Got onto the plane and sat there waiting with bated breath to see who my seatmate would be. Someone hot? Someone interesting?
How about someone dressed all in pink, carrying a pink suitcase too big to fit anywhere, with an enormous pink crocheted afghan, and pink glitter shoelaces, carrying a copy of "Chicken Soup for the Girlfriend's Soul"? All packaged up in someone at least ten years too old to carry off this much pink (that is to say she was maybe 21).
<sigh>
I went back to listening to Armistead Maupin's "The Night Listener" on my iPod and zoned out again. It was ultimately unsatisfying, but I wouldn't find that out for several days yet.
The flight was otherwise uneventful, except that I learned while waiting for baggage that I'm still bizarrely attracted to men in sweatpants. Well, sweatpants aren't really enough on their own, but on a cute guy they undeniably add an additional "zing". We shall never speak of this again.
Graeme met me in a rental Jeep, having decided to upgrade from a compact so that we would have space for picking up hitchikers. None appeared, though, so we made our solitary way up Highway 99, charmingly titled the Sea-to-Sky Highway. It was foggy, and dusk, and the mountains along the way were delightfully misty and gloomy. Very surreal in places, and felt somewhat like being transported to the universe of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
When we were checking in at the hotel in Whistler, I jokingly asked Leonardo, the desk clerk, to confirm that our room was beautiful. "Oh yes!" he exclaimed. "It's all covered in candy!" Funny how big fat lies can make one feel all cozy and welcome, but sometimes that's just the way it is.
Pics are here.
Posted by Ken Allen at January 30, 2005 10:53 PM