I'm Here!

I suppose the reason flight attendants just give you peanuts these days is that airline food met too many of the criteria for biological weapons.

I am here, safe and sound, at my stepbrother and his wife's house. The flight up was not bad, although I have to say JFK did not meet my expectations.

Okay. JFK is a f***ing huge airport. We probably taxied for fifteen minutes after we landed just to get to the gate. They should have had commuter flight service from the runway. So far, so good. But where the hell is New York? I thought I would get to see some spectacular cityscape from the sky. Not so. When I flew into Newark a couple of years ago, I even got to see the Statue of Liberty. JFK is apparently in BFE, though; I guess maybe I saw, I don't know, the Hamptons?

Next stop: Google Maps.

Also very disappointing was the General Tso's Chicken I had there, at a Wok-n-Roll, an airport restaurant Jason emphatically recommended that I try.

Am I missing something, or isn't General Tso's Chicken supposed to be spicy? If the General ever tasted this stuff, he'd be pissed. This was more along the lines of Corporal Wimpy's Orange Kool-Aid Delite. So much for my recently acquired delusion that Jason knows from food, okay? No: he is an eater of oatmeal, and that's all there is to it. I know it's the airport and all, but that was the first meal I've ever eaten in the most happening city in the world (with the possible exception of Bangkok), and it was just not the world-class experience I feel I had the right to expect.

The second leg of the trip, from JFK to Syracuse, was on a little 40-seater commuter jet. This was fun because we actually got to walk across the tarmac and climb the steps to get on, just like in old film noir, except with a maniacally enthusiastic flight attendant who slowed down the boarding process considerably by asking everyone if they were going to Orange City.

Syracuse played a football game against Louisville today, and won. They wear orange. Approximately two of the people getting on the plane had any idea what the guy was talking about.

But it's okay, because he was really very nice and joked around the whole time, and did not even hold it against me when I was eventually forced to confess (I'm telling you, he was very chatty) that I was actually born in Louisville.

He even gave me an extra bag of peanuts!