Coming home to 55 degree Oregon after twelve days in 78 degree Maui is a shock. Waking up moderately jet-lagged this morning revealed the lows and highs of returning from vacation.
Low. The refrigerator is disturbingly empty.
Low. The grass is scarily high.
Low. The mower that cuts the grass chose this day to break a belt.
Low. The suitcase filled with recently-bought shirts that are a mass of wrinkles owing to my poor folding skills (see post below). An ironing board is in my destiny.
High! Serena survived the kennel, where she was appropriately given a Hawaiian-themed bandana to wear home (forgive the flash-induced blue eyes, which obscure her beautiful browns).
In celebration of Serena’s return, and my fixing of the mower belt after it took about 10 times longer than it should have, due to my possessing 10% of normal male mechanical skills, I threw caution to the winds and invited her to take an afternoon nap with me on her dog-room futon.
Not a good idea. I don’t understand how people—and there are a lot of them, from what I hear—can sleep at night with their dog, or dogs, in their bed. From a distance, Serena seems to sleep quietly. Close up, with her head nestled against my chest, she wheezes and snores like crazy.
Makes sense, since her nose is so long. But not human nap-friendly. I was happy when she jumped up after hearing Laurel turn on an outdoor faucet. Let sleeping dogs lie unless they are snoring in your face, that’s my new motto,.
For those of you, and there can’t be many, who have been worrying about whether our filled-to-the-brim-with-new-clothes checked luggage made it past the Hawaiian Airlines 50 pound weight limit, I am pleased to report that Yes, It Did, thanks to a non-compulsive agent who, for a few minutes, became our very best friend.
When Laurel heaved her suitcase on the scale it read “53 pounds.” Oops. Mine read “48.” A logical conundrum, if we both were going to avoid the $25 overweight charge. But the Hawaiian Airlines guy told us that he figures that 52 pounds is a reasonable limit. So a quick shift of a pound of clothes from Laurel’s bag to mine did the trick.
I told the agent that humidity could easily add a couple of pounds to the weight of slightly damp clothes, and that some scientists believe the constants of nature, such as gravity, actually may have varied over time rather than remaining, well, constant. We were headed for a great conversation, but he needed to check in other passengers.
We came away feeling good about Hawaiian Airlines, so if some executive of the airline Googles his company and finds this post, please encourage all of your check-in agents to be equally hang-loose about a few pounds. It is good business, especially since Hawaiian is in bankruptcy and needs all the passengers it can get.
Anyway, as the agent noted, apparently there used to be a total weight limit, rather than a per bag limit. Since my boogie board weights just a few pounds, yet gets counted as one of my two allowable checked items, shouldn’t we be able to get some leeway on a barely-over-50 pounds suitcase, given that I could have checked 100 pounds worth of stuff?
Another compliment for Hawaiian Airlines: their current vegetarian meals are the best I can remember eating in coach. We were told that after April 1 you can’t order “special meals” (to save money, undoubtedly), but that doesn’t matter so long as Hawaiian keeps having the tasty veggie pasta dishes we enjoyed coming and going.
Our United Airlines Mileage Plus VISA card is gathering dust. Hawaiian Airlines is the way to go from Portland, to Hawaii at least. Direct flights to Maui and good meals to boot. Plus an Aloha spirit that lets your bag be a few pounds overweight.
Mahalo, Hawaiian. May you get out of bankruptcy and stay in business.
Welcome home. We are in Washington where it is also 50 degrees. Not like our wonderful St. Lucia!
Curious: Has your bucket always been half empty or half full? I noticed you mentioned "lows and Highs" instead of highs and Lows??
See you soon.
Posted by: Carol Ann | April 10, 2005 at 09:13 AM