Journal: August 14. A day of many airports. Jude's birthday visit.

Bee Balm

Not much house work, but lots of goings-on.

Loosestrife (dastardly invader)

Woke up at dawn to take Sam to airport.  He'd discovered at the very last minute that his fight to Florida (to pick up his grandmother to bring her back to New York on Sunday)  was from JFK--not La Guardia. This would not have been a terrible problem--but it is about twenty minutes further to JFK, and our brains were too early morning sluggish to make the adjustment.  Still, we assumed there would not be any traffic into Manhattan at 6am on a Saturday morning.  We were WRONG WRONG WRONG.  Construction on the West Side Highway brought the GW Bridge to a standstill.  We sat there for over an hour.

Even with the delays, we did get there in time.  I drove off sure Sam was on his way.     
I'd planned  to drive through Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, but the highway signs--East, West, Eastern Long Island, Verrazano and RFK  bridges, were so delirious, I exited the curling highways.  I was parked at a gas station doing some navigation research when my phone rang.

It was Sam. He had indeed made it to the plane in time, but due to some failures of internet interfaces and other complications,  they had no record of his ticket.  His seat was to be occupied by another intrepid traveller and there were no other Jet Blue  flights from JFK to Sarasota.    Confusion reigned until the bewildered but benevolent airport gods figured out he could fly from Newark at 3pm.  Since I was still in the neighborhood, and didn't have to dash back to Newton, I turned around and picked him once again at JFK.

Alas, by the time we reached Manhattan, the entire city was in deep gridlock---my little gps navigator showed all cross town streets as well as all tunnels and bridges at a complete standstill.  And, to complicate things a bit further, my friends Jude and Alexander were driving to Newton from Philadelphia for a birthday visit.  Scheduled to arrive early afternoon.  Of course, in the end, it all worked out.  We had breakfast in the east village.    The traffic lightened a bit as more and more Manhattanites made it out of the city.  I got Sam to Newark in plenty of time--Jude and Alexander had been delayed themselves so my lateness was invisible.

We'd cooked so much on Friday, it scarcely mattered that I arrived home six hours later than planned).   We  set up a table in the backyard and had a grand feast before taking a flower-filled evening walk, returning home just as darkness fell.

No pictures allowed of many routes leading to and from airports--due to fear of terrorists snapping and bombing away.  instead  you can look at loosestrife and  bee balm, both growing in grand profusion these mid-August days.