A new low for airlines...

But first, the adventures of flying on AmAir. As we walk through the airport, notices that the threat level has been elevated to Orange assault us. Then we get on the plane, settle in and notice a tick-tick-tick sound coming from the ceiling. Sounds like a count-down, if you know what I mean. A stewardess says, "what's that sound? I've never heard that before." A passenger notices that the transponder light is blinking in time with the ticks. "Oh," she says. "that must be it."

A steward walks up and hears it and worry wrinkles his brow. He starts to reach for the overhead rack handle and the first stewardess says, "don't worry, it's just the light out there."

This soothes our steward who says, "huh, over a 100 flights and I've never heard that before." And he walks off.

Maybe they didn't know the threat level was Orange...

So we take off without incident and we discover the new low for airlines: Stewardess offers us a drink. We accept and inquire about peanuts or crackers, the usual snack on a flight. "We do have snacks," I'm told. "Would you like to purchase some?"

You pay for snacks now on a six hour flight (probably on all flights, but you get hungry in six hours and $2.00 for a small bag of chips is hard to swallow after plunking down $700 for tickets, y'know?)

We got in okay. Got our car and headed out on the highway.

Then it started snowing.

In Stanwood it was really coming down. "Don't worry," my sister says, "It's not going to stick." Maybe not, but the inch of white stuff on the road sure looked like sticky snow...

We arrived without incident to my parent's house. We got another couple inches in the night, but it melted the next day.

Things are going apace for the funeral. My sister is an amazing woman and she's doing better than I ever could in her circumstance.

Rule of thumb: Pack snacks for all future flights.