Dear friends,
As best as my travel-fatigued, stoned-on-the-return-to-sea-level-after-four-days-at-altitude brain will allow me, I needs must share with you the lessons I learned on my Great Trek West this Labor Day weekend:
1. Snowball is really all that. Of course I knew that Snowball was all that. I knew that the brilliant, winsome sweetheart we all know from her blog would be just as brilliant and winsome and sweet in the flesh. I knew that we would get on like a house on fire. But it’s one thing to know it in the abstract, and quite another to see it whilst riding in the passenger seat of Snowball’s little blue car, riding around the Rockies while you chatter like magpies at each other. Seriously, anything that ails you, Snowball’s company is the cure for it. She is as true-blue and standup as they come. And she kicks ass at knitting. (Not that I’m angling for a pair of Spiced Berry socks or anything. Ahem.)
2. If you have a return flight from Denver International Airport to LaGuardia, and you spend half an hour waiting to clear security, and another 20 minutes trying to find your gate, and you discover upon reaching said gate that your flight has been overbooked and you’re not going anywhere because United is bumping your ass, and you call your friend Snowball and employ the most piteous voice in your repertoire to tell her that you’re stranded at DIA, and she cheerfully hops into the little blue car to pick you up, and you cheerfully hop into the little blue car to head back to Snowballville, be sure to put some sunblock on your neck and shoulders. Trust me on this. (Ow.)
3. Snowball does not exaggerate the awfulness of X. While we were not formally introduced, I have been one of the few, the proud, the unfortunate enough to have an X sighting. If anything, Snowball understates his awfulness. I was a witness to X’s announcement of his employment adventures, and it was not pretty at all.
4. On the other hand, she does not exaggerate the greatness of her children, either. Like the rest of you, I have heard so much about B and G that I felt like I was about to meet a pair of celebrities. Dear friends, Snowball is a hell of a mom, and her kids are living proof. B is indeed the King of Pikmin2, and he was a real sport about explaining the nuances of the game to the clueless houseguest. G is a card, a charmer and a real beauty. If she stays bound and determined to go into international politics, well, folks, it’s G’s world, and we just live in it. (And we’re damn lucky for it, too.)
5. High-altitude baking is not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Admittedly, I haven’t tried to bake a cake, but G and I managed to turn out a wicked Genoese focaccia on Sunday, and it was so good that even B, a/k/a the Boy Who Would Not Eat, managed to put away about half the loaf.
6. There is a subway at Denver International Airport, one that takes you from the concourse where the arrival and departure gates are located to the terminal, where you can rent a car, catch a shuttle or be picked up by your charming hostess. The subway plays little jingles to warn you when the doors are closing, or when you are approaching another stop. If you spend enough time at DIA—say, if you are bumped from your flight and then your replacement flight is delayed by two hours due to a cabin door that stubbornly refuses to close—you will hear the subway jingles over and over and over. Long after your plane has arrived at JFK, and you find yourself stuck in traffic on the service road of the Van Wyck Expressway, you will still hear the DIA subway chimes in your head. Try not to go mad.
7. Realize right now that your fellow travelers are batshit crazy. It is the only way to explain why, when your plane is descending through a cloud cover over Flint, Michigan and you are all being shaken like poppets and the flight attendant announces “Our captain has just informed us that our descent into New York will be very bumpy, so he has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign and asks that you return to your seat,” everybody on the damn plane decides they have to get up and pee at that very moment.
8. Snowball did not lie when she said that her local German bakery is the best in the world. Oh, my god. I think I need to move into it. All I need is a little full-size cot for me and Lloyd, plus a place to plug in our laptops, and we’re all set. Folks, if I dedicated the rest of my life to baking, I couldn’t even begin to touch this place.
9. Apparently there are mountains in Snowball’s neck of the woods. Poor Snow. We had serious fog and rain on both of our trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, fog and rain that cleared up just in time for me to head back to New York. I kept saying that I’m sure I can see them when I come back on a return trip—for I WILL be returning—but Snowball was disconsolate nonetheless.
10. The bad news is that we really did neglect to take any pictures during my visit. The good news is that Snowball and G and I did some major retail therapy this weekend, including some staggeringly appropriate jewelry for yours truly,and there will be pictures of that. Just as soon as I recover from my airport fatigue.