For this last entry, I have absolutely no pictures available to post. People on vacation are manic about taking pictures, but on the way home their only focus is the return. So anything visual that might end up here will be coming from David's camera. But, having had requests for this final entry from one of my dozen readers, I thought I'd go with the written narrative.
Like most evenings when big things will happen the next morning, I didn't sleep as deeply as I normally would on our last night in Paris. I wasn't too worried about scheduling, as we all made sure we were ready to up and leave on a moment's notice. We would wake up at 6 and be dressed in time for our car's scheduled arrival at 6:20.
There was a door between the two bedrooms which was closed, so I could hear Dave's alarm go off early that morning. The sun wasn't rising until around 9, so I expected darkness when the sound emanated from behind the door.
We had been sharing my old Brookstone converter to charge our cell phones. Kittie had purchased an adapter as well, but it didn't say "converter" on it, and didn't specifically say it would convert France's 220 volts into a friendlier 110 volts; none of us had the moxie to try plugging their phone into the adapter with the possibility of frying it.
So we had made sure that all of our phones were charged in the evening before we went to bed. This being so, I had my phone on the night table next to the bed (normally I was the last to charge, and would just leave my phone on the kitchen counter to charge overnight).
Dave's phone sounds in the dark. I instinctively turn to my phone to check the time: 5:00 a.m.
What? I guess David had overshot the "6" when he set the alarm. What the hell. Time to get up, since I'm not going to nod off for a portion of an hour at this point. I assume Kittie and David have the same idea, as they are up and about in the next room.
We all throw our clothes on and are in the living room. I mention that we have lots of time now. David looks at me quizzically. What are you talking about? he queries. It's only 5 o'clock, say I. David holds up his phone to show me. No, it's 6 o'clock, he says. I hold up my phone. No, it's 5 o'clock. He looks.
Wha'?
I check my phone and realize what happened at 3 a.m.: France had changed over to standard time from daylight savings time. The U.S. would not make the changeover for another week.
What are we, in the Twilight Zone? As close as we could figure, since I had full service on the French service provider, my phone made the change, but since David was on a data-only plan, he did not get the automatic update.
Now I start worrying that the driver will forget to change his clock, and he will be an hour late. We'd be leaving at 7:20 if that happened, trying to get to a 10:20 flight. Sounds like lots of time, but it took an hour to get into Paris from the airport upon arrival, so I'm assuming it will be pretty much the same on the way out.
But it's Sunday. And it's 6:20. The driver texts me, we drop the front door keys on the counter, pick up our bags, and we're on our way down the four flights of stairs one last time. Going out the front door of the building, the car is sitting there. There's no traffic so he's not worried about blocking it.
As a last hurrah, David takes video of our drive to the airport. At first I'm amused, but then I realize that this will probably be the last pictures of Paris any of us take. Although I've been longing to return home for the last day or so, I suddenly want to stay just a little longer.
The traffic gets denser and more chaotic as we approach Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2E. Cars pull in at angles, blocking other cars. People, as we did, pop out of the cars, retrieve their bags and push money at the drivers. We enter the Air France check-in area, as we had been instructed online the night before, and find what we think is our line, and wait in it. Back's hurting, blah, blah, blah.
We get to the woman at the front of the line, who is directing travelers to and fro, and find out we're in the wrong line. We have to continue down to the Delta check-in. Another line. Big ol' line. Lots of folks heading back home from their French vacation. We get up to the check-in and discover that the woman back in Minneapolis checked us in on both ends of the trip, and our seats are already assigned. The boarding passes are printed and handed over, and we head to customs. Another line.
We get through that line, up to the customs counter, get processed and walk out and … into another line to go through security. Once through, all of us irritated — at the world in general, if not at one another — we start to head to our gate.
A woman comes running up to David, "Did you leave a bag?" she asks. No, says David, and the he realizes he has the bag he bought back on rue Chapon. He wasn't used to carrying it and forgot to get it off the conveyor once through security. He retrieves the bag and profusely thanks this astute woman.
On to the gate. I am scuttling like a crab, pulling my rolling luggage by its leash behind me. Everybody's hungry. No one's had coffee or food. We find our gate, each with mildly murderous thoughts behind our eyes, then David backtracks to find something to eat. I can't tell, but I think he wants to kill me … or Kittie … or maybe strangers. Or perhaps I'm projecting my own state of mind. When did airports become such evil places?
When the flight is called (we're flying a A380 Airbus), we sit back and let everyone else go through the line. After about half an hour, the line has thinned out, so we get up and queue up.
At the gate counter, boarding passes are being scanned and a few folks are being pulled over for a final security search. Perhaps it's her trench coat, but Kittie is pulled over. Having no contraband, she is cleared and joins David and I, who had been hanging back, waiting for her.
We get on board and find our seats. The Airbus has four seats across between the aisles, seats as small as on domestic flights, with just as little leg room. Kittie is squeezed between a stranger on the left and David on the right. David is squeezed between Kittie and myself, and I hang off slightly on the right, just impinging on the aisle space.
On top of the seats having less room, the arm rests do not fold up in our row, which removes another four inches from our personal space. The flight is eight hours long and incredibly cramped. The arm rest between me and the aisle does fold up, and i ride with it up, so I can at least scoot out a couple inches into the aisle and give Kittie and David a bit of breathing room. It doesn't really help, and the carts whack me in the shoulder every time the attendants go up and down with food and drinks.
