Joy In Meadville

Friday, April 9th, 2010 - at 4:00am we pulled the old Rav4 out of the garage. Not much traffic in Abq at that time of the morning, so we arrived at the airport in record time for our 6:00 flight. We wanted "Long Term Parking," which we thought was just a matter of which automatic ticket lane you chose going into the garage. Upon closer inspection, after getting our automatic ticket, we noticed the concrete barrier that funnels "Long Termers" out to the outside parking lot beside the garage. Oh well, it saves about three bucks a day over "Short Term," and we were committed anyway.

It was a much longer haul than usual for our five bags - including the biggest suitcase I've ever seen, just purchased the night before. Carmen had over twenty events on her Meadville candidating itinerary, and looking good for each was/is important (she's still there with four days to go as I write this) and I was included in six events on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday and Tuesday. House shopping was also built into the week. Suffice it to say that we needed a lot of nice clothes and some more casual clothes to navigate our time in Meadville. Rolling our stuff across the whole width of the parking garage ground floor was an unexpected pain in our butts.

The next pain was the ticketing check-in. Our paperwork said to check in at USAir. The computer kiosk wouldn't work for us, and when the humans tried to access our info, they never heard of us. Finally it was determined that our first carrier was really United and THEY had our info. This turned out to be true. Of course, checking bags is now a luxury item, especially when the biggest suitcase in the universe weighs 56 pounds. So we shuffled some shoes and jackets to the three other cases until Giganto was down to 50.0 pounds.

Security was surprisingly easy. My hearing aids didn't make any trouble. The carry-on with the camera, GPS, chargers, surge protector and miscellaneous other electronics went through unchallenged. The "geezer bag" with my hearing aid case, spare trifocals, vitamins, anti-coagulants and compression stockings made it through with no problem.

Ahn, my finger-poker at the UNM Hospital Coumadin Clinuc, told me to drink lots of water and walk around the cabin frequently during the trip. So I brought my own water with me and asked for water during the beverage service between Abq and Denver. There never was a time when the aisle was clear for walking unless the seatbelt sign was on. From Denver to Cleveland we actually got sandwiches with our water, and I managed one quick romp from one end of Economy Class to the other! The "puddle jumper" from Cleveland to Erie wasn't in the air long enough to even get a drink of water, and getting to the plane was a dead run from one end of the Cleveland airport to the other, down the escalator, up the escalator, out the door, down the steps, across the tarmac in the snowy weather, up the airplane steps and crammed into a sardine can, so I had my "walk" beforehand. Other than that it was a very pleasant experience.

Erie International Airport services puddle jumpers to Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto and Pittsburgh. The up side to this tiny airport is that the car rental agencies have their cars right there, fifty feet from the terminal. I waited outside in the snowing weather with our brood of luggage while Carmen dashed out to the lot and fired up the Nissan Versa. The trunk was big enough to hold everything! We pulled Hermione, our GPS, out of the electronics bag, and were on our way to Meadville, about 35 miles south.

We stayed (Carmen is still there) at the house of an absent friend of a church person. It's an old brick duplex apartment with a drive-in basement, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and another bedroom in the attic. The first thing we learned about it was that the front door hinge screws were pulling out of the frame. The second was that it is full of antique treasures and fragile knick knacks. As Carmen says, it's the kind of place where you need to put a coaster under your coaster. Cat toys and scratching posts everywhere. There is one chair in the living room that is dainty and frail looking and surrounded by fragile fru-frus - that is where I always wanted to sit and wave my arms around willy nilly. The water pressure could barely qualify as pressure, the shower head is about five feet high, and the water heater has trouble keeping up. Boy am I glad to be home.

About a half hour after our arrival at the duplex, we were picked up for our first event, dinner with the search committee - the people responsible for choosing the candidate for the next settled minister - and their spouses. It was a lovely evening.

Saturday morning Leslie, our real estate connection, picked us up for a day of power house shopping. We looked at eight or nine possibilities, most of which did not ring our chimes. Most required quite a bit of work to make them our happy home. One was really excellent until we got to the back yard, where the retaining wall was crumbling and falling down. The last one we looked at before lunch was our second choice in our online previews. It became our first choice. The location - five blocks from the church on Chestnut Street - and the excellent condition sold us. After lunch Carmen went back to the duplex to polish her sermon and I continued on with Leslie to look at two more unacceptable houses before returning to her office to start up paperwork for a contract making an offer on the Chestnut Street house. That finished, I brought the contract home for Carmen to sign, and the game was afoot.

That done, we showered and changed for our dinner at Mary's house. A few more church people were there, and Janellen, a chaplain at Meadville's own Allegheny College. It was a lovely evening.

