Of Parenting and The Ethics of Flying, Part 2.

First let me begin by saying that our last night in Charlotte we caved to our desires and went back to Mac's to have the brisket, this time with Mac and Cheese and the Green Bean Casserole. It was freaking to die for, and yes, I have pictures. Since it was the last night we celebrated with a frosty beverage. I had a local pilsner, Captain James Jack.

which was alright, not really remarkable, but not bad either. Here's the Brisket. For those that need to know, this was Carolina Hickory Smoked Beef Brisket. It was dry rubbed and slow smoked for 12 hours, and finished on the grill with red BBQ Sauce. I'm still having dreams about it.

But now, to flying.

I thought that not much could be worse than the experience I had flying in, with a child kicking my seat. I was wrong. There's something I can't stand, and have no patience for: rude adults.

While checking in and getting our seats, Susan and I were lucky enough to be able to switch to exit and aisle seats. They didn't have that much extra space, but it was nice. We boarded pretty quickly and sat down, to find some woman just standing up on the row in front of hours, ostensibly waiting for the plane to finish boarding to try to change her seat; you see, her older children had been placed in the middle seats somewhere in the back (same row though), and her younger child was in the middle seat of the row ahead of me. She wanted to at least get someone to switch with one of her children, so that they could sit together, and so that she could seat in the aisle next to her child. Sensible enough, right? And understandably so. But standing on the person's seat is not really the way to go about asking someone to take a middle seat for you, but whatever. She gets the person to switch with her (after bothering the flight attendant, and just generally standing in the middle of the aisle, getting in the way of people that are boarding) and so Susan and I look at each other thinking, "Good, now that's over, let's sleep!"

But alas, it was not to be. Just then, a "gentleman" comes over and seats on the other aisle seat, buckles himself, and then proceeds to have a conversation with the man sitting by the window - two seats and an aisle away from him. I don't know if I'll be able to explain this just with words. I want to draw y'all a diagram. Suffice it to say, that in order to be heard the men were loud, and annoying. Eventually the mom asks, in a not unfriendly tone if they plan to have a conversation over her the entire flight. The man's response? "You see that man? He's a sports news anchor at (enter small NY TV station) and I'm his producer. We were here covering the Giants/Panthers game."

I really wanted the woman to say "so the fuck what?" because after all, the freaking game is not even in Season yet, and this is a small TV news station. The game was last night. The hell. But instead, the woman feigns some interest, and what proceeds is the weirdest instance of three way flirting while in front of a child that I've ever seen. The News Anchor flirted, the mom flirted, the producer guy flirted and they all did it - LOUDLY. Eventually, the mom started to pay attention to her kid and the producer and the News Anchor just resumed their conversation.

Here's where I was torn. Unlike with Sam, these people knew better. I mean, really? In a small enclosed space like that? I was about to chew my hands off, specially since I didn't have headphones with me. To boot, just as the last few stragglers come in, turns out the News Anchor guy put both his very small bags on the overhead, and the new person putting their luggage away had to ask him twice to at least take one of his bags out. Which, he promptly put back in, on top of the other person's luggage as soon as they went away. In any case, the talking went on for ages.

Eventually, the CHILD was the one that made them shut up, by keeping interrupting the News Anchor and the Producer, asking to see things out of the News Anchor window. And then the flirting resumed between News Anchor and Mom. At least though, their voices were not as loud and annoying as the producers.

To say: I clearly hold more patience for children than for adults. But also, why not be courteous of others? Every time they talked I'd say "seriously, whatever you're discussing is not life and death, wait til we land!" But couldn't bring myself to say so, and eventually didn't really need to. But even 15 minutes of having to listen to them made the flight longer. Alas, next time, I will not forget the all important headphones.

Of Parenting and the Ethics of Flying

After 2 years and 2 weeks of "professional" traveling, I've encountered for the first time those travelers. I'm sitting on the window seat, towards the back of a plane, right behind me is a kid, must be about 3 years-old. I'm not wary of crying children - I can tune them out easily. This one, though, this one's a kicker.

It starts the moment I sit down. Mom is on the phone, sitting in the aisle. In the middle sits a slightly older little girl, who is talkative but her legs are still. She must be 5 or so. Immediately I resent that Mom is sitting on the aisle - everyone knows that for maximum control, proximity to the child is of essence. Listening to her conversation I realize that she's talking to her dad, telling him "you'll do fine," so I decide to cut her some slack and just sit forward, moving my back from the seat rest.

Little devil goes on a rampage, though, and suddenly starts kicking with a vengeance. Finally Mom hangs up the phone, turns to the kid (Sam) and tells him to stop, or he's going to get in trouble with "the Lady." (meaning the flight attendant.)

I want to get up and give her a parenting lesson right then and there. I want to ask her why she doesn't have things to keep their attention (crayons, paper, tiny toys, hell I've seen parents travel with portable dvd players), why isn't she sitting between them and most importantly, I want to let her know that her kids need to respect (and maybe be a bit afraid, at that age, whatever, of) her, not the "Lady."

But I keep my mouth shut because at least she's addressed the problem somewhat and I want to give Sam the chance to redeem himself. He promptly stops kicking and moves to loudly whine about wanting apple juice and being in another plane. I fall asleep as is my wont when the plane departs. Sam, however, does not disappoint, and wakes me up by alternatively kicking my seat - left foot, right foot, together! He sings loudly about his boredom. Soon enough he's taking off his seat belt and standing on his seat. Mom throws out a litany of orders without any real authority behind it (sit down, shh, don't kick.) I kick myself for switching bags and leaving behind the crayons that Yalialma gave me the last time I saw her. I start to wonder how long is my flight and reminding myself I can tune out anything.

