These are the event of November 3, 2011.
Terminal-B at Sacramento’s International Airport is open?! This is hardly news for most Sacramentans but as one who survives sans TV, I
miss those nationally inconsequential details overlooked by CNN.com. I received
the Terminal-B tidbit via signage aboard the bus from Economy Parking... and flustered travelers racing to re-board, anxious about their departing flight. The two
airlines I most frequent, Hawaiian and Southwest, are newly relocated to
Terminal-B.
Terminal-B
is three floors of open-beamed glass and girders with an arched, wooden ceiling
paragliding seventy-feet overhead. Baggage Claim is on ground, natch. Ticketing
on two. “All Gates” on three. I could find no ascending escalator – only
descending (not kidding) - so reluctantly resorted to the glass tube: elevator and
chute.
A
long loop of cabling drops, gracefully preceding the elevator. It bears a
startling resemblance to Alien dropping silently from above and I recognize
this view as a new view of an elevator.
The
third floor to “All Gates” is nothing more than a way station, a light-rail
terminus and overlook for the ginormous red rabbit diving through a central hole toward baggage on ground.
A red rabbit, not white, which in my humble opinion, is historically more
apropos for chasing toward adventure. One pill makes you larger and one pill
makes you small. White however,
would disappear in the natural light pouring through all that glass.
I
am interested to experience Terminal-B when Sacramento is in its infamous
throes of triple-digit temperatures. All that solar heat trapped beneath glass
– like a solarium. No doubt brighter minds than mine have pondered this
scenario – haven’t they?
The
distal half of Terminal-B is out next to the runways. The Link, a three-car
monorail, delivered me to the security checkpoint complete with two full-body
scanners. Security screening was remarkably quick and light-years more
efficient than the previous, notorious, and terminally constipated check-point
B.
Between
security and runway lies a long line of gates, shops, and restaurants - and I
do mean restaurants – establishments serving real and healthy food like Dos
Coyotes and Jack’s Urban Eats. Notably, distal Terminal-B is sans the
ubiquitous stench of Cinnabons. ‘Tis a breath of fresh air.
I
queued for boarding. The passengers behind me began discussing the American
Bubble as we pressed tightly,
five to a Southwest-Air-seating-section.
“What’s
our in-flight movie?” I asked crossing the jet’s threshold. Our flight
attendant smiled, “It’s an old re-run; me.” We chuckled.
I
stowed my roller-bag overhead and chose a seat just ahead of the mid-plane exit
row. The young, svelte couple behind me read aloud from the placard outlining
occupant requirements for exit row seating. “Passengers requiring a seatbelt
extender may not occupy the exit row.” My attention jerked, ears perked and
rotated posteriorly, a trick I learned from my wayward cat.
“Wow!
I heard that,” I said, poking my head round the edge of my seat. “I wonder if
that’s new? It points to fitness.” They nodded.
Our
flight attendant addressed exit row occupants. “The door weighs fifty-pounds.
In case of evacuation, push that lever in the direction of the arrow, slide
your hands into those slots, and grab onto the handles inside. Pull the door
into the plane, rotate it, and throw it out. Then you are responsible for
staying here to guide passengers out. Is everyone able to perform those
duties?” She paused. “Does anyone want to relocate?” No one moved so she
thanked them for accepting the mantle of duty and moved on.
My
mind wandered. The obese desire exit row seating because excess butt and
back fat moves them forward in the seats and on airplanes, jams their knees into the seatback
ahead. The extra legroom of Emergency Exit Seating (EES) mitigates the
knees-into-forward-seatback problem. And now; now they are excluded from exit
row seating.
I
reached for the placard of information. Here’s the short of it. A passenger
seated in an exit seat must have sufficient mobility, strength, and to:
•
push, shove, pull or otherwise open Emergency Exit
•
lift, hold, deposit on nearby seats, maneuver - over the seatbacks to the next
row or out the opening - objects/obstructions the size and weight of
over-wing window exits… etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. [Said only
in my best Yul Brynner. I command you, as the king would, to re-read it as Yul Brynner would. Precise,
crisp enunciation: Et-ceterra (roll the R’s), et-ceterra (flick your hand
dismissively), et-ceterra! (stamp your foot)] Excellent! Mahalo for your
indulgence.
And a passenger seated in an exit seat must NOT:
•
require a seatbelt extension to fasten his seatbelt.
Bottom
line: ya gotta hoist a 50-pound door and fit within the seatbelt. I consider myself very fit and in the
past, routinely hoisted 40-pound sacks of dog food over my shoulder. But a
fifty-pound door? Out in front? Hoisted over the seatbacks into the next
row? I seriously doubt I could lift that door, pull it in, rotate it, and throw
it out. It’s a shocking and disappointing realization for me… about myself and
my physical abilities – or lack thereof.
…No more exit row seating for me. Waaah!
I
expanded my seatbelt out fully. Just how big is this really? I guesstimated I could sit atop myself and just
fasten the belt.
“How
big is this?” I asked our passing flight attendant.
“Jackie
Gleason but not John Candy?”
Talk about old re-runs. "That’s big,” I laughed.
