Paris 2010 - The Send Off

Acknowledgements

Chris would like to thank her sister, Jane, for making it possible to fly among the peacocks and not among the chickens.

(Jane says: I don’t really care for chicken plumage)

Chris would also like to thank her friend and literary cohort, Elizabeth Graham, for sending her the link to Christopher Moore’s Paris blog to get us in the mood for our trip.  You, too, can enjoy his exploits (complete with expletives) by going to the following link: 

http://blog.chrismoore.com/index.php/archives/476

 Jane and I had many a giggle over Mr. Moore's unique brand of observation, and it gave our entire journey a ‘snogging’ subtext.   

Verb, 1. snog - touch with the lips or press the lips (against someone's mouth or other body part) as an expression of love, greeting, etc

Wednesday August 25^th

The Departure

Jane and I began our latest travel adventure smartly dressed in similar travel friendly black slacks and jackets, first class tickets and passports at the ready.  Our toes were freshly polished and even Chris wore a full complement of makeup.  But the similarities ended when we looked at our suitcases.  Jane’s was a brand new raspberry colored piece with 4 swivel wheels for easy lugging.  Chris’s on the other hand -- wasn’t.  She toted a well traveled and well worn black number, similar, certainly, to 80% of all other travelers’ bags with the exception that she’s pretty sure hers was the only one sporting both duct tape and electrical tape.

(Jane says:  Black is not only avant gard but the real reason is that it is slightly slimming which to two menopausal metabolically challenged women is important. I don’t lug which infers schlepping, I simply pull along the raspberry hued luggage complete with the brightly colored name tag with the saying "I don’t do coach". Sadly Chris is correct, her luggage did indeed bear tapes of the duct and electrical vintage. Please excuse the pun, it was ‘very tacky’.)

(Chris replies:  Yea, but who’s going to break into a tacky black bag like that? They’d go for the raspberry parfait, for sure.)

The Journey

This was Chris’s first time traveling first class on an international flight since IBM sent her to Germany in 1982.  This IS the way to go, she avows, if one can possibly afford the extra fare.  One feels so much more rested upon arrival, and it’s so much easier on increasingly cranky bones.  Aside from that, one gets a full sized pillow and quilted blanket, plus a ditty bag filled with ear plugs, socklets, eye masks and all sorts of other wonderful stuff. 

Jane was all about the unlimited champagne.

(Jane says: This was great, one never had to ask for more. Champagne upon boarding, straight through dinner, the night and even for breakfast. For the Eloise lovers, when they refilled my glass for the third time, I looked at Chris and said " I just love the Plaza")

We departed Grand Rapids to the hugs and well wishes of Phil and the insistent yips of their amazingly small dog, Moe.  Our connecting flight in Atlanta was on time and we hit the skies for Paris already feeling the glow of said unlimited champagne (though Jane did manage to waste some of hers spilling it into Chris’s seat…)

(Jane says: This was only the first glass so it was indeed an accident)

Speaking of seats, they supposedly fully reclined, but actually – not quite.  It was certainly better than coach, but it occupied our first hour of flight trying to figure out the controls.  Jane somehow found Chris’s experiments in seat adjustment amusing, because at one point Chris is sure she saw champagne coming out of Jane’s nose from laughing so hard.

(Jane says:  The seats are actually built for taller people and don’t quite fit those of smaller stature.  Chris began to push the button to recline the back of her seat and with each successive push, she kept fading lower and lower until her poor body was in a compacted heap on the lower third of the “chair”.  I couldn’t even begin to help her because she just kept slip sliding away and I couldn’t quit laughing, it was one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments.  Suffice it to say that all my societal aplomb went to hell as I was reduced to a fit of laughing hysteria.)