Gray Day

I must exude a certain amount of confidence or expertise in areas that I most times do not feel. Three times in the last 24 hours, I've had people ask me for help or direction because they just knew I'd have the answer. Well, I didn't. I don't. I'm clueless. Something about how they took the answer made me feel like they didn't believe me. Why would I lie to them and refuse to help? That is not in my nature and surely they know that about me.

Liars offend me. It is probably my biggest pet peeve of all. Be honest.

Yes. OK, I'll be honest too. I'm not perfect. I have told lies ... some small white lies and some big whoppers ...like when I was 16 and supposed to be at the movies, but really was out necking with a guy ... but I learned a lesson from that. I always feel really bad when I do lie and so I don't. Even small white lies can come back on you. Like saying to your mother-in-law that you really like some dish that she made when in reality you don't, but then she thinks you do so makes it for you every special occasion and you have to continue to eat it and pretend to like it because you lied. Lessons like that make me not lie.

And when I catch a certain someone in a lie, this someone that lies so often that she can't keep track of what she has said ... it makes me not want to be around her ... it makes me not trust anything that she ever says. And yet, she continues to lie never learning and she wonders why I don't believe her. I just don't get it.

Airport Musings

Traveling from Austin to Lubbock yesterday I was struck by several thoughts. First in the Austin airport, I saw a little old lady that reminded me of my grandmother. She was walking through the airport after having gotten off her plane ... coming to visit her grandkids. Mimi used to do the same thing only on buses. I wonder if Mimi were still alive if she would be flying now. I wonder if air travel then had been what it is now if she would have flown. After watching this lady greet her grandkids, I looked around and realized that the airports of today are much like the bus stations of yesteryear.

That got me to thinking of airports of the past. When I was growing up, I had an aunt that lived on the East coast. I remember going to the airport to pick her up at least a couple of times back in the early 1960's. If we were early, we would wait in the cafe which had windows looking out on the runways. Back then, you met your traveler on the tarmac. I have a very clear picture of the airplane, silver and seemingly huge! stairs rolled out to the plane, people dressed up coming down the stairs. (no one dresses up for travel on a plane now) I remember my aunt coming through the door and pausing, looking around and then seeing us and waving before she started down the stairs. In my memory, she was wearing a full length mink coat, high heels, a very stylish suit and carrying a round make-up case. Who could ever have been more sophsicated!

As my plane was making the descent into Lubbock, I looked at the fields white with cotton and mostly unchanged in the years that have passed since the 60's. I wondered what my aunt, on seeing this so many years ago was thinking. Was she, like me, thinking what a dismal, flat place Lubbock is? or was she glad to be coming home?