...Longer Stories Shorter

I sat in the Seatac airport trying not to cry and suddenly realized I needed to stop reading the book I was in the middle of because things were not looking good for the protagonist, and there would be no way I could contain myself if he were to die on page 245 while I was flying away from home. I managed to get myself onto the plane, but it was one of the worst planes rides I have experienced. Somehow the seats were smaller than any plan I have ridden and the man next to me seemed to require not only his own sixteen inches of seat, but at least three inches of my seat also. The worst part though was that pressure kept building in my ears. I don't know why this happened, but by the time we landed in Chicago, sounds floated to me like I was in a bubble and my ears ached terribly. In Chicago I found my connecting gate and asked an attendant if she had any tips to relieve this issue and she told me to chew gum. Considering the intensity of my problem, I thought this was silly, but I was willing to try anything. 

Back in the air a short time later, I realized gum would not solve my problem. My ears ached all the way to London and when the flight attendants asked me questions, I responded only based on the context, not because I heard anything they asked. I spent three or four hours in the London airport, but my stay there was surreal. Signs and lights swirled around me and I felt very much like I was underwater. If I sat still, the whole place spun like in the cartoons when Tom or Jerry used to get trapped in a keg and come out drunk. (They don't really have cartoons like that anymore, do they?) I had to concentrate to keep my balance and walking around reminded me of being on a ferry, where floors sway slowly beneath your feet. Somehow I made it to my gate for round three.

It is strange to me that the most homesick I have ever felt came over me just a day after I had been home. I would have expected that homesickness would creep up after many months abroad or at least many weeks away from family. Instead, it hit suddenly and hard, just hours after I had been at home. I fell into an exhausted sleep on my futon mattress on the floor. Sophie was glad to see me. 

Enough of self-pity and homesickness though. The children were glad to see me again, and I was glad to be back to help my Canadian co-worker, Shannon, with the workload. I found that some of the zoo employees had donated some house-hold goods to me. There was a bag with silverware and a couple of sheets in it, which I accepted gratefully (not mentioning the fact that I had no bed as yet to put sheets on). I also accepted a frying pan and two casserole dishes (again not mentioning that I have never in my life baked a casserole and have no plans to do so). 

The animals were the same as always. This job is different than what I am used to in that I do not work consistently with the same animals. I see some of them on a daily basis, but I am not always doing the handling or the keeping and some days I am doing both. Since the keepers speak hardly any English, the language barrier is always an obstacle. I guess that is why it is called a barrier. Yesterday as I was riding in the keeper cart (like a golf cart, but for keepers to ride around in and tote their keeper tools etc.) I was getting to know two keepers I had not worked with before. We had just finished cleaning some of the hoofstock enclosures, llamas, reindeer, and a couple species of wild cattle, and we needed to take our wagon full of debris to be dumped in the compost pile across the zoo. The other two keepers had a discussion about the vehicle that I could not entirely follow because I could not remember what the word "bremse" meant. We all hopped in the cart and Frank drove off toward the administration building. As we approached, I thought, "wow, I would not be going this fast. Does he always drive like this?" A couple of administration employees dodged us. We came to the edge of the zoo and stopped. Frank bowed his head and as we all hopped out of the cart, I remembered what "bremse meant. Brakes. Something was wrong with the BRAKES on the vehicle. Fortunately we all survived and knowing what I do now, I would say Frank is an exceptional driver.

I will try not to be remiss in my blogging, but I don't want to make any promises.