A FORTUITOUS "HANG-UP" IN HOUSTON,
GETS ME ON THE ROAD IN A RENTAL CHRYSLER CONCORDE FOR THE 200
MILES TO SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS AND A VERY MUCH ANTICIPATED MEETING
WITH TWO NEWCOMERS TO CELEBRATE THEIR THREE MONTHS' BIRTHDAY
THE DAY BEFORE THEIR FATHER'S 32ND BIRTHDAY---
DEVIN MICHAEL AND JORDAN LEE GEELHOED!
Oct. 1, 2001
Surprise!
Events had rapidly transmogrified!
I have had a rather interesting arrival in Houston with the simple statements
that I could simply "not get there from here!" when trying to get
a ticket to go on to Washington. So I did not!
I am, instead, in San Antonio, a place I had wanted to be anyway, but did not
know I would arrive here sooner than the mid-November trip already booked!
As a consequence, guess who they are making those gurgling cooing noises in
the background just now?
I am here in the home of Michael and Judy, and the two other dependents typically
described here, Max and Sandie, are no longer the first to come to mind!
INTRODUCTION TO THE THREE MONTH OLD TWIN BROTHERS,
DEVIN MICHAEL AND JORDAN LEE,
AFTER A BIT OF A RUN AROUND ARRIVAL IN HOUSTON
On arrival in the international terminal at IAH, along with a dozen other flights, almost all of them from some Spanish-speaking venue such ass Cancun or Acapulco, our Airbus-load of arrivals went through the immigration and customs also. I claimed my duffel bag-with now three straps broken and two buckle snaps already history on its maiden voyage-and awaited the carrousel spinning around to deliver my little "dangerous blade." At least they were consistent, since I had metal spoon and fork, but only a little plastic knife on the trays for the three dinners this long flight entails.
I scurried over to the Continental transfer desk after Customs was cleared, and found I needed to get into Houston and come at the ticket counter in the domestic terminal. This I did, and found an agent who was sympathetic to my plight, but announced with chilling clarity the same numbers that the Frankfurt agent had cited-a simple round trip ticket to the Washington area (it would have to be Dulles, since DCA was not yet open and BWI was oversold) was over $3,000! This compares with the Southwest Air ticket of $77 one way to BWI-presumably the tickets that are no longer available!
I simply pulled out of line, refusing to be gouged in such a mercenary way, and the agent agreed-but then, that left me here in Houston, to either park here until my onward flight, still valid, to New Orleans on October 7, or make do with whatever I thought might work out. It would be cheaper to rent-or, even buy!-a car and drive up to Washington!
SCRAMBLE PLANS TO WORK OUT A NEW AND CLIMACTIC
CONCLUSION TO THIS MULTI-VENUED AND STAR-CROSSED TRIP
I used my credit card to call Judy at home and tell her I might be visiting, if it could work out with them. They are home through Michael's birthday on Wednesday, and, no he did not get my special card I had mailed from Simla at the start of this trip. On Thursday, they would be flying to Jacksonville to attend a meeting at St. Augustine where they would be until Tuesday I gave Judy the payphone number of the adjacent phone, and started calling from the other phone to see if I could get a ticket out of Houston to return to Washington that was not at scalper's prices.
I got the same figure by calling Continental reservations, which told me that I could try a travel agent somewhere to look for a better deal, but there was little likelihood of that happening, since there were no seats available on the flights they still had to IAD anyway until later tomorrow, so I would remain in Texas even if I could spring for the inflated flight prices. The only ticket available for a return to Houston from IAD on Sunday was a First Class seat, which would make the flight still more expensive, but it would also be gone soon. It was the only one that was available, so I took it.
I then asked if I could charge it against my frequent flyer One Pass Account, and I could do that the agent said if I would give her my account number and four digit password. In my daytimer diary I had a three digit PIN, and that did not work, nor any permutations of it. So, I could do this only if I furnished a PIN that was valid, or get charged a special $75.00 fee and they could look it up and mail it to me. OK, what else can I do?
So, I am booked now to return on Tuesday afternoon to arrive in Dulles on Tuesday evening and get me somehow down to GWU to reclaim the Bronco, still packed up with the hunting gear from the Kamchatka hunt as a starter on the Colorado Elk Hunt. I have the first class seat to return to Houston on Sunday to connect with my New Orleans ACS ticket, and the continuing tickets to DIA and return after both the hunt and the UCHSC lecture the day before Joe and I run the Inaugural Baltimore Marathon. And, that left me free to get a rental car to scoot over to San Antonio and meet the boys!
