Back Under the Southern Kite

I delayed a month and half, but have finally gotten back on the international travel circuit.
It seems I'm a bit rusty, as they nearly didn't let me board the plane in Charlotte due to visa issues. I was certain that I didn't need a visa and the gate agent disagreed. First, they argued that I couldn't land in Brazil without a visa, and then that I couldn't go to Argentina on a one way ticket. They eventually agreed to let me board, but not without looking me in the eye, giving a head shake, and saying, "This is BAD business."  Bad business? Like sub-prime mortgages or working for the mob? You'd think I was boarding the plane to Buenos Aires in Nuremberg, rather than North Carolina.
My language skills also need work. I learned most of my foreign language skills as an adult. Thus, rather than compartmentalizing each language and being able to switch back and forth fluidly, I just opened up a drawer in my brain and started shoveling foreign words in. So, when I am in a situation where I recognize the foreign language being spoken, I open up that drawer that is mashed full of German and Spanish. What comes out of my mouth is a mildly unintelligible thing I call 'Germ-ish'.  When I don't understand the language being spoken, what comes out of my mouth is just a high-pitched mumble/whine.  I mumbled/whined my way through 10 hours at the Potuguese-speaking Rio de Janeiro airport (can't leave the airport because I don't have a visa), but more than a day after I began, I arrived in Argentina.
My only plans are to meet up with Couchsurfing friends and see where the days take me. My credit card expires in March, so I guess I'll have to make my way back to Alaska by then.
A long day of travel is the small inconvenience we pay for the privilege of buying a one-way ticket, having limited language skills, being alone in a big city, watching strange buildings fly by, and picking out the tiny Southern Cross through the smog in the night sky. Feels so acutely like life.

Make it, or Die

I went into a strip mall coffee shop to have a cappucino while I waited for the liquor store to open. This says something about me, I guess... that I was at the liquor store so early on a Wednesday that it wasn't open. My shining moment was deciding to go into the coffee shop rather than just standing with my nose pressed against the glass staring at the bottles of vodka for 13 minutes... but who's counting?
Anyway, the barista was a good-looking, middle-aged guy, not on his best day. He cheerfully explained that he was hungover, over-worked, and still hadn't finished Christmas shopping for his teen-aged daughters.  Even though he was behind the counter at a coffee shop, he couldn't quite have enough cups to fully wake up. He was having a bad day at work.
I sat down with my coffee by the window where I could see the door of the liquor store. I looked at the twinkling Christmas lights and thought about bad days at work.
My worst days at my current job are burned into my memory. In the winter of 2007, I got caught in a fast-moving blizzard after picking up a skier. I had to ask my passenger to help me navigate safely home through the blinding snow and wind.  In the summer of 2008, I picked up a crew of fishermen in Bristol Bay, loaded to max with them, gear and fish. We were nearly forced to the ground by fog on the Alaska Peninsula and I had to scud over the tundra, navigating by valleys and the few weather reports of other pilots. Last summer, driving rain pushed the visibility and me down onto a remote lake in Katmai, where I taxied to shallow water, got out in my hip-waders and acted as a live mooring buoy for the plane, mostly so I wouldn't have to be in the cabin with barfing tourists.
Those days were my worst. I came very close to not making it. Just a little worse weather, or one wrong decision...  They were all Uncle Ole's imfamous: "Make it or die" days. But, halfway to fully caffieinated and mesmerized by the  blinking lights, I think I'd also count them as my best days. Because they weren't a little worse. And then the thought follows, how lucky am I, that I have a job where my worst days are also my best? Where just doing my job makes the lines a little clearer, and the sunset a little prettier, and the coffee taste a little better...  Or am I just a little crazy?
Not sure. But the liquor store's open.

Rejoining Forces

Steph and Anna linked back up in the Carolinas of all places. (Specifically, we were in both states, but it sounds more Northern to speak of them as if their differences are indiscernible.)

We ghost-toured in Charleston with a guide named Dan that wanted to be a golf pro. He gave us those sensors that the Ghostbusters carry. They are activated by electrical wires and by paranormal activity. They were going crazy on almost the whole walk.  We didn't see any ghosts, but we did see a cat, which Dan said was carrying either a witch or a demon. He has only been guiding these tours since July, so didn't have enough experience to ascertain the sex of the feline's passenger.

 Apparently a man from one of the many ghost tours photographed a ghost in the cemetery at St. Philip's church. Kodak, the FBI, and NASA could not explain it. St. Philips had to post a sign to clear things up. Anna, with 12 years of Catholic education under her belt, explained why the Church might be offended by the photographers claims: Ghosts do not officially exist. Unless they appear in the form of Mary, Jesus, or one of the Saints. Then they do. Why? Because an in-between place is not allotted for in Scripture--except in the above three forms, in which cases pilgrimage is called for.  The girl knows her spectral catechism.

The latest Wikileak

In the last week, I have spent 1300 miles on America's Interstate system which means that I know the words to every popular country song.  I also accidentally ran a half-marathon, and was spit up on twice.
I have visited with a diverse group of friends and family, and learned something that did not make it onto Wikileaks:  My dangerously single friends told me to watch out for "Trick Dates." Apparently, besides Internet dating, the great new way to ask someone out is to pretend you are not asking them out, but you are just arranging a meeting. Then when they show up at the appointed time and place, you go ahead with typical 'first date' behavior and see how it goes.  After witnessing one such event unfold at an adjacent table in Washington, DC, it seems that the warning should not go unheeded.
Also newly revealed in the Nation's capitol: another dimension. I refused to see a movie at a museum because it was advertised as "4-D." Does the Tea Party know about this? What's the fourth D anyway? A friend told me it was "time." Time? Isn't that inescapable? Wouldn't it be more interesting if they found a way to show a movie outside the time-space continuum?
There's lots to be learned schlepping around this seaboard, if you can handle repeat views of box stores and love multi-lane freeways. I have seen dozens of people who don't make it to Alaska often, and enjoyed spending time with them and meeting their new offspring.
In the in-between times, I rake. North Carolina has an infinite supply of leaves. Even though all the trees look bare, more appear on the ground every day. In my effort to corral them, I have broken two rakes. Replacing the first rake, a metal relic of a bygone era, I checked into everyone's favorite box store, Target. I was informed there that rakes are a seasonal item. Not this season. Not the season with the unending leaf deluge. No, no. It is snow shovel season at Target. I lived in North Carolina for four years and never saw a shovel-able piece of snow. Super secret documents have shown, the season of winter wonderland exists here, just only in the confines of your local Target store.
Because I have so much to learn from classified documents and classy friends, and because, right now, the leaves are winning,  I have made a decision. I am certain this decision was influenced by those country songs blaring out of my borrowed Volkswagen's radio as I barrel down I-85:
"You're gonna miss this! You're gonna want this back!"
I bought a ticket to South America, but I won't leave until December 27th. My grandmother is thrilled and the leaves are terrified that I am staying in the Southeast until Christmas.