Sylvia's Journal

Today is departure day again. I am half-hearted about it. I am psychologically not yet ready to turn around and retrace my steps all the way to the hotel in Dubai where I stayed the night of the 20th. It’s a touch-and-go of sorts.

I started packing yesterday. In the logistics letter that we get before a trip it stated: “There is a mild winter in Bangladesh this time. Be sure to have warm clothes available.” The internet tells me otherwise: temperatures vary between low to mid sixties at night and mid eighties during the day. Shawl weather (the one I lost at Schiphol).

Early in the morning yesterday we, the four co-owners of our deer-damaged plane, met to determine our next move on what to do with the (insufficient) insurance money we received in exchange for the plane. One thing that may happen as a result of our decision is that I might learn something about how planes are put together. In the meantime we will hitch rides on other people’s planes, such as the one we are going out on today to see if we can spot the snow on Mount Washington from the air.

The rest of the day I whittled down my to do list as I do before trips and take care of things that cannot wait while Axel was struggling upstairs with a school assignment that requires creative juices that have not been flowing lately. The best antidote for that predicament is, I believe, a walk or a trip to a museum. We chose the latter and went to the MFA with no particular exhibit in mind.

We ended up in the Asia section (China and Japan in particular) and admired the pottery, the giant Buddha statues and brushstroke/calligraphy exhibit with as its most memorable piece two blind men trying to cross a log over a ravine. We were told that the drawing is probably about (non) enlightenment – the drawing itself is very enlightened with its suggestive brush-stroked back and foreground and its exquisitely painted figures. It made me want to take up this art for a hobby.

We ran into Tessa and Steve (what are the chances of that?) in the American masters section of the museum. They were in the middle of their honeymoonesque weekend in town, with the fancy steak dinner behind them and the hockey game yet to come. We left them alone to still our thirst in the museum cafe – a thirst induced by the salty Thanksgiving ham that had served as our lunch (leftover meal #4).

In the evening we had been summoned to the local country club for a surprise 60th birthday party for our neighbor Anne with the high and mighty from the neighborhood. There were people that have their own planes and helicopters, one who just bought an island and at least one other one (if not more) about whom a film has been made. I felt like a fish out of water, more so than Axel who can swim in any pond. We were very much welcomed by our neighbors, both the scheming husband and the very (very) surprised wife. I like such surprise parties. I especially like the expression on the face of the surprised one, having been there myself when I turned 50 in Holland. She, like I at the time, had been led to the place of the celebration under false pretenses.

We left the party late enough that we were one of the recipients of the beautiful center pieces all done in white; presumably to celebrate the innocence of the aged.

And now it is time to plan my flight to the Eastern Slopes Regional airport in Fryeberg Maine.