Southwest
Air made short work of an eighty-minute flight to Portland and we were on the
ground in sixty. I peered out the window as we descended through thick cloud
cover. Rain was forecast for my entire trip and clouds that had stippled our
flight path coalesced densely over Portland.
The
day was gray with low cloud cover – so typical of the Pacific Northwest. We
followed the Columbia River past hillsides colored a deep forest green,
punctuated in gold. An occasional flare of bright orange drew my eye to a
single tree in spectacular fall flame.
I
remember flying into Seattle to a similar scene. Two years ago? Descending over water, thickly thatched
hillsides displaying the best the west can muster in fall foliage. This
reminds me of Seattle.
My
mind back-flipped. This reminds me of Seattle. In that moment, I saw my affinity for hanging
current, present-moment experiences on the memory of something similar. The
cabling of the elevator reminded me of Alien. The scene from the airplane over
Portland reminded me of descending into Seattle.
Familiarity brings a certain sense of safety and at our
most elemental, we seek safety for survival. I wonder how often my
reminiscing to create relationships present to past, distract me from real,
present-moment experiences.
On
the ground, I rode MAX, Portland’s light-rail into the city. The ticket cost a
whopping $2.40. MAX is interesting in that there is a “free-zone” within the
city proper. One can jump on and
off the train, moving about the city without paying a toll. It’s good for
business, making the downtown veeery user friendly.
A
group of Goth(ic) teenagers hustled by and jumped off the train. Their hair
dyed jet-black, their clothing, footwear, caps - black, all black. Chains hung
from their belts, exposed skin sported gruesome tattoos.
“Is
it still Halloween?” an old man asked through a thick Spanish accent.
“Only
in Portland.”
The stop labeled Old Town / Chinatown
propelled me unexpectedly from the train. I meandered through Old Town still
under redevelopment. Not much to it.
Chinatown
is comprised of a very few, dingy streets. I passed many dark, shabby doorways:
so & so’s Restaurant & Lounge. Small groups of men loitered. Why are
Chinatowns universally seedy, sleazy, and squalid?
It
was 1pm; I was hungry. Hong Kong style dim-sum; the sign invited me in. The large, well-lit
restaurant was nearly vacant. I was directed to a table against the wall.
Nearby,
a daughter chastised her mother for failing to calendar her doctor appointments
accurately. The missed appointment had been rescheduled and duly entered into
her appointment book stuffed with annotated paper scraps and corralled by a
large, thick rubber band. They collected her walker and shuffled out.
“Dim
sum and hot tea,” I answered her query.
Two
men seemed to conduct business two tables away. Their voices echoed off the
lifting, green, linoleum floor tiles and Formica tabletops.
My
waitress returned, teapot in hand, pushing the dim sum cart with its collection
of steaming bamboo bowls. I chose a dish of fahn noodles with shrimp and my
favorite – deep-fried mochi balls rolled in sesame seeds, containing azuki
(sweet, red) bean paste. Actually, my favorite mochi balls contain shredded
coconut but azuki beans will suffice.
Cheung
fahn is a Hong Kong street-vendor snack. Rice noodle dough is rolled into flat,
thin sheets served with sweetened shoyu (soy sauce). Shrimp fahn has shrimp rolled up
inside like a crepe. I gasped when she poured shoyu, overfilling and overflowing the dish before I could utter a word of protest. OMG! She left without sopping up the soy that inched its way across my table.
I
looked about. Garish, red tasseled, Chinese kitsch hung from the ceiling and
banister climbing to the second floor. The walls were papered in Ting Tsao beer
posters. Shoyu inched its way across my table. Lovely.
It
is my opinion that as a culture, we Chinese appreciate functionality,
efficiency, and value, often to the exclusion of aesthetics. Meals are seldom
presented with attention to color, proportion, and placement on the platter.
The measure of a good Chinese restaurant is good food - lots of it.
I
looked at my plate of fahn drenched in shoyu and the puddle on the table. I
don’t like salt, don’t want the salt, and sampled with caution. It was a
delicious mix of shoyu, oil, and sugar water. Not too salty and oh-so hou-hou!
(Cantonese for very good.) The mochi-balls were delicious; I stowed two in my
pack.
A
section of the hallway was missing linoleum floor tiles altogether; the exposed
concrete was worn smooth. Paint peeled from the stall door. A bucket caught
dripping water beneath the sink. Corner floor tiles were blackened from
repeated sloshing by a filthy mop, left to dry. Function over aesthetics.
A
scampering cockroach or mouse was all that was needed to complete the picture,
and were I a Portland resident, I would patronize this restaurant for its
hou-hou sung (literally: good, good food).
I
stepped outside and located myself in GoogleMaps on my iPhone. I pointed myself
in the right direction and started walking, dragging my roller-bag behind me.
It wasn’t long before I happened upon the financial district and “Occupy”
encampment. All was quiet at Occupy, no chanting, no picketing. People were
hunkered beneath tarps and in tents, sharing quiet conversations. Starbuck’s
paper cups and plastic lids overflowed the garbage though the sidewalk was clean, the campground tidy.
I
arrived at the Hilton with an hour to spare before meeting high-school beau
Fred and Tina, his lovely wife of thirty-years.