Once again I'm surprised parents don't "help" their children and themselves by giving them a bit of tylenol cold or zyrtec or something. Hell, chamomile tea if you're the kind that's squeamish. Anything to soothe them a little bit. They suffer, the kids suffer, the other passengers suffer. His sister (Taylor) attempts to make things better. She tells him: "Sam, there are the airplane rules: first, don't smell your feet. Don't put your feet on someone else's seat. Don't poke someone's eye out."

I finally sneak a peak at Sam and he's of course, adorable looking, with a full head of white blond hair, and he gives me a brilliant smile when he sees me. His mother asks them if they enjoyed NYC, trying to get them busy and occupied. By then she's tried to pull out a laptop and plays them a video, but Sam is not interested - after all the laptop is on Mom's tray, and Mom's on the aisle. I feel the airplane descend a little. I feel a blissful moment of peace when Mom takes Sam to the restroom but on the way back, after tasting a bit of freedom is back on, and he's screaming at her that she doesn't like her, doesn't like Taylor and goes into full rabieta mode. Finally Mom says that he will spend some time in the Naughty Chair at home if he keeps this up. Daddy will not be happy when he finds out how Sam behaved. Sam responds by spitting on Taylor and Mom's response to Taylor, who has just hit Sam is to "don't hit him, just ignore him."

Sister tries to make Sam comfortable and talk. By now Sam has earned 6 minutes on the Naughty Chair. We're about to land - Taylor is distressed because Sam's belt is not buckled and she keeps telling Mom, Mom keeps saying that he's buckled, until she realizes that he isn't and finally tightens him in.

When we land and we're waiting for the 27 rows ahead of us to leave the plane, I stand up and ask Sam to give me a high five and teach him how to thumb wrestle. Mom talks to the children (not to me) saying "you're lucky she likes children after you were kicking her seat for so long." I say out loud that they are children, because indeed, they are. I give Sam a last wave goodbye before my co-worker and I get out of there and to the Charlotte, North Carolina airport.

I changed my mind a lot during the course of this flight - from judging Sam's Mom to feeling sorry for her (when a kid starts a tantrum, I always feel bad for the parent. I don't hold the belief that all children that throw tantrums are spoiled or not well parented.) I still do believe that her flight would've been made easier if she had sat in the middle, although I understand that she tried to give Taylor a view of the window - although Sam kept the window down because the height freaked him out, mostly. The hardest part is when your younger kid is not as easy to handle as your older one. It was obvious that Taylor was the kind of kid that listened and could be reasoned with - those tactics did not work with Sam. I'm proud, however, that I was able to not go crazy, although all through the flight, I kept thinking of this drawing - it's from Strangers in Paradise, David and Katchoo get on a flight and David has less of an enjoyable time. This picture belongs to Terry Moore, the amazing artist.

I'm sorry if you can't read the dialogue. You should buy Strangers In Paradise and read it, it's a great graphic novel. And Sam - I hope your Mom brings you something to play with, at the very least, the next time you fly.

Goodbye Austin, Hello New York

All things come to an end, and so did our Austin trip. We decided to make sure that we ended the trip with a bang and so woke up early for some breakfast before heading to the airport. Enter El Mesón Taquería.

We were there so early we had to wait in the car for 10 minutes for opening time. (7am on Saturdays.) You order and pay right away. I got the Chorizo con Huevo plate, which consists of Chorizo, egg, black beans, potatoes, corn tortillas.

I wasn't expecting ground chorizo, so I was very pleasantly surprised. It was also good and spicy and just pretty much perfect. Well worth almost missing our flight for.

Speaking of our flight - we flew American, from Austin to Newark, via Chicago. We stayed on the same plane, not even getting out in Chicago, so that we wouldn't have to take our stuff out, too. You know what didn't stay on the plane though? Our luggage. But we didn't find this out until we hit Newark, stand by the Carrousel, see everyone else pick up their luggage, and then suddenly the thing stops churning out suitcases. Uh oh. Everyone that flew from Austin had their luggage left in Chicago. It's the first time that has ever happened to me... the suitcase has stuff I want, of course, but since I travel with the real essential things with me I wasn't as upset as some of the other passengers were. American promised to ship it to my house by 10pm Saturday night, but that looks like it'll turn into Monday morning between 7 and 10. You know what was in the Newark airport and that someone forgot to pick up, for some reason?

A couple of boxes of donated human tissue, that's what. I have no idea what that means... is it skin? Dead skin? A little gross, but also funnily fascinating.

I had to rush back to Brooklyn to drop off the equipment and then run home, shower, get prettified, and meet mi Cariño at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to see parts of the Ultimate Latina Theater Festival. It was pretty interesting - these group of women played lines from a bunch of different movies, using all kinds of props and situations to give them different meanings. Only downside was that the whole program was too short: less than an hour. Really enjoyed it.

Afterwards we walked all over LES and found this place called Cafecito, for some Cuban Food. Not a real big place, but had a great set up. We sat at the bar, but outside, on stools facing the inside of the bar. The bartender was cute and friendly and quite personable. Mi Cariño declared that the food was the closest thing to Cuban Miami food, and the sitting outside and the mojitos probably helped. I had the picadillo (which is ground beef) with white rice and maduros.

Although I really enjoyed my meal I wasn't bowled over by it - I was more impressed with the tostones and garlic mojo that came with mi Cariño's meal. However I really enjoyed the ambiance, the Sol's and the Presidentes I had were great and perfectly cold and the music... well the music made it the entire visit worth it. Good, old school Salsa that made us wanna just jump up and start dancing.

Speaking of dancing, after la cena that's what we went off to do. First we met up with some friends, then ran into some other friends, and then the whole mess of us walked to a friend of a friend's birthday party before meeting with more friends and walking to Sin Sin for some more birthday partying celebrations. (Ha! Try making sense of that.) Good Times.