Monday, June 13, 2005

Tara Plane Blues

This Friday, I will be heading north to my hometown of New Albany, Indiana. This is going to require getting on a plane and flying to Louisville. I don't like flying on planes. I usually have small to medium panic attacks. The flight to Louisville is fortunately very short though, and I will be with my dad who tends to have a calming affect on people most of the time.

New Albany is a small town in the heart of "Kentuckiana," which as Michael Feldman says, is better than "Indyucky." I will be staying at my aunt's house which has a pool and a hammock, and I intend to take advantage of both. I will also get to hang out with some of my cousins, which I am looking forward to. Mostly, I will be visiting places from my childhood, like the Zesto (ice cream) and Arnie's Pizza King. I am going to take Ralph, which will increase the number of states he has visited to five. It will be his first time on a plane.

On a slightly related note, I have noticed that I am beginning to develop a new irrational fear to go with my collection. On the evenings that I leave work at the beginning of rush hour, I have to drive on Central Expressway, which is a busy expressway with lots of construction and bad drivers. But do I fear being crashed into by some idiot on a cell phone, or getting a 'traffic fines doubled' ticket in the construction zone, both of which could very likely happen? No. Instead, I fear that the traffic helicopters which frequent the skies above my route are going to suddenly spin out of control and fall violently on my car. I am constantly on the lookout for this. Now, this fear is not completely unfounded, as it did happen a couple of years ago here in Dallas. A traffic copter lost an engine or something and crash-landed in the middle of a very busy intersection during rush hour. Luckily, I am pretty sure no one was seriously hurt. It is for this reason that I should not be allowed to watch the news, because I never used to give these helicopters a second thought. Sometimes it sucks to be me.

Yesterday we saw Madagascar, which was very entertaining, especially Da Ali G. Show as the lemur king, and a funny group of penguins. Of the 4 main characters, surprisingly, David Schwimmer's giraffe character got the best lines. The other 3 were mediocre. Anyway, overall, it was a good movie, and I recommend it. Two weeks until March of the Penguins comes out. I can't wait for that.

Time to get ready to head to work. The traffic copters from the morning commute should be safely parked somewhere by now.

2 comments:

Julie said...

Tara- i am glad you are going to the wedding- and will get to visit places of your childhood- i did that over Memorial Day weekend in Minnesota- it was fun but everything was much smaller than I remembered. I hope you have a great trip!! Don't fret the copters- just turn the radio up and focus on the crazy drivers! I'll be the one on my cellphone!

Gye Greene said...

Interesting! Didn't know you weren't a native speaker of Tex-ish.

-GG