planes raze there must have been a million of them roaring above our heads today, so low i could almost reach out and be torn apart, wrist ravaged by wing. there was another just a minute ago. the people across the pond say they've rerouted to account for inclement weather. there is no wind. no sleet or snow. no rain or fog. conditions are clear. the roof of our house is now an airstrip where miscreants move their merciless machines from one lie to another. 241213 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Ugh, yes. I hope you won't be plagued with the extra aggravation for long. I'm inured to it, sort of, here in Dorval. But. When the weather gets window-openingly warm, I grit my teeth at their grumbling, roaring sounds. After a while, I tune it out better. And weirdly the planes have become a sort of pride; their noisy path is the trade-off that let my parents afford this house. But that also wouldn't have happened without the intervention of Dr_K, whom I worked for in the last year and a bit of his life, editing his last book. (Once he asked me, frustrated, why women always start to cry instead of solving their problems themselves. This was a massive generalization, horribly sexist, and EXACTLY the thing to stop my tears. I became indignant and reasonable. Tangle of yin and yang, sort of like the airplanes.) ... Good and bad. Their frequent flyovers bring me global-warming anxiety sometimes, but I'd be a hypocrite if I claimed I wanted to ground them altogether. I've used the things a few times: -Italy trip in 2004, with some of my high school classmates & staff -Choir exchange in 2006, in St. John's, Newfoundland; bad weather stalled us for a day at our Halifax junction, but I was happy to have a then-new city to visit and sing unexpectedly in a mall corridor (why not) -My brother's 2019 graduation in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. In retrospect, maybe the plane wasn't justifiable for such a short trip...I could have carpooled with my parents...but I didn't want to miss a concert I was singing in the night before. -England & Wales trip in 2022, with David -The trip in 2023, supposed to be to Germany and England only: May and most of June, I was in the immer_immersion German class; June's last week was for a calmer holiday with David. But Germany had unexpected detours - car trip to the Netherlands, train trip to Switzerland. The only within-Europe flight was between Frankfurt and London. The sort of itinerary to make frequent travelers go "Only...?" and people in actual poverty "All that?!" ... Planes. Wouldn't dirigibles be cooler, though? Yes, they'd take a few more hours to get from Place A to Place B. No, they wouldn't be at much risk of bursting into flame if using an inert gas, not like the hydrogen of the Hindenburg. My dad's friend Mike is in favour; I think he's the one who put "dirigible" in my vocabulary, which sounds much more steampunk than "blimp." 241213 ... e_o_i edits content unrelated to planes (The thing about Dr_K isn't clear; it was before I was born when he helped my parents with a loan for buying this house. He was my dad's thesis supervisor; it was years later that he hired me as a research assistant/editor (more a typist/proofreader, but yes).) 241213 what's it to you? who go blather from