Returning

Wow. Here I sit, in Williamstown, finishing up the latest version of our Puerto Rico blog. Seems strange. And it is.

We listened to "Muerte en Hawaii" at supper today, and all of us smiled at the weirdness of it.

The last day or so in PR went nicely - you already know a lot of it. Cleaning the apartment, eating the leftovers, leaving the place as we found it, as much as we could. To bed and awake, at 5:30, for the last leg.

The cab driver was perfectly on time, as was Marimer; I brought down most of the bags, and then she and I departed with Clarabelle to take her to the cargo area. We had a nice chat as we drove, and when we arrived at Delta Cargo, Clarabelle, to my astonishment, tail awag, trooped straight into her crate and laid down. Astonishing. She knew, apparently, what was about to happen: Climb in, relax, and in a few hours, they let you out again. I was so pleased that she hadn't been traumatized by the previous trip. Marimer then drove me to the departure gate, where I quickly found Janneke and the kids. Janneke dashed out to give Marimer the keys and a goodbye hug, and we hit the line.

Zoom. The San Juan airport is more efficient than JFK by a factor of ten, easily. Security (first time I get full-body scanned; Janneke noticed they were doing almost exclusively men), straight to the gate, then an improvised breakfast and some time to wait. Spirits high. Noticed some musicians, young, Spaniards, with electric guitar cases that they apparently planned to carry on. I thought of Milena, who told me that cello players often buy a seat for their instrument so they won't have to check it. And I thought, about the guitar players: That looks big. Surprised they let you carry it on. But, hey. What do I care.

They announced that this was an absolutely full flight, and that there might be problems with storage space for carry-ons; therefore, anyone who would like to check a carry-on, free of charge, was being asked to do so. We jumped on that baby and checked our largest piece. And then the boarding began; as we usually do, we hung back so we could spend as little time as possible on the plane. Never quite understood those folks who line up the second they announce the possibility. Dude, you have your seat assigned. Nobody's taking it away. The only thing you gain by getting on earlier is more time immobilized in a tiny seat. But, to each his own.

Somebody at Delta had done their job, realized we were all one party, and seated us all four in a row, unlike the trip to San Juan, when we'd had to horse trade to get next to the kids. We were almost the last people aboard. And as we sat down, the three musicians we had noticed earlier came up from their seats in the back to harangue the flight attendants. One of them counted the open overhead compartments out loud and said, "Tres vacíos. Tres." He held up three fingers to illustrate. The flight attendant was trying to close one, but the musician refused to move his fingers, held up in an illustrative manner still, as he apparently thought he had not made his point clear enough. "Tres." Apparently, as there were so many folks on board, they had asked - required, no doubt - the musicians, with their bulky luggage, to check their bags. And now that everyone was on board, it turned out that there had been, in the end, room for the guitars. Of course, there had been no way to know for sure ahead of time, and they had made a call. Now the guitars were checked, the doors were closed, and there was no getting them out. The flight attendants told them they were sorry, but there was no way now to go back and undo it, and would they please go to their seats.

Everybody sat down. Much zipping back and forth of flight attendants; an announcement or two. And then the two male Spaniard musicians walked all the way from their seats in the back to the front, to badger the flight attendants again. The flight attendants were as insistent as they could be, but the Spaniards argued on and on, and on, and on. A voice came over the PA, first in Spanish, and then in English: "Could all passengers please be seated. We can not leave the gate until all passengers are seated. Both the doors have been closed and we have permission to go to the runway, but we cannot leave the gate until all passengers are seated." Nothing - on and on, even more animated, now, insisting and interrupting, wagging fingers.

I'd had it. Every single passenger on this flight, with however many connections and further travel plans and relatives waiting for them on the other side, was now being kidnapped by a couple of spoiled, entitled whipper-snappers with annoying accents. I was somewhat surprised to hear myself doing it, but I suddenly, and very, very loudly said the words I had been thinking now in my fuming head for a couple of minutes:

"Sentate, gordo. Qué somos, 300 aquí, esperándote a TI?!"

