Sept. 27: Getting to Paris 1--Seattle to Toronto

As anyone can imagine, trying to fall asleep with the forthcoming day looming large mere hours away is close to impossible. We're going to France for ten weeks!!! I could hardly contain myself. All these past weeks and months I've been telling friends, coworkers, classmates, and basically anyone with at least one working ear that I'd be heading off to Paris on September 27, not to be seen until after December 4. But now the day was actually here, and as I lay down in my bed at 11, I asked William, my partner of four years, if it even made sense for us to go to bed. It seemed like more of an adventure to just stay awake all night and sleep on the plane(s), revived and ready to tackle Paris! But try to sleep we did, failing miserably. We were so keyed up.

When our alarms went off at 3, I was bleary-eyed, but more than willing to face a four-hour flight, a layover in Toronto, and then another seven-hour flight into Paris. We got ready, packed all of our things, and made our way to the Stellings. We were smart enough to deposit our kitty-cat Feistel with the Stellings a week earlier. They would be caring for both car and cat. The latter seemed in the lap of luxury, what with tons more space and an elderly reflection of himself named Mookie that he could rough-house. Tim and Deanna Stelling have known William for a while, so they offered to watch Feistel for us. (It helped that they were looking for a possible replacement for the aforementioned elderly cat (sp?).)

We made two stops before heading to West Seattle: McDonald's (after having just discussed the inevitability of eating here once while abroad, if just for the price and familiarity) and William's office (where he dropped off keys for Jim, his business partner). William almost choked on his hashbrown while driving, which was scary. Ironically, I vaguely remember telling him how oily and gross hashbrowns are, so it seemed like the hashbrown was avenging its own honor as a worthwhile--if delusional--food.

On the way to the Stellings house in West Seattle, we stopped at the Safeway nearby, which we knew to have a Starbucks; we would be needing coffee today! However both were closed, so on to the Stellings.

Tim was up already up when we arrived, turning on the porch light for us. We said goodbye to Feistel, who was by then spoiled by the sheer vastness of the Stelling household and, most notably, absolved of the "No cats on counters" rule, which we enforce strictly at chez Ryan et William. We have missed having his warm, living body at home, getting tangled in our legs and just generally getting into everything. Especially William, who gets lonely at night when I'm at work. Tim assures us that Feistel will be happy, but we already know he is. I wonder if he'll even miss us.

On top of taking care of our valuables, Tim will be driving us to the airport. On the way there, William mentions to Tim how, twelve years prior, the latter had offered the former some advice about living a happy life with a wife that Will would ultimately divorce, whereas now that the two of us are coexisting happily--peacefully!--Tim had no advice to offer. Tim's response was that William is much more confident now than he was then, happiness with me notwithstanding. I suppose I don't need to mention that William met the Stellings when he was a young man of God.

Tim drops us off at the airport, and we have arrived early enough that even after checking in and passing through security, we still have an hour to wait. I went off in search of water to take some Airborne, and when I came back, William had made a friend. His name was Darryl; he reminded me of someone else I knew with his blue eyes and close-cut hair. He was quite cute--and adventurous! He and William got to talking about Africa--which both love. Darryl said he loved his trip to DR Congo more than any of the others, AK-47 notwithstanding. William though that some friends of his, Kent and Kim Rasmussen, might also be or have been in DR Congo, but they found out (he and Darryl, after William whipped out his laptop that they probably worked with people from DRC without going there in person (where, Darryl tells us, white people are strictly forbidden).

They called our rows and we boarded, separately. I felt it would be great to get to know Darryl better, but an hour of chat doesn't often constitute grounds for number-swapping, though I suppose he could have traded emails with William, had Will thought to ask.
We board the plane without much ado. Buckled in onboard, we watch the inflight emergency instructions, which Air Canada provides by way of a well thought-out, creative video. I loved the English-French narration especially, how when one ended (English woman), the other (French man) took up, translating what had just been said, and adding more, which is translated by the woman the next time around. Like so:

Welcome aboard Air Canada. Your security is our priority...
Bienvenues a bord Air Canada. Votre securite est notre priorite. Veuillez faire attention aux instructions suivantes afin d'etre prepare dans le peu probable cas d'urgence...
Please pay attention to the following instructions, so as to be prepared in the very unlikely event of an emergency. Thank you for choosing Air Canada...

And so forth. The movie was "Thank You For Smoking," which was entertaining, although by the time it came on my eyes were sore, so I rested them. I was also annoyed that the woman seated behind William had placed her baby's carseat behind my seat in such a way that I wouldn't be able to recline my seat for the next four hours. Air Canada didn't even serve us food during the long flight; they only gave us soda and bad water, although I think there was a menu you could buy food from.