Tales From The Flight Home

I’ve chosen this not-very-good photo of me at Igauzu Falls for my return to blogging.  Why?  Because I don’t really feel ready to write so I want to save the better ones for later.  This is probably stupid.  Okay, well why is this a bad photo?  I’m a silhouette!  It doesn’t look like Iguazu Falls behind me… or anything on earth, really.  Looks like I’m in front of a green screen which is projecting the apocalypse (without my knowledge, hence my clueless grin).

Anyway!  Yes I’m back, but right now this won’t be much but I just want to say hi.  I’m probably still a little sleep-deprived.  This is because we recently took an overnight flight home.  Which is a fantastic idea… except I cannot sleep on planes.  I’ve addressed this before!  Anyway.  I will now reflect on that flight.

It was a 10-hour flight from Rio.  I watched four movies back-to-back, and I was completely alert the entire time.  Which is kind of amazing, because at home I can barely make it through a 30-minute television show without falling asleep.  I wish I were kidding.

The highlight of my movie-binge was watching “The Little Prince”.  I was riveted.  Eyes glued to the screen.  And I cried.  Oh, did I cry!  My lower lip was trembling violently for quite some time as I watched, eyes wide, tears streaming silently.  I don’t think I’ve cried like that since I was a child.  If you haven’t seen the movie (or read the book) and have no idea what I’m talking about… then you need to see it!  What a magical, magical film.  So touching!  Or MAYBE I just get emotional when watching movies on planes?  Is that a thing?

Me and planes.  One moment I’m sobbing over a children’s film (one that is AMAZING AND LIFE-CHANGING I SWEAR!) and the next, I’m being just a major jerk.

We had to change planes in Toronto to fly the remaining distance to Winnipeg.  A 2-hour flight.  For whatever reason, Andrew and I were not given seats together.  This annoyed me to no end.  If I have to sit in economy and be squished against people, I want to be squished against my husband!  OBVIOUSLY.  Also, I don’t mind sitting next to females, as I am also a female and females tend to be smaller.  And generally speaking, females don’t often tend do that annoying man-spreading thing.  But.  On this occasion I was supposed to sit between two strange men.  No one was willing to trade with Andrew and I so we could sit together.  I guess I don’t blame them, they’re four men, no one wants a middle seat.  But this pissed me off.  One man beside me was a tad larger than the tiny economy seat allowed and his elbows veered off the armrest to my side.  “NO WAY IN HELL. NOT TODAY!” I yelped in my head.  I reached for my sturdy water bottle and made a big production of positioning my water bottle firmly between my waist and the armrest, thus forcing his elbow back onto the armrest and away from me… without me having to touch him.  I mean, I was already giving him the entire armrest for pete’s sake!  NO WAY was I going to let him pass that point and infringe on my seat space!  Him being bigger than the seat allows?  Not my problem.  But I was certainly kind of making it a problem for him.

You know what?  In the end… I realized he’s actually a nice man.  He can’t help the size he is.  He apologized, I guess for taking up space.  Because I was behaving like such an asshole.  I hadn’t even looked at his face or said hello.  If I had… I might’ve seen that he’s one of the nice ones.  I felt pretty remorseful for my mean-spirited behaviour.

It’s interesting.  So yeah, we went to Rio de Janeiro, in spite of all the horrible warnings about all the dangers.  And you know what?  It was a completely wonderful experience.  The only evil person I encountered on this trip… was my own self.