more levi and bristol, and more flight delays

ok, i am truly never flying again. i have been sitting here in the st. louis airport for 4 hours now trying to fly out. apparently hurricane ike is wreaking havoc on cincinnati and we are not being allowed to leave. children around me are screaming and i was forced to pay $7.95 for internet in order to avoid strangling them. i think that is money well spent.

i am trying to calculate the sheer number of hours i have spent waiting for airplanes in the past year and the number is mind boggling. i actually cannot wrap my head around it. seriously, if you have any sense of self preservation, do not fly with me. your flight will be delayed longer than you thought humanly possible. and then longer than that.

the good thing about sitting in airports for ungodly numbers of hours is that it gives you a lot of time to observe other people and realize that actually you do not really have it that bad after all in life. i do not have a beer belly. i do not wear a fanny pack. i do not have children, let alone children who scream and throw things and kick and bite. i pack lightly.

in other news, i read this article just now and got some hot bristol and levi gossip:

I COULD live with the small, but growing misgivings I’ve been feeling — until I saw in the coverage of the Republican National Convention that Bristol Palin’s intended, Levi Johnston, had “Bristol” tattooed on his ring finger.

Suddenly, I had a bit too much in common with a high school senior who a week before had declared himself a redneck on his MySpace page, threatened to pummel anyone who messed with him and said he was “in a relationship but didn’t want children.”

Now, with the mother of his pregnant girlfriend running for vice president, he had cut his mullet, shaved his peach fuzz, swapped his hockey sweater for a rep tie and an American flag pin, and manifested his love with a ring tattoo.

ok, awesome. i need to find this kid's myspace page. i really want to start sending him secret love notes to see if i can get him to stray from his wife to be, but i am thinking that is probably a) illegal (isn't 17 underage?) and b) not really a good idea in real life since my brain is pretty addled by airport fumes at this point.

this is a food blog after all so here is a photo of me and kathleen enjoying dinner at one of the tasty mexican restaurants on cherokee street in st. louis

one final unrelated thought: last night, kathleen and i went out to see a movie at a theater 3 blocks from her house. on our walk back, we were stopped by the sound of gunshots and a mob of screaming, crying people who immediately started running towards us. we went back to the theater and waited a half hour. things calmed down and no one was dead. we returned to her apartment unharmed.

still, someone was shooting a gun within 2 blocks of me. i am starting to see a pattern here... every time i travel, literally every time without fail, something ridiculous happens. the tally so far in my life: gunshots, multi-day flight delays, a tornado, dengue fever, a crazy cab driver pseudo abduction, a broken nose, lost plane tickets, an array of disgusting stomach ailments, a flood which led to a drowned taxi, heat exhaustion, a suicide on a train, etc, etc, etc. the list goes on and on.

my question... is this a sign that i'm supposed to give up traveling? or is this just my life? the thing is, i always end up fine (knock on wood) so i have never been traumatized seriously enough to make me afraid. am i being stupid? let's be honest though, even if i'm being stupid, it's not going to stop me from taking many more crazy trips in the future...