Listen closely- you will hear a loud cry of pain (louder than usual because of the ear plugs.) Should you find yourself in a similar situation, you can expect him to be viewed as a terrorist for the rest of the flight. In fact, flight attendants will look at you for signs of battered wife syndrome-or possibly for reassurance.
Pekingese dogs don't much care for traveling by air in dog crates. They really don't bark so much as they whine. Much like the children earlier in the week. For the entire flight. That would explain the aforementioned earplugs.
This next lesson learned is an oldie but bears repeating again and again. Never Judge a Book by it's Cover. It's a little long but stick with me.
John (the holder of the middle seat from Charlotte to Pittsburgh) barely made his connection to Pittsburgh. He had been tossed around all day after his Phoenix-Pittsburgh connection fell through. This was his second airplane trip ever.
He was sure that since he had been up at 3:30 San Diego time that he'd been up for 24 hours at 9:30 EST. He also wondered out loud how they got the baggage to it's final destination after a flight was cancelled. "Do they have a separate plane just for luggage?"
When he found out GHB and I were relatively familiar with his neck of the woods (as in we lived there 20+ years ago-John's age by the way) he began talking about local high school football programs and their coaches as if we knew exactly who and what he was talking about.
We learned that he'd attended Belmont County Junior College for 2 years and that if he kept a 2.5, he was going to try to go to Ohio University or Kent State majoring in education so he could have summers free.
His favorite hobby is drinking Jaegermeister Balls but being only 20 he felt bad drinking a beer in front of his mom.
All in all he was endearing, a pleasant relief from the passengers on the previous flight who were trying to run each other down to make connections.
After a few minutes of quiet time, he asked me what I was making. I said I was knitting socks and showed him the completed first in the pair.
Then he said, "Do you know alpacas? We have an alpaca farm. My mom runs it." Yes, I was honest enough to say that I didn't realize they were actually a separate animal until a month ago.
I asked, "What does your mom do with the Alpaca when she shears them?"
He replied (and I could not make this up) "Oh, she throws it in a trash bag. She says one of these days she's going to do something with it. We have a bunch of that stuff in trash bags in the garage."
Somewhere in Martin's Ferry Ohio there is a garage full of alpaca in trash bags. Go Purple Riders!
Socks from the Train
7 comments:
I am wondering what she does with the alpacas if she doesn't use their fleece. I wasn't aware they were good for anything else...
Nice socks! I hope you arranged to talk to Alpaca Mom about taking some of those trash bags of alpaca off her hands!
Yeah what are they for if not the wool???
some people raise alpacas for the alpacas--you can sell the actual alpacas for quite a bit of money. you can also show alpacas like you would horses. my former boss currently owns an alpaca farm. anyway, that was not my intention in commenting. i just wanted to say that i enjoyed reading about your vacation adventures.
The 'battered wife syndrome' comment is making my day...
My friend has alpacas with his flock of sheep--they serve as protection from predators, but will only stomp on one of something, so if a group of coyotes or wolves come, they won't guard the ewes at all!
Did you hear that thump? It was all the spinners passing out! In the garage, how silly!
just had to comment on those socks. They are both gorgeous, but I especially love the stripey Trekking one. I made socks from that same colorway, and now I wish I hadn't given them away. Dang.
Great job!
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