Don't Splash Ze Pot

Ahhh, what a splendid weekend of family and babies. The little ones are exceedingly cute now. A few words here and there, and the pitter patter of little feet all over the place. If you tell Natalie to squat she'll stick her little booty out, which is already pretty cute, but when she happens to be wearing "Go Irish!" spankys it's pretty much face-implodingly adorable. Both of the little ones were a little wary of me, but that's okay, I'd be wary too if I was a foot tall and an unfamiliar giant kept waving at me like an idiot. All in all it was a nice weekend of oohing and aahing, cards, eating, and chatting. We also solidified plans for a beach house stay on the Carolina coast this September, which I guess will be the first real family vacation we've taken, so I'm pretty pumped about that.

The flight back was pretty outrageous. The co-pilot to Atlanta was glorious. First off, he had one of those slow russian accents, so everything he said was already awesome. Think John Malkovich in Rounders. Hchee beeyat me, stlait ahp. Geef hcheem hchees mahney. So he gets on the PA as we're boarding and tells us "I am sorry for the gloomy day, but I am here to cheer you up" and plays a very peppy tune on his accordian, which he apparently flies with. "You can dance the tarantella to that!" he said when he finished. Ah! From there on out it was non-stop comedy, in that slow meandering russian way he had:

• "Do you all know the 11th commandment? I do not know if you have heard it, but I will tell it to you: THOU SHALT NOT BLOCK THE AISLE."
• "Ladies and gentlemen, the bad news is that we have been further delayed into Atlanta due to the inclement weather. The good news is, I just saved a bundle on my car insurance by switching to Geico."
• "Folks, Delta has instituted a new policy, and that is if we should hit turbulence, you may grab and hold the hand of the person of the opposite sex next to you. Then they decided that was discriminatory. Discriminatory? Yes, and now you can hold the hand of the person of whatever sex you want. Ah, I am finished."
• <Plays God Bless America on accordian> "PLAY BALL!"
• "Ladies and gentlemen, if you enjoyed your flight today, you are welcome to share your feelings at delta.com or by writing me a note on a 20 dollar bill, which you can give to me on the way out and I will spend it. My name is Andrew. Or, if you did not enjoy it, my name is Josephina and I work for Aer Lingus."

But by far the awesomest thing of all was the landing, during which he played a recording of a galloping horse slowly coming to a stop. Excuse me, but shouldn't you be landing the plane right now? Somehow we got in safe and sound. I got the impression that many of the people around me didn't think he was very funny, but I engaged in several hearty chuckles, and you've certainly got to admire the effort.

The flight into South Bend was of course less eventful, except that it was snowing on me. It was one of those Embraers, in the very back seat of the single row, and there was a vent above me that would periodically spit out little white ice crystals. Awesome. Also, I was next to a screaming baby, which was actually kind of cute because her parents, who looked younger than me, clearly did not have any idea what to do. They just kept passing her back and forth looking embarrassed for an hour and a half. Finally when we pulled into the gate, all the power went out except for the emergency lights, and I guess they were having some kind of trouble getting the door open because we just sat there in the dark for a while. Everyone was kind of whispering about what was taking so long, and suddenly the father of the screaming kid shouts out "STOP BREATHING MY AIR!" I laughed loudly. I was the only one, besides his wife. Well, I thought it was funny.

I finally got home around midnight and Lizett promptly wished me a happy birthday, citing the fact that it was technically the 26th. You may note that my birthday is the 28th. What a hooker.

And finally, gloriously, I received a wrecking this morning so savage and yet so insanely, unbelievably unlikely that I couldn't even pause to feel wrecked, I just kind of stood back and went "Holy crap I can't even BELIEVE that happened." Have you ever heard the Dave Chappelle bit where he talks about when something so racist happens you can't even be mad, you're just amazed? He says it way better than I can. But man, suddenly I know exactly how he feels. The wrecking is not important in itself, the point is only this: up until today I considered myself to be agnostic, but I tell you now, there definitely IS a God, and man, He is a pretty funny guy. Dark--very dark--but funny.