The Core Dump

Swedish pennant under a blue sky. Click for larger version.

Andrea and I are safely nestled at my parents’ house after a long journey from Phoenix to Sweden.

We had stop-overs in Chicago and Copenhagen, both of which were short and sweet, even though the time between flights was way too chintzy in Copenhagen and we ended up running through the airport with me carrying Andrea and our luggage, blitzing past flight monitors that had our flight status as “closed.” A wee bit on the stressful side, but we made the puddle jumper from Copenhagen to Gothenburg with our stomachs in our throats.

Andrea was a complete champ through the trip. I think it’s that she’s six years old now, and really gets what’s going on as we hop from aluminum tube to aluminum tube.

We landed in a Sweden from some other dimension, with clear blue skies and warm weather.

At this point things have cooled down a bit and the clouds are threatening rain, but it’s still really nice and the summer light is incredible—even though I grew up here, it was still amazing when Andrea and I woke up at 4am the morning after we landed to find it light enough to go outside and read the newspaper.

I understand there are worse ways to spend the month of June.

Andrea and I have been back in Phoenix for a few days after yet another long flight. As opposed to last year’s extended nervous breakdown, we had a minimally-exhausting journey this time, including an unexpected bonus—thanks no doubt to my raw animal magnetism we were bumped to Business Class on the flight from Stockholm to Chicago.

I’d always operated under the assumption that traveling with a child would automatically take you out of the running for upgrades like that, but I’m very happy to have been wrong. Business Class, as you would expect, is a very different experience when it comes to flying. Ah yes. You are greeted on the flight with your choice of water, orange juice, or champagne. The meal has three courses, including a quite amusing appetizer. Your wine selection is served in a glass, not a plastic cup, and from a bottle, not a mini-bottle. After the meal, you are offered port. There is a buffet area if you get peckish between meals. The bathroom is large enough to be comfortable and has windows.

And most important of all, the seats … ah, the seats.

It must be good to be rich.

Soundtrack: “Honey White” by Morphine

Airports aren’t exactly the most child-friendly places, but lots of people travel with children and end up trying to amuse them for hours on end while waiting for connecting flights.

During our marathon yesterday we ended up with two hours of dead time in Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal 5—two extra hours after we had taken the people mover, grabbed a burger at the airport Mickey D’s, and gone through security.

By some miracle Terminal 5 has been blessed with a tiny play park. There was a sign that said something about some artist group which I didn’t really get, but nevertheless: tiny play park. So Andrea started playing in there with some other children, and had two solid hours of fun, getting a lot of energy out of her system.

Watching a bunch of children from who-knows-where playing together was a treat, especially with the shape the world is in these days. “Tag! You’re it!” is universal.

So, if you happen to be a person with some pull at an airport, please consider putting in a little play park. There will be a lot of happier passengers.

Soundtrack: “Beyond The Zero” by Bill Laswell

Somehow I almost forgot: August 12, 1996 was the date when my wife and I arrived in the Valley of the Sun carrying two suitcases each and with only the name of a motel in Tempe allegedly close to the ASU campus for a guiding light.

Being painfully cheap and broke, we had booked flights from Stockholm with an eleven-hour layover in Chicago. Yes, eleven. We landed at Sky Harbor just after midnight, felt the reality of dry heat, and waited patiently in the brutal heat of night for the next Super Shuttle van. Next to the Super Shuttle stand and the thoroughly bored high school kid who had gotten the fantastic job of working the night shift was a middle-aged limo driver looking for rides. The Super Shuttle was going to cost $20 to take us to the motel in Tempe, so the limo driver told me he could take us for $30.

“No way,” I said. No way in hell I was wasting $10 just to get to the motel faster. I was so sleep deprived the whole world was swirling, and the plan was that we were going to take a Super Shuttle van to the motel so who gave a shit how long it took for the Super Shuttle van to show we were taking a Super Shuttle van to the motel and my vision had constricted to only the things that were right in front of me and we-were-waiting-for-the-Super-Shuttle-van.

It was sweaty after midnight.

After another few minutes the limo driver came up to me again and said, “Okay. I can take you for $25. That way you don’t have to wait for the Super Shuttle.”

No way. The plan is, we take the Super Shuttle. I’m not spending an extra $5. Super Shuttle.

We were the only people at the terminal. There was only me, my wife, the high school kid running the Super Shuttle stand, the limo driver, the infernal heat, and our four suitcases.

The limo driver obviously thought I was crazy. “Okay, I can’t take you for $20. I have to charge more than the Super Shuttle. But I can take you for $21. It’s only a buck more.”

Somehow that got through the haze. “Okay.”

So we arrived at the motel in Tempe around two thirty in the morning in a white limo.

Andrea and I have safely arrived back in Phoenix after a long and excruciating flight that probably took ten years off my life. All the mechanics went well with flights more or less on time, etc., but my little girl who was such an angel on the flight to Sweden was nowhere close to her best behavior on the flight back.

