The Pittsburgh Odyssey

My intention was to visit my folks, in their small western Pennsylvania town of Indiana (same part of the state as the communities of Idaho and California, of course), just for the day. I’d booked Jen and I on an early flight out of a Logan and a night flight back to Boston. Timing was tight but theoretically doable.

Our first flash of the trials to come happened upon landing in Pittsburgh. I wanted to check in for the evening’s flight right then to make things simpler later. The man at the counter, who’d indulged in too much hair product and seemed to think that a ‘70s era porn actor mustache was just the look he needed, was incredibly, sneeringly rude and condescending when we couldn’t provide our evening’s flight number. Jen, who can be shy but will dish it right back, replied by asking, in the tone of a stern school marm addressing a particularly dimwitted child, ‘you can look it up by our names, can’t you? I feel quite sure you can -- how ‘bout you give that some effort.’ He did and we were all set. As we walked away, I noticed his, definitely not small, cloisonned American flag in the shape of a large cross, lapel pin. Clearly he was a member of the Rush Limbaugh Church of Our Lord and Savior.

The next hurdle was at the Budget Rental Car desk. The large, Eeyore-ish, middle aged clerk, sporting an ill advised strawberry blond Betty Page do, couldn’t find our reservation and kept allowing herself to be interrupted by a line jumping fellow with an obvious I’m-the-center-of-the-known-universe complex. Just so much wrongness there.

Finally we’re in the rental car headed east -- east into spectacularly backed up Pittsburgh traffic.

By the time we reached my parent’s house, our six hour visit time was down to five. We’d no big plans -- just to sit/visit with Muti and Vati and, while they took a nap break, a glass of vino with my older sister at one of Indiana’s fine adult bev emporiums.

Apparently the folks are quite popular -- there were visitors in and out all day. This being a wonderful thing but exhausting for them AND me. Lipreading -- I may have mentioned this a zillion times already -- is hard, hard work.

 In any case, at six PM we jumped back into the car (after warm soft hugs with mi madre and body slamming hugs for the old man. Pop’s a big guy, I figure he can handle a little slammage). One mile outside of Indiana the car started to wobble, wobble, wobble. Yep, we had a flat. AAA came within an hour but now our getting to the airport, dropping off the rental and boarding our flight window was NASA levels of snug. Everything had to move perfectly and we STILL might not make our flight.

Weekend road construction just before the Squirrel Hill tunnel put an end to our hopes. Happily, luckily, the airline folk were kind, understanding  and swayable by a tearful, cute, middle aged broad (yeah, that was me). They put us on a morning flight and waived the penalties. Yea us!

Now to find a nearby hotel. There was a Marriott with an airport shuttle and a room available. We snagged it and arrived to find the after wedding celebrations of a large group.

Most of the younger, close-up ready, inebriated women were clothed in sky high Manolos (which they were seriously teetering on) and neon colored skin tight frocks. They were all, every last one of them, sporting the dreaded, look killing VPLs --  a sure way to assassinate an otherwise awesome presentation.

Their dates? Peahens are sexier and sport greater style. That’s one of the things I remember clearly from the few years I spent in that part of the country. Beauty, style, flash and general come-hitherness can only be reliably found in the female of the species. Sorry dudes but it's true.

Hey, no VPLs on them though. Yeah, I checked.

The next morning, THIS morning, we checked out, boarded our homeward bound flight and just totally thrilled to the sight of Nantasket Beach and then Nahant and Revere Beach as the plane banked in over Eastie.

As we drove up our street, here in our little section of Valhalla (AKA Hough’s Neck), our neighbors waved hello and welcome back (we live in a Rockwell painting, I’m tellin’ ya!). The Amazing Bob™, who’d held down the fort and seen to our herd of cat, hugged and kissed me. Coco greeted me with a warm ankle rub and a demand to be fed.

Ah, it’s good to be home!

Homeward Bound -- Simon and Garfunkel in Monterey 1967