Sunday morning was Carmen's first encounter with the congregation at large. A big crowd came to meet the candidate (and her husband) and to hear her first sermon in Meadville. She had a meeting with the youth group while I was being courted for the choir, building maintenance, set construction for the community theatre and my justly famous corn casserole (thank you, Karen!) In the afternoon we attended a four-hour open house at the beautiful home of the church matriarch, Mirriam. It was a lovely evening. After that we took our first opportunity to buy groceries, went home and collapsed. Leslie called with the counter-offer from the sellers, and we countered that before we went to bed.

Monday was office hours at the church for Carmen, and walking around town for me. I found everything I was looking for: the Walgreen's, the downtown grocery store, the hearing aid place, the bus station and the downtown bus shelter with the transit map. Yes, Meadville has a small transit system! Back at the duplex, Carmen called to say that we got the house and I should get together with Leslie while Rev. Emerson did her nursing home visits. So I walked back downtown to the real estate office and we made the appropriate changes to the contract. "What home inspector do you want to use?" she asked. "I don't know. Somebody local who can do it tomorrow." We picked out two local companies. Leslie went to the reception desk to ask the receptionist to call them - but one of them was standing right there. "Can you do an inspection for me tomorrow?" she asked the tall black man at the counter. "No, I'm booked up tomorrow. But I can do it tonight." So I took the amended contract home for Carmen to initial the changed pages and sign before her Worship Committee meeting, and at 5:30 met the inspector at the house to measure rooms and walls while Paul inspected. I handed the contract pages over to the sellers - who still live there - and was home by 7:30. Wow.

Tuesday was my "geezer lunch" with some guys who could get to Montana Chops and Ribs (or is it Ribs and Chops?) at lunchtime. Mike came all the way from Tionesta to pick me up and haul me there. I met Cassandra, the GPS built into his Lexus. There were six of us, and I think one was younger than I. Rick is about a year older. The rest were WAY older. But we had a nice lunch. It's good to feel like a youngun sometimes, especially after years of being the old guy at work and nine months of age discrimination during my job search.

After lunch I walked to the real estate office for a copy of the inspection report. It didn't include the leaking tub faucet. Carmen called Paul and got an amendment going, then called Leslie and got an amended contract going. The new plan was for me to stop by the office on my way out of town on Wednesday to sign these new documents before I left.

Tuesday evening was dinner with the Board. Our neighbor next door to the Chestnut Street house was there. She's on the church Board and the Meadville City Council. She loves cats, and her husband is allergic. She wants to be our cat sitter when we go away. Assuming we a) are called by the congregation on Sunday the 18th and b) close the house deal successfully. Anyway, the food was good, the president's cat was beautiful, and it was a lovely evening.

Wednesday, April 14th was a crazy day. The easy part was going to the church for Carmen's office hours. I helped her carry her stuff in, then we said our bye byes. I walked the four blocks to the real estate office and signed the contract amendment page, then walked back to the Versa and fired it up. I remembered how to get to Interstate 79, and drove north toward Erie, expecting to arrive at about 10:00 for my 1:30 flight to Cleveland. The car was due back at 11:00, freshly filled with gas. Well, there was some nasty construction at the end of 79 and I ended up going the wrong way on 12th Street. I looked for a gas station as I looked for a place to turn around. Turning around, gasless, I was in the wrong lane and ended up going south on 79. I exited and came back around for another lap. Was this Boston?

This time I exited correctly, found a gas station and parked in the rental car return zone. The agent was very happy that I was a half hour early. Not much going on at Erie International Airport. That taken care of, I wended my way to the Continental desk to check my two bags. I would have to check the smaller one on the puddle jumper anyway, so I decided to check it all the way. My ticket agent was very nice. The flight to Cleveland was oversold, so she was able to put me on a Delta schedule through Detroit and Minneapolis upgraded to First Class so that my upgrade and two checked bags were free! I like that.

The Detroit plane loaded on time, but was delayed for take off for thirty minutes so that I had to haul butt from Terminal C to Terminal A to make the flight to Minneapolis. I was glad not to have a carry-on bag to haul along with my butt. First Class was very cool. The flight attendant hung my jacket in the closet, and kept the water and ice flowing. Ahn would have been proud. I also had a banana and a package of biscotti. I know from personal experience that the sardines packed in back in Economy were envious.

In Minneapolis I had to haul my jacket from A to G, but I had time to purchase and pound down a Double Whopper on the way. Little did I know that a real meal was being served in First Class on the three hour flight to Albuquerque. My southwest chicken salad was very good, with bread sticks, fruit and a brownie for dessert. My flight attendant poured me at least seven glasses of water. I had to use the facilities twice on the plane and once in ABQ Sunport.

We landed at about 7:30 Mountain Time, about twelve hours after I drove out of Meadville. My luggage came through just fine, I found the Rav4 just fine, drove it home just fine, and it was a lovely evening with Remus J. Lupin and my little blind girl.