Saturday Slightly Snowy

Okay, okay, I've used that title before. I've also sat in Spokane Airport before getting to know the TSA guys and their jokes and whoever else is sitting and waiting for flights that never come. Last night's "whoever else" came in the form of a personable Pentecostal minister/log truck driver/jack-of-all-trades/father of six/grandfather to 30-something.

His character substituted for the role of the businessman from Chewelah who waited with me back in December while our precious cargo sat in the Ontario, California, airport for 8 hours beyond their original departure time and boarded three different planes in the process.

I felt slightly groundhoggish again last night while sitting in the Horizon-Alaska terminal waiting for Annie who originally was supposed to be on the 7 p.m. flight from Seattle, but that changed to 9:30 p.m. and that changed to the 5 p.m. flight that was leaving at 6:30, but that changed to the 5 p.m. flight leaving at 8:30. That also involved Annie deplaning three times with two planes and a guy sitting next to her on all planes mumbling F-You under his breath but loud enough for Annie to hear every time a new flight SNAFU was announced.

Annie said she got a bit tired of his F-words and almost asked him to refrain but figured it he uttered that many F-words about innocent little flight changes, what might he do to indignant strangers who didn't want to listen to his F-words? So, she dealt with it and kept quiet.

Another friend, whom I'd gotten to know on a first-name basis during the December waiting marathon, walked by last night. Four months later, we had forgotten each other's first names but not our faces. In December she was the "hostess with the mostess" for Express Jet, the carrier bringing my precious cargo, Mow, from Palm Springs. Well, Express didn't live up to its name that day, and maybe that gave this friend a hint to try a new airline cuz now she's working for Horizon.

She was so pleased to learn that I was waiting there this time for my daughter.

"Oh, what airline is she on?" my friend asked.

"Horizon," I answered.

"Oh," she said, suddenly acting as if she was in a real hurry to get on her way. I expect next time to see her working at the Southwest Terminal---if they get all their planes inspected properly, that is.

Well, Annie finally arrived, and I said good bye to my new best friend, the Pentecostal minister, and told Annie I'd do the driving because the snow was blowing all over the place and she doesn't get much practice driving on snow in Seattle. Not since driving the LA Freeway back in 1994 with a van filled with seven journalism students have I white-knuckled it at the steering wheel quite like I did during last night's three-hour drive home to Sandpoint.

Using 4-wheel drive most of the way, I learned about near-hypnotic states as billions of thick white snowflakes blew into the windshield and their predecessors covered the pavement, hiding any semblance of white or yellow guiding lines.

The saviors on last night's trip home were those normally obnoxious serated tracks in the pavement, grinding out their message, like fingers on the chalkboard, that we're straying too far to the right or left. As Annie said while we all but slid down the freeway in the midst of hundreds of other tentative drivers, those things provided some much-needed traction. I actually welcomed the sound every time I moseyed their direction.

And, this is March 29, and most of Sandpoint---anyone with any brains or money---has left the area for parts south. I saw a former student, Scott Brown, at the Ramada where I ate some dinner before heading over to the terminal. He was headed to Bermuda. I know people who are in Florida this week, and I know folks in Cancun and folks in Hawaii. I am thinking about them, rather jealously so.

But, we'll make it through this day of blowing snow, which has built up another six-eight-inch blanket overnight. Annie says she's kinda happy the weather's like this cuz she's looking forward to some down time from all her hiking and half-marathons and bare-ground walks to work. We'll try to make her stay as pleasant as possible by refraining to use "F-you" comments in her midst, even though we think we have good reason to say such things to our dear beloved Mother Nature.

Maybe Willie will be glad to see the snow when he comes tomorrow to celebrate his spring birthday in beautiful North Idaho rather than in Boise where the daffodils have certainly come and gone.

As for Bill and Marianne, and all the rest of us poor, weary North Idaho saps, we're still waiting, and they do say that "Good things come for those who wait." If so, after this winter, we must be gonna win the lottery and win big.

Have a nice Saturday from Snow Country.