Can’t really blame her, as it’s a very long flight for a three-year-old, and she was pretty strung out from all the new impressions during the visit, but when you’re six hours in to a 24-hour journey and the nervous breakdown looms closer and closer, finding that inner reservoir of parental patience and wisdom grows increasingly hard.

Here’s a short breakdown of how the journey went:

3 AM Swedish Time (7 PM Arizona time): Reveille and breakfast in Swedish winter darkness after much too few hours of sleep.

4 AM ST: Get in car for four-hour drive to Arlanda airport in Stockholm. Child sleeps most of the way. Her dad, on the other hand, has been cursed with an utter inability to sleep in moving vehicles of any kind.

8 AM ST: Arrive at airport. Wake cranky child and go stand in line for flight. Child is extremely unhappy about leaving her grandparents behind.

8:30 AM ST: Go through security and head to gate. Child wants to explore airport.

8:45 AM ST: Go through second randomly placed security check. Passports and boarding passes are still valid, go figure.

8:55 AM ST: Go stand in line to go through the security check at the gate. The line is long and the child does not enjoy standing in it, preferring instead to roam. This is not so good. Sweat is dripping from dad.

9:20 AM ST: Get through security checkpoint at gate. Passports and boarding passes are still somehow valid. Dad does not find three security checkpoints to stand in line for at all excessive. No, sir. Fill out some random bulls**t form necessitated by child having an American passport.

9:40 AM ST: Child decides to start crawling around inside the gate and thinks the word “no” is daddy code for “giggle and do what you want.” Child decides to run as far away as possible inside gate and thinks dad running behind yelling “no” means that this is a fun game. Dad is angry and sweating.

9:45 AM ST: Thank you Baby Jesus, they’re boarding the flight.

10:15 AM ST: Seated on plane. Child does not wish to put on seat belt. Much persuasion happens. Child screams.

10:30 AM ST: Plane starts to pull back from gate then stops. Ominous music starts. Pilot gets on intercom and announces that due to the extreme cold and fog, the tractor that was supposed to push the plane from the gate couldn’t get traction, so another tractor had to be found.

10:40 AM ST: Yay! Airborne! The fasten seat belts sign goes off. Dad dishes up things to amuse child. They work for about 20 minutes and then she’s bored.

Hours pass: Child sleeps for about two hours. The rest of the time is spent walking around the aisles, complaining that she wants to go home, and demanding constant attention.

12:50 PM Chicago Time (7:50 PM ST): Arrival at O’Hare. Go through immigration, where Child sees another child with a suitcase cart and decides she wants one, no, must have one. Pick up bags to go through customs, drop bags off, get on train to go from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1. Go through the security checkpoint at Terminal 1. Put shoes back on after check point. Drink a lot of water and sweat like a pig from carrying bags and keeping child from running away. Curse Gods.

1:50 PM CT: Find gate. Child is hungry. Walk ten minutes back to McDonald’s. Get burger and fries for child. Sit down with child at gate. Child accidentally kicks the fries on to the ground. Dad picks up fries and throws them, explaining to child that they are dirty and are not to be eaten. Child demands dad go buy new clean fries. Dad explains to child that the flight will board in fifteen minutes and there is no time to get new fries. Child will have to make do with the hamburger. Child demands Happy Meal toy which dad did not pick up. For some reason dad is a bit tired. Child demands to play with other children in the gate area. Dad thinks child should focus on eating her burger. Dad finds out that the flight has moved to another gate. Move to other gate, which is thankfully close by. Child eats half of burger, which is a sort of record for her and must mean she was starved.

2:20 PM CT: Child decides she must have a suitcase cart right now. Throws huge temper tantrum at gate.

2:50 PM CT: Plane f**ing finally starts boarding. Child is still extremely angry about dad’s lack of ability to magic a Hello Kitty suitcase cart into being.

3:20 PM CT: Plane sits at gate. Dad has yet another big discussion with child about the importance of putting on the seat belt when the light comes on.

3:30 PM CT: Fasten seat belts sign comes on. Child does not want to put on seat belt. Plane sits at gate for no apparent reason. Child starts to stand up on seat. Dad wonders how high his blood pressure can get before something ruptures.

3:40 PM CT: Plane leaves gate. Child is sitting with seat belt on after blood dripping warnings about the furious wrath of her mother when we get to Phoenix and the excruciatingly long time-outs that will ensue.

Hours pass: A blur of stress.

6 PM Phoenix Time (5 PM CT): Child succumbs to weariness and falls asleep. Dad spends a few minutes reading the novel he had optimistically brought along.

6:40 PM PT: Flight lands. Child is completely fried and does not want to wake up.

7 PM PT: Go to luggage claim and meet child’s mother. Wait 30 minutes for bags to appear.

8 PM PT (4 AM Swedish Time): Arrive at home. Dad takes off shirt and sees that his black T-shirt is covered in dried salt from profuse sweating.