We left Paris at 10:20 a.m. and arrive in Minneapolis around 2 p.m, CDT. When I attempt to stand up in the plane (we waited for most other folks to deplane), my back sings out. I exit hunched over and stiff as hell. And, of course, the first thing that we encountered is a big ol' long line.
It's the line to get into the line to go through customs. Hobble, hobble; hunch, hunch. "Last chance for bathrooms before entering customs," a sign declares. Folks dash out of line and return looking guilty about joining their parties, already in forward progress. Hobble, hobble, four steps and stop. Four steps and stop. The line crawls, back and forth, twisting like a Disneyland queue from hell.
We finally make it up to the kiosks and, since we are family, we all move to the kiosk together. If you haven't been through the process yet, it is fully automated and bureaucratically intimidating, in a nonhuman way. It scans your passport, then it takes your picture and uses facial recognition to verify your existence. It then prints out a pass, complete with the just-taken picture.
After all three of us are electronically folded, spindled and mutilated, we move to the baggage claim area, where I pick up my green bag, hook on its leash and begin dragging it behind my bent frame and into another line where a humorless agent is checking passports and printed custom passes against the human in front of them. Folks are occasionally moved off to the left, where a waiting area holds several folks who look very non-American.
Being a fairly straight-acting white male, I make it through with no problem. So do David and Kittie, despite her Inspector Gadget trench coat. We walk out into the passageway and the relative freedom of Trump's America.
At this point, Kittie and David have to make a fairly quick dash to find their next gate, as their connecting flight home leaves fairly soon. We hug and kiss goodbye, and I hobble off to find the signs that direct me to the shuttle services. And a place to sit down; please, God, a place to sit down.
I have an hour and a half to wait for my shuttle to leave (Minneapolis to Rochester). There are several short rows of those semi-comfortable black leatherette seats that populate airport spaces. I sit and stretch in America for the first time in a week.
When the time comes, the driver enters the waiting room and begins reading off names. One by one, passengers get up and collect their bags as their names are called.
The shuttle is one of those vans that has been converted into an 11-passenger limousine. As we follow the driver out to the curb, he loads the baggage into the back. I hobble up with my green compatriot in tow, and as he tosses it into the back, he says, "There's a seat up front with me, if you want to sit there." My God. A person has actually seen my discomfort and addressed it. Of course, I take him up on his offer.
The ride to Rochester, where I will connect with the shuttle heading to Winona and La Crosse, is uneventful. I've taken this ride before, and there are always a few couples, a spouse with a spouse, one of whom is heading to the Mayo Clinic; always looking nervous, worried and worn from a journey to what they hope is a medical solution for whatever physical conundrum they face. It pulls at my heart just a little.
It had snowed slightly the night before, and the remaining snow hides in the shadows, changing them from black to white. When we arrive in Rochester, it's raining.
I get into the Winona-La Crosse shuttle, asking for and getting the front seat once again. My back is already feeling better, and I'm standing almost upright.
Since I left my car at Pam and Steve's in Ettrick, they had offered to pick me up in Winona and drive me back to their place to retrieve my car. I accepted, of course, and gave Steve the pickup information for Winona before I left for Paris.
My drop-off point is, unfortunately, not the previous spot where he picked me up from earlier shuttle rides. So, he at the south end of Winona and me at the north, I give him my location and directions, but he is unfamiliar with the landmarks I mention. (I forget that I'm more familiar with the north end of Winona, having stayed with Amanda there for a month after first arriving from California). Despite some discombobulation on Steve's part, Pam enters the address of my location into her phone, and soon they find me.
We head back to Ettrick and I stop off, sit for a bit, talk a little about my trip and share some pictures. Then, realizing I've been up for almost 24 hours, I decide I'd better leave and get back home. They offer to have me stay the night, but I want to get home to my own bed and a cat that might or might not be extremely pissed at me.
Pam, kind soul that she is, helps heave my green companion into the trunk of my car, and I drive off home, to La Crosse.
When I get home, I wrestle the green guy out of the trunk, reattach its leash and roll it to the back porch, struggling up the three steps, then under the kitchen table. Since it's full of nothing but dirty laundry (and a few souvenir refrigerator magnets), I leave it in the kitchen, planning to feed the soiled clothing into the laundry chute near the back door tomorrow, when I'm rested.
As I head toward the living room, a furry visage appears on the landing of the stairs, peering with saucer eyes. The cat looks at me in amazement for a moment, then lets out a yowl I had never heard. I hold out my hand and she rubs up against it with ardor.
Patty, the cat, had not been left alone for a week. My niece Emily, who works about a mile from my home and commutes into work from Ettrick each day, had agreed to stop by on her way home from work and feed the cat. Since Patty is terrified of everyone but me, Emily knew she would probably never see her. They did have one encounter under the armchair in my bedroom.
So Patty had been fed and attended to while I was gone. But now I realize I need to provide bonding behavior, so I feed her some canned food, which she has been without for a whole day (the day before having been Saturday). There is always ample dry food.
She eats until I walk from the room, then follows me like a puppy. It seems she's not angry at me for my absence, but is delighted for my return. I sit down and turn on the TV to catch up on the week of wackiness I have missed in Trump Land. During my cable news briefing, Kittie texts me that they have arrived safely home. It is finished.
For the rest of the evening, the few hours before I collapse in ecstasy in my own, perfect bed, the cat is never more than a foot from me.
And when I go upstairs and undress for my first long, sound sleep in a week, she is right there, on the bedspread, lightly yowling and purring at me. It will be two or three days before she realizes things are back to normal. It will take me considerably longer to make the same realization.
