Monday, January 19, 2009

Presidential Inauguration Trip

Arrived at Dulles late morning -

My next-seat neighbor on the plane plays football for the Washington Redskins - didn't get his name but I'm guessing he's not very good since he was flying coach and had the squishy middle seat (he was waaaay too big for it). The guy with the window seat was all impressed about football guy until I said yeah, so what, I have a ticket for the inauguration... I was the coolest traveler in the row.

Tried to figure out which guy was the Air Marshal - didn't see any obvious signs of firearms, but there was someone near the front who was trying to look inconspicuous. Arrived safely, got on the shuttle to the main terminal and saw an actor whose name I have no idea but he's a short, scruffy guy who was the ex-husband on that sitcom that Cybill Shepard did after Moonlighting. I bet Fred knows. He was sitting across from me on the shuttle and looked at me like he was expecting me to recognize him - I did, but I didn't...

O.K. - Inauguration stuff - my sister brought me to the Vienna, VA metro station so I could just pop in and get the fare pass for tomorrow and the popping in turned into 2 1/2 hours waiting in line to get to the vending machine to buy it. On the upside - I got to hang with the jolliest folks from all around the country and a young guy from Germany, too. A couple from Hawaii came from buying their passes and called out to see if there were others from their home state and when 2 young women answered, they were given the two extra fare passes the couple had purchased to keep others from having to wait in line! Also met a really nice lady selling newspapers who promised that they were commemorative and a bargain since they were 50 cents today, but would be worth $5.00 by the weekend. And I shared my tissues, since everyone had runny noses 'cause of the cold weather. Good thing I brought extra in case of tears tomorrow.

My neice will be taking the day off and coming with me tomorrow, even though I have a ticket and she doesn't. It'll be good, since she's young and I can make her carry all the junk I want to buy. We decided that we should probably get to the train station by 4:30 a.m. tomorrow, so I have to go to sleep right now. Very excited.

1 comment:

Jodsworth said...

I don't remember much of "Cybill" ... I vaguely remember watching it once or twice, but not regularly. However, based on your description, I'm guessing that was Alan Rosenberg you saw (there were, apparently, two ex-husbands on the show, Rosenberg and Tom Wopat)

Have a great time tomorrow - thanks for the reports!

Word verification: "verlyt", which is the state of being not quite overcome with emotion but not being stoic, either.