Soundtrack: “Dead Ringer For Love” by Meatloaf

Jet lag is no fun. Caring for a three-year-old with jet lag is infinitely less fun. It seems as though we’re starting to adjust our circadian rhythms now so hopefully smoother sailing is ahead.

So far the weather has cooperated beautifully, with below-freezing temperatures, mostly sun and a light dusting of snow. The meteorologists are being buzz kills, though, talking about rain on Christmas Eve. Hopefully they’re wrong as usual.

Andrea on a frozen playground. Click for larger version.

This is teh awesome! Posting this from a Scandinavian Airlines flight somewhere over the Atlantic. SAS has equipped all their transatlantic flights with wireless, and by a happy alignment of the stars Andrea fell asleep just as a nice gentleman showed up with a 30 minutes free promo. So there we go.

So, a flight update: A 60 minute line to check in with United followed by a shorter line to get to security check where shoes were removed, laptop taken out of bag, and Andrea almost got lost. As a bonus, my belt buckle got me two strikes in the metal detector, which led to my being taken aside and hand searched. Good times.

Flight on time to Chicago, where we had to switch terminals, which involved a tram ride and having to exit the Secure Area and thus going through yet another Checkpoint Charlie. Shoes off, again. Andrea sailed through the metal detector with her teddy bear. That was a no-no, so teddy got a ride through the scanner.

But Andrea was happy enough. That was teddy’s adventure.

Made the flight to Stockholm just as they started boarding. Whew.

Soundtrack: Jet Engines

The hour is drawing near for Andrea and me to take to the friendly skies for our Holiday trip to Sweden. We’ll leave Phoenix on Thursday morning and arrive in Sweden Friday morning.

It’s a pretty long haul.

The idea of making this journey with a three-year-old has me pretty worked up, but apart from any worst-case-scenarios taking place, I’ll be able to hack it. The key is just to make it to the airport in Stockholm. After that I can fall into a coma and let my parents deal with the little ball of energy.

Deep breaths.

Soundtrack: “Starfighters” by Funker Vogt

It’s such a cliché for us Zonies to go to San Diego for vacation, but it’s a cliché because it’s true: Gorgeous beaches, fantastic weather, and a surmountable distance makes for an excellent getaway.

Got a pretty decent rate at Travelocity for the Ocean Park Inn, which is right on Pacific Beach. I was expecting something pretty run-down and seedy, what with the location, but it was surprisingly fresh. According to the hotel staff, it had been renovated about a year and a half ago. Not too much drunken noise at night, and they were hardcore about people getting out of the heated pool at 10 p.m.; great, as the pool tends to be a magnet for the drunken noise generators at night.

On the beach

SeaWorld was an absolute blast for Andrea, and surprisingly painless for her parents. Clean and nice, with the price gouging kept at somewhat moderate levels, which was appreciated. We arrived promptly at 10 a.m. when they opened and stayed till about 3 p.m., seeing a lot of fish. Took in the dolphin show as well as, of course, the killer whales.

Killer whales are effing huge, in case you didn’t know. 7,000 pounds of killing machine, or as the announcer at the show loved saying, “top predator.” I’m just waiting for the one day one of those beasts snaps during a show. That will not be a pretty scene.

Huge mammal in the water

Nevertheless, the dolphin show was a lot more lively, so if you have to make a choice, I’d give a thumbs-up to the dolphins.

Spent Monday morning hanging out on the beach and in general relaxing before it was time to check out of the hotel and drive back.

It’s so nice to get out of town, even if it’s just for a weekend.

Soundtrack: “Ghosts” by Dirty Vegas

If you’re driving from, say, San Diego to Phoenix, a really bad place to get a flat tire would be, say, outside Dateland, AZ.

So that’s what we did.

I noticed a bit after we took off from our delicious burger slash potty break slash gas fill-up in Yuma that the road noise was increasing, but put it off to a bad stretch of highway. But after a while the noise didn’t abate, but instead got worse, so I started thinking bad tire.

And then, about ten miles east of Dateland: kaboom. Fortunately, it was a rear tire, so very little drama, just pull over to the side of the highway, right before exit 73 to “Aztec,” which Google Maps apparently knows nothing about.

We called AAA and got word that they would send somebody, but it would take at least an hour for that somebody to get to us (I’m thinking airlift), and that they would not have fresh tires with them, so if the donut didn’t work, we’d have to be towed to Lord knows where.

So I broke out my mad tire changing skillz and got the donut on there, yo.

Both the owner’s manual and the donut itself carry dire warnings about the nebulous horrible things that will happen if you drive faster than 50 miles per hour while, er, donuted, which did not sound like so much fun, so we called AAA back to see if perhaps there was a Discount Tire in Gila Bend, the next Metropolis on our journey? That’s a negatory, Ice Man.

So we drove the remaining 150 or so miles to Phoenix at 50 miles per hour on the donut. It took a bit longer than originally anticipated.

Soundtrack: “New Dawn Coming / Blue Guitar” by Cowboy Junkies