Leavin' on a Jet Plane

I'm off to upstate NY tomorrow for a family thing. Someone is ill, so I'm getting in a tiny, tiny, thin-skinned, poorly maintained metal tube with aged engines and taking off into the global warming-disturbed ether. Multiple thunderstorms are predicted. The jet is tiny. I am in hell. Please think of me. And assuming all goes well...I have to do the same thing in the other direction on Saturday. With the same awful weather predicted. If I'd been free to do so, I could have left yesterday. When it was blue sky beautiful all the way. Life is not even remotely fair.

Things to look forward to if the plane manages to stay aloft:

• Seeing Cosy Sheridan at a house concert in Omaha on Saturday night. She's worth plunging through the air in a metal tube. Just.


• Seeing some family I haven't seen in a while.


• Seeing yet more family I haven't seen in a while when I get back.


• Possibly meeting up with the new friends I made in Omaha when I was there for a church conference a month ago. They have a hot air balloon, but I suspect I'll want to stick to the ground awhile yet.


• Not dying.

Flying. Ick. Yes, I do it all the time. No, it doesn't get any easier. Quite the contrary.