Flight 475 - Milwaukee to Baltimore
06/11/2007
Friday, June 8th: This flight pulled away from the gate at just about 7:10am. I am currently flying over Lake Michigan and looking out over Chicago from 31,000 feet. There is a layer of gray clouds above the plane and scattered ones below. I am listening to the Audio Visions (New Age music) channel on the plane’s XM radio system, and I am feeling very Irish at the moment – love Celtic. Baltimore awaits me in about another 75 minutes, according to the pilot.
Two nights ago I wrote about my adventure at the Houlihan’s restaurant just a short walk from the Hampton Inn (Dan the Man). I decided, once I re-checked in to this hotel and after a very long day of traveling to and from an appointment in Iowa (once a year in that place is enough for me), to go back to the Houlihan’s for another round of serendipitous kismet. After spending almost seven hours in a car, I was quite anxious for a little entertainment of the human variety. I was rewarded. It seems I have an uncanny, innate ability to put people at ease to a point where they open up (some even too much, eh Dan?) and say stuff better kept secret.
For the second time in three nights in Wisconsin, I bellied up to the bar – these days I have the belly made for it. Within a few minutes a very nice looking lady, possibly in her mid-forties, sat at the bar on a seat around the corner from where I was seated, maybe four or five feet diagonally from me. She was relatively attractive, blond hair in a French twist style, red blouse, and black skirt – yeah, I noticed; I am old, not dead.
Anyway, I was telling the bartender about my last visit and my conversation with Dan. This lady, I guess I really didn’t care enough to know her name, said something, and we began a conversation, mostly just small talk. She was there on business from her home in Florida, via Phoenix, and had been traveling since Sunday. She is married and has a fourteen year-old son. She had returned to full employment after being off for six months, and I forget the reason for the sabbatical.
It wasn’t too long before her cell phone rang and she answered it. I heard her tell the guy (an assumption I made very quickly) something about a lady sitting in a booth just beyond the other side of the bar. The lady looked like “your sister,” she said. Curious, I looked over in the direction of the booth. There sat a couple holding hands across the table. The lady was looking adoringly at the man, as he was quietly telling her something. She had an angelic, Mona Lisa smile on her face. As my bar mate ended her call, I jokingly made the comment that the couple couldn’t be married (given their handholding), and added they were either on a date or having an affair. The comment I made was the key to opening the door to her compartment of secrets.
She said, “Funny you should say that. I am having an affair and I was just telling my guy that lady looks like his sister.” Than she decided, I suppose, it was safe to reveal herself to me, so to speak.
She has been married for seven years. (Sounds itchy, to me) Her lover is sixty-years old, but is gorgeously handsome and has dated some women as young as thirty. She doesn’t know what happened to her current marital relationship, it just died. She lives in one part of the house and her husband in another. They are staying together for the sake of her son. I suppose they think the son doesn’t notice the marriage partnership sucks.
The lover was apparently calling her to let her know her husband was out having dinner and might be with another woman. The ironic thing was that this lady sounded a little hurt by the fact her husband might be fooling around. Hmmmm?
Long story short, as I was leaving I asked her if I might give her some honest feed back, didn’t wait for her answer, and left her with this: “End it.” She will have to determine which part.
And that is all I have to say about that…