CHRYSLER CONCORDE TRIP FOR 226 MILES FROM
HOUSTON TO SAN ANTONIO
I drove the racy looking Concorde down the Sam Houston Toll way until I hit the I-10 Expressway west through a barren bit of Texas to cross 410 (the San Antonio Beltway) 3 hours later, and I pulled off at 9:00 PM at the McDonalds's to use the phone. The line was busy for a while, so I kept trying between the intervals of getting coffee to keep me awake and alert in finding Michael and Judy's house on the West side from the entering East side of town. I made good time to get to arrive just before the kids were being got ready for their last feeding and being put to bed.
INTRODUCTION TO MASTER DEVIN MICHAEL
AND MASTER JORDAN LEE GEELHOED
As soon as I stepped in to the house, I saw Devin in his rocking Fisher Price bed, as Michael was getting a bottle ready for Jordan. I picked up Devin to feed him, as Michael fed his brother and we got them ready for bed. Devin is a faster feeder, and a bigger baby by about an additional pound and a half. His brother Jordan has finer features and bluer eyes, and each is easily distinguishable, with their own personalities.
Each of the twins are three months old today, and has the characteristic capacities of the three month old---I used to write in the chart of the three month milestone "SLAP", which stood for "Squeals Like a Pig." They have not yet mastered the head control thing or sitting upright on the sofa without gradually leaning like the tower of Pisa, and falling over on one side. Devin's head is bigger than his body is proportionally to Jordan's and he has a flatter spot on his right occipital, and he seems to turn his neck to the right more than the left. Both gaze in their blue-eyed stares at bright lights or the stripes on the sofa's pattern when they are on the couch, as well as looking intently at some times at least at the TV. Tonight's Monday night football was the Jets versus UCSF with New York Fire Department heroes on the field to share the spotlight. Mayor Giuliani continued his crest of the wave that will ride him another three months in office and have him retired in illness as the hero, whereas he was vilified as recently as last year for giving over the Senate race to Hilary Rodham Clinton as well as other issues relating to shedding a wife and picking up another before the problem of his prostate cancer took him out of all offices. He had addressed the UN in the morning, as I saw reported on the Lufthansa A-340, and at night he was getting the game ball from Vinny Testeverde, a replay that the twins were looking at as we sat together on the couch before it was time to bring them up to their well-equipped nurseries.
When Judy had tucked them in after their angelic slumbers began, I popped a few flash pictures of them in their cherubic splendor, matching outfits and entertainment centers. It is fun to get to know them at this three-month age when they have learned the first and most vital of their social skills---they can smile at their grandfather, and at others who have held and fed and cuddled them. Michael modestly says that comparatively, it would be far easier taking care of just one! Judy had wrenched her back recently as she picks them up and carries them around as often as scores of times each every day. She has a few home projects, which include writing a grant application for St. Mary's so I may have happened along at the right time to get a short relief so she could work on that in the morning.
We also conspired to do one additional thing Judy was generating. Michaels's birthday cards did not yet arrive from my posting them out of Manali two weeks ago. Judy had made up a sign for Michaels's 32nd birthday tomorrow-"Happy Birthday Dad!" I then photographed the three of them then the five of them as Max and Sandie wanted to also get in on the act, with the card to be recorded on digital disc, on film on my still camera pocket Nikon, and I videotaped the chorus of the two boys cooing and crooning together in what Judy and I were sure was a rendition of "Happy Birthday."
This is a fitting conclusion of the 24 rolls of film I am turning in from this trip in a very photogenic safaris starting with the scenes at National Airport on the eleventh of September, with the mushroom cloud over the Pentagon, and the fleeing crowds from the DCA toward Crystal City, along the way of the spectacular Spiti Valley in the circumstances of our recent medical mission, and now the introduction to the two boys in San Antonio. I will see them again in a month and a bit more, by which time they will have changed a bit again, but I have this three-month view of them as the base line, others have already had
So, I am rather glad for the circumstances that held me up in Houston, long enough for me to scoot on down to where I had wanted to be at about this time in their lives in any event!