Waiting with Legs

Aloha!

Waiting at the Kona open air airport. Me, flouner (found flower), and night.

What hour is this in the hours of travel? The eleventh? I have returned to the mainland, Mahalo U.S. Airways. But now but one-hour-flight-away from home the plane's rudder malfunctions and I find myself seated on the carpet of the Phoenix airport.

The carpet of the phoenix airport:

It looks like planes poised precariously in the midst of a thousand simultaneous tornadoes--- Or maybe the planes were hurled into a giant pond. The ripples in each of their wakes only block them briefly from smashing into each other.

So anyways, I'm seated here on disaster carpeting, drinking my Cinnabon coffee, hoping I get to Albuquerque in time to play a show. Is this how the Beatles felt? Did their plane rudder ever malfunction. I'm calling it a rudder, but maybe it's not called that.

In any case airplanes are a lot like boats. I was on a kayak yesterday in the pacific ocean. Green water everywhere, forever. Sometimes I got tired of rowing and watched the green hills of water lift me higher than the shore, then the hill would roll past and I'd be below it watching the shore retreat further every time. I panicked a little thinking I might be pulled out to sea. I would float, but I would be so thirsty and dizzy.

With this in mind I used the paddle again trying to pull a little in the direction I wanted to go. It seemed ridiculous pulling myself along the surface of the such a huge animal as the ocean. Like a mite making slow progress across the hairs of a running cat. But I did get to shore, and rode the last wave in like a roller coaster. Oh! Wahoo!

The sea near Waimanalo, O'ahu (renamed: Oh! Wahoo!) out of the car window. It was this turquoise sea that coaxed me silently out farther and farther from the shore.

I began this journey last night at 8 0'clock. I flew from Honolulu to Kona, and spent the next six hours sleeping fitfully between a soldier-type with a huge bull tattooed on his thigh, and a tiny coughing Japanese woman.

I woke up again and again: my head was rolling around in that horrible way it does on the plane or in a morning lecture. My knees felt like they'd been banging into things. My eyes closed compulsively. I had tiny dreams of my nephews' and niece's mouths. They have funny round mouths filling up with teeth and words. They were the most amazing funny thing in Hawaii for sure.

My mouth tries to be as funny.

An hour has passed since the last announcement. No news is good news, but in this case, no news is simply no news. New news would be nice. I'd like new nice news now, or nearly now. I'm negotiating finding another coffee shop. Negotiating with my legs.

Me: "Legs. If you stand up you can go look for coffee." said in a wheedling voice,

Legs: "But our knees hurt inexplicably and you don't even know where the sweet sweet coffee is!"

Me: "I'll give you two dollars!"

Legs: "That's a trick! It will still be your two dollars"

Me: "True true, clever legs..."

Legs: "yip."

Me: "You hear that legs? Yeah, that's right, another hour, at least. We might need that coffee."

Legs: "...or something a little stronger."

TO BE CONTINUED...

(2 minutes later)
Me: "Wait! Legs! oho! There's a new aircraft! Gate B5! Gate B5!"