longimembris, were carried in sealed containers on Apollo 17. Source: ``The Apollo 17 Pocket Mouse Experiment (Biocore)'', Webb Haymaker, Bonne C Look, Eugene V Benton, Richard C Simmonds. Biomedical Results of Apollo, NASA SP-368.

Currently Reading: Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 12 (1950), Isaac Asimov, Martin H Greenberg, Editors.