Happy New Year: On the Way to Burbank

The airplane seat on US Air is bigger heading to Phoenix than the bus seat was from New York to DC, but only marginally so, but still Plotnik had to pay $38 extra, EACH, to be able to actually choose his and Duck's seats, instead of being assigned to a middle seat for free. Don't you just love air travel in the U S of A on the eve of New Year's 2011-12?

"We have snack for sale. Today we have, uh.,." begins the stewardess, "...uh, sandwich, I think, and and, um, Snack Pak. We accept Discover, Master Card or Visa."

Reagan (aka National) Airport in DC is as small as Oakland and Burbank used to be. It's so close to the beltway -- planes look like they're landing on the White House Lawn from a short distance away. Peter and Patsy were kind enough to give a lift to the airport. Such good friends are hard to find.

Ducknik and Plotnik got separated into different security lines. At hers, there was a teenage girl carrying a small poodle in a carry-on case. As the dog got ready to go through his screening, he dropped a turd onto the converyor belt. Everyone panicked and the entire line shut down. The teen cried "Oh, woe, woe, what do you want ME to do about it?" They finally told her to go get a paper towel and clean it up, which she reluctantly did, while everyone else waited.

This is how Plotnik actually beat Duck through the security line, for the first time in a long time.

He remembered, ahead of time, to remove his camera, which he always wears on his belt, from its case. But then they put him through the Hands Up MothaF***a X-ray Shakedown, and when they were patting him down they saw the empty case.

"Remove that," said the guard.

"But it's empty," Plotnik said, showing the empty case. "Here, feel it."

"Remove that," said the guard.

"But," said Plotnik and then "OK, OK." The guard didn't even look at it, but he won the faceoff. They always win. it took a couple of extra minutes, but, thanks to the turd, Plottie beat the Duck through the line, albeit barely.

The bus from New Shmork down to DC on Thursday took almost five hours, but it only cost $15 bucks each. The train would have been an hour and a half faster but it would have cost close to $200, or $400 for the Accela which knocks another hour off the trip.

These days, while traveling, Plot is into more comfort over less comfort, but there's a limit. $15 each is a lot better than $100 or $200, and in end, though Megabus was completely filled with every seat taken, and an Israeli guy across the aisle insisted on talking loudly on a cell phone to his mother, about all the current political twists and turns in every Israeli settlement, until Plotnik was ready to call Terrorists-R-Us to send up a jihadi to dispatch this loudmouth oaf, and though bus seats are small and there are no carry-on racks where you might store your oversized winter jacket, STILL, with all that, the bus isn't much more uncomfortable than a 737 or this Airbus 319, and, to be honest, train seats aren't exactly your living room sofa either.

So Plottie went for the $15 bus ticket and used the $170 he saved as a down payment on that amazing dinner at Pisticci the other night. It was a good call.

Plot bought two $20.00 Metro Cards in the Shmapple and used them both up. It's easy to do -- $2.25 per subway ride, each way, for two people. Brooklyn to Manhattan and back: $9 bucks. The Metro Cards go fast. But it's the greatest system and they're expanding it all the time. How can New Shmork afford to build new lines and expand old ones, when every other city in America is supposed to be broke? It's a mystery.

It cost $45 in the taxi to SFO the other morning because it was so early and we had to get to the airport by 6am so we could wait until 1:30pm to take off.

In DC, both Peter and Patsy's daughters (can you remember The Year of The Wedding? -- when both these girls got married? -- that was FIVE years ago.) live in different parts of Maryland. We went to see them both. Nellie lives in the middle of a home renovation project that is the largest, most complicated and surely the most difficult of any Plottie has ever seen. He knows he could never do it, and would never want to. But Peter is an architect and he and Patsy bought the old, concrete house so they and their daughter and son-in-law could work on something together, and in the end their kids will live in an amazing place. But when?

The house was built for a licensed clairvoyant in the 1930s. If they'd asked the clairvoyant, he would have probably said: "You will take many long trips to the Building Supplies Depot."

Hannah is 32 weeks pregnant. She looks so happy, though it has not been an easy pregnancy. It was wonderful to see both these girls, who Plot and Duck have known since they were born. Their mates got great ladies.

Plot is already counting the hours 'til they get home, but they're not going home. Not yet. Today it's DC to Phoenix to Burbank, so Mummy P. can have some company on New Year's Eve. Then on January 1, on what would have been The Chief's 101st birthday, Plot and Duck will stay over that day and night too, then come home on Monday.

So that's around 48 hours. LA, here we come. But first, Phoenix Airport. Happy New Year everybody!

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LATER: the party has started up the hill from Mummy P. AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP. (screams.) AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP AhWHOMP. (shouts.) Gonna be a long night.