(Siddown, fatso. What are there, 300 of us, sitting here waiting on YOU?!)

They both froze, went silent, and slooooowly turned around, mouths agape. And were confronted with all of our faces, some of them probably laughing, some of them probably nodding vigorously. And mine, glaring intently.

It was like magic - like the scene in Dune when the witch says to Paul "Come here", and he tries valiantly to resist, but her magic cannot be disobeyed, and his body herky-jerky, obeys the command and marches over to her despite his efforts to stop it. They slowly, silently, made their way back through the gazes pouring down on them, and when they got close to me, the nearest one managed to say, "Déjame preguntar, por lo menos." (Let me ask, at least.) I was impatient. "Qué pensás, que no te vimos preguntar las primeras ochenta veces? Cuántas veces vas a preguntar? Preguntaste, y te contestaron. Sentate." (What do you think - that we didn't see you ask the first 80 times? How many times are you going to ask? You asked, and they answered. Sit down.) "Con usted, no vale la pena meterse," he said. (It's not worth getting into it with you.)

Damn straight.

Janneke said she heard a female flight attendant say, "I don't know what happened, but I'm glad it did."

I have to say - the only word I regret is "gordo". He wasn't even fat - mildly soft in the middle, I'd say. And it probably further ruined his day. But, hey - it worked. And it kept him from further ruining mine.

Fly, we did - Janneke and I took advantage of the in-flight wifi to watch an episode of "Mad Men" on Netflix. Snoozed, had a bagel, and I slept through the landing! I was awakened by the applause. Best flight ever.

Off, where JFK frustrated us at every turn - emboldened by my experience on the plane, I said to a squat New Yorker and his squat family who had squatted square in the middle of the area where we all needed to get by in order to leave: "You know, if you guys move back JUST a little bit, you'll be blocking absolutely everything." And he snorted in reply - but then immediately started grabbing at his bags to move. I could get used to this.

Though it's wrong. And evil. And I should not do it. I should take the high road at all times.

Into the van that had come to get us, pick up Clarabelle, who never even whined and didn't even really have to pee; then on the road, stop for a sandwich, let the cat out of her box, watch her install herself on top of a suitcase in the open van and sleep all the way to Williamstown. Flawless.

And then Clarabelle went out back and got nailed by a skunk.

And the internet wouldn't work, so I had to get on the horn with a techie so I could get it going and look up the anti-skunk-smell recipe that worked so well last time.

(1 quart hydrogen peroxide, 1 cup baking soda, 1/4 cup dishwashing liquid. Wash affected area thoroughly and then rinse. Voila.)

But apart form that, it was smooth sailing.

Today we've been putting things away, assessing the house, paying bills, answering messages, making phone calls, trips to the bank, bla bla bla. And tomorrow promises to be damn near normal.

Do I have conclusions? No, I don't. Not this time. Because I truly believe it is not a closed door. I want to go back there, regularly. I want to make more friends there and do more projects there. I want to get the kids' accents to be thoroughly, irretrievably Puerto Rican. I want to adopt a cat form there. And a dog. I want to hunt invasive iguanas and mongooses with a slingshot.

OK, that last one is kind of weird.

But I want to continue this relationship with Puerto Rico. I am more interested in it than I was when I hadn't been there at all. I want to incorporate more of it in my classroom; I want to know more about its history, I want to compare it to Cuba, i want to interview all the Cubans and Dominicans I can who live there and see what they think about it, and what Puerto Ricans think about them...It's an infinitely expanding place for me, and I don't want four years to go by until I get back there again.

Thanks for sharing the adventure with us. For Janneke, Q, T, Clarabelle, Skittles, Vanna White, and the Johnstadt Dancers, this is Joe, signing out.

For now.