Half of me was excited to come home. That half of me now wishes I was back in Bolivia.
The first news I got after de-boarding the plane to Homer was that there is a dead moose in the outfield of the softball field. A meeting is being held to figure out how to move it. Everyone in a small Alaska town has an opinion on how to best remove a dead moose from a softball field, and these are the things that are mentioned: chainsaws, four-wheelers, big trucks, large metal hooks, ice chippers, dragging, throwing, flinging, and, of course, "I'm not playing outfield this year!"
I left the moose to the softball commissioner, because I have a bigger problem. Specifically, my airplane was supposed to be through it's regular scheduled maintenance by the time I got home. If you think it had even begun, you are as much of an optimist as I am. I went down to the hangar where I had parked the plane last fall, and found that there was 3 inches of ice covered by a slick layer of water on the floor of the hangar. That's right. There was ice indoors. The three wheels of my plane were frozen into the ice. Since the ice chipper was busy on the softball field, we slipped and slid around the hangar, lashed the plane to a pickup truck and dragged it outside.
Once freed from her icy tomb, Beryl started right up, and she and I went for a couple laps around the field. Both she and I remembered how to fly, to our mutual relief. It felt good to once again have the throttle in my hand and watch Kachemak Bay sink below me.
After one day of work, I made a plan to meet some friends for a beer. In this small town, I know close to everyone, and had anticipated that it would be fun to go out and say 'hellos' to folks I hadn't seen all winter. This went as planned, until my ex-boyfriend's firefighter buddies sat down at the next table and announced to me, and the whole bar, how much better my ex is with his new girlfriend than he ever was with me. Oh, and welcome home.
The only way airplane maintenance would move forward was apparently if I put some time into it. It's not that I am not willing to wrench on my own airplane, it's just that I have 1001 other things to do, having just returned home. But, the expensive piece of flying metal takes priority, and with some borrowed tools, I took to removing the exhaust. I was surprised at my own efficiency at this task, except for the fact that I cut myself on something, and bled all over the white cowling. I'm certain that blood all over the hood of the aircraft doesn't instill passenger confidence.
The silver lining of being back in this beautiful town on the Bay is that there is always something to do. I'm already enlisted for a ski race this weekend, and I decided to treat myself to those new skis that are on sale for spring. The guy at the ski shop (it should be noted that, in Homer, the ski shop is also the hardware store, the pharmacy, the quilt shop, the pet store and the Hallmark Cards) invited me into the back room where he mounts bindings and waxes skis. He told me about how many and what types of skis he had sold this winter, and then gave me a bonus gift: his other hobby, besides talking skis, is tying fly-fishing flies. So, with my brand new cross-country skis, I got two flies hand-tied with polar bear fur. I have next to no use for these, especially in conjunction with my skis, but the gesture made up for the boys at the bar being jerks, and maybe even made the cuts on my mechanics' hands heal a little faster. I guess I'll give Homer another week before I buy a ticket back to Cochabamba.
The first news I got after de-boarding the plane to Homer was that there is a dead moose in the outfield of the softball field. A meeting is being held to figure out how to move it. Everyone in a small Alaska town has an opinion on how to best remove a dead moose from a softball field, and these are the things that are mentioned: chainsaws, four-wheelers, big trucks, large metal hooks, ice chippers, dragging, throwing, flinging, and, of course, "I'm not playing outfield this year!"
I left the moose to the softball commissioner, because I have a bigger problem. Specifically, my airplane was supposed to be through it's regular scheduled maintenance by the time I got home. If you think it had even begun, you are as much of an optimist as I am. I went down to the hangar where I had parked the plane last fall, and found that there was 3 inches of ice covered by a slick layer of water on the floor of the hangar. That's right. There was ice indoors. The three wheels of my plane were frozen into the ice. Since the ice chipper was busy on the softball field, we slipped and slid around the hangar, lashed the plane to a pickup truck and dragged it outside.
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| The reunion of Beryl and I, fresh out of the hangar |
After one day of work, I made a plan to meet some friends for a beer. In this small town, I know close to everyone, and had anticipated that it would be fun to go out and say 'hellos' to folks I hadn't seen all winter. This went as planned, until my ex-boyfriend's firefighter buddies sat down at the next table and announced to me, and the whole bar, how much better my ex is with his new girlfriend than he ever was with me. Oh, and welcome home.
The only way airplane maintenance would move forward was apparently if I put some time into it. It's not that I am not willing to wrench on my own airplane, it's just that I have 1001 other things to do, having just returned home. But, the expensive piece of flying metal takes priority, and with some borrowed tools, I took to removing the exhaust. I was surprised at my own efficiency at this task, except for the fact that I cut myself on something, and bled all over the white cowling. I'm certain that blood all over the hood of the aircraft doesn't instill passenger confidence.
The silver lining of being back in this beautiful town on the Bay is that there is always something to do. I'm already enlisted for a ski race this weekend, and I decided to treat myself to those new skis that are on sale for spring. The guy at the ski shop (it should be noted that, in Homer, the ski shop is also the hardware store, the pharmacy, the quilt shop, the pet store and the Hallmark Cards) invited me into the back room where he mounts bindings and waxes skis. He told me about how many and what types of skis he had sold this winter, and then gave me a bonus gift: his other hobby, besides talking skis, is tying fly-fishing flies. So, with my brand new cross-country skis, I got two flies hand-tied with polar bear fur. I have next to no use for these, especially in conjunction with my skis, but the gesture made up for the boys at the bar being jerks, and maybe even made the cuts on my mechanics' hands heal a little faster. I guess I'll give Homer another week before I buy a ticket back to Cochabamba.
1 comment:
I'm glad you got home safely and that your life will be anything but boring now that you are home. I'm still living vicariously through you, even when you're back to your "normal" job. I bet your ex-boyfriends new novia doesn't know how to build a Bolivian dam in the middle of the night.
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