Archives for November 2012

Thanksgiving feast

November 24, 2012 by Grandpa R

Davis gets a little lacrosse practice in his back yard.

You know you’re going to eat a lot at Thanksgiving, right? So what better way to start the day than to go out and do a little hiking? Well, that’s what we did during our visit to Phoenix at Thanksgiving. Roxanne and Bob took us out to Pinnacle Peak north of town. On the trail, we learned from conversations overheard and later confirmed by reliable sources that this is a regular Thanksgiving tradition for many families in the Phoenix area.

Roxanne and Bob are doing some remodeling of the home they purchased in Paradise Valley, and during our visit we also played croquet on the newly resurrected back lawn. Davis also has some back lawn bounce-back equipment (imagine a vertical trampoline) so that he can practice lacrosse fundamentals.

Bob cooked up a storm while we were there – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We watched football, took in a movie (“Skyfall”), played Catch Phrase, tried out an Italian restaurant near their home, and generally got our share of goofing off.

Roxanne in her turkey hat. — Roxanne sports her turkey hat on Thanksgiving day.

A flight phenomenon

November 14, 2012 by Grandpa R

Southwest Airlines Flight 7 leaves Lubbock at 6:55 a.m. and stops in Dallas before flying on to Houston. Its 9:30 arrival at Houston Hobby Airport makes same-day appointments at MD Anderson feasible. But today something unusual happened on the way to Houston.

The flight leaving Lubbock was oversold, so the automated voicemail I received from Southwest at first seemed to be a consequence of that circumstance. I became aware of the voicemail shortly after I turned my phone back on after landing in Dallas. The message said that portions of my flight had been canceled, and suggested that I might want to call Southwest to get details

Now that seemed strange, because there I was sitting on the plane, in Dallas. The flight attendant had just announced that passengers continuing on to Houston should remain seated until the crew had counted noses. So I wondered, was this a ploy to deflect people from and oversold flight? Was it a message I should have had before I left Lubbock?

So there we sat on the taxiway while I pondered the message. Just as we pulled to the gate, the announcement came that there had been a change in aircraft for those going to Houston. We were supposed to check in at Gate 6.

There was a long line at Gate 6. The board at the gate said the Houston flight, Flight 9, would be leaving at 9 a.m. The gate attendant asked if I had a boarding pass. I repeated I had just come in from Lubbock and that they had taken the boarding pass in Lubbock. She looked incredulous. I said “Flight 7.” After she did something on her computer, she told me to talk to the agents at Gate 8.

I was beginning to worry about my first (11 a.m.) appointment at MD Anderson as I stood in line at Gate 8. There I received a boarding pass – position B51 – for Flight 9, back at Gate 6. Now it was 8:30 a.m. As I took a seat at Gate 6, I soon realized there was no plane at the gate. The plane arrived at 8:45, and I thought, “now we’ll see if Southwest can turn this thing around in 10 minutes. They did.

Plane arrived in Houston right at 10. At 10:08 I was putting my bags in a taxi. At 10:11 we were leaving the airport. I told my driver the dilemma. He said he could have us at the Medial Center at 10:35. He beat that by 2 minutes; I dumped my bags at the hotel and got to my first appointment at 11 a.m. It’s now 7:39 and I am waiting for my last procedure.