My Chicken Bus Story

My grandfather often wrote the most insane chicken bus stories detailing buses crammed with people and livestock, chairs strapped to the roof for more seating, car sickness due to hours of unpaved winding roads in Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar... My mom encouraged me to detail a recent adventure of mine in a similar fashion.

But my adventure doesn't include a bus (other than the one traversing the smooth stretch of road between LAX and the nearest Hilton) or chickens.

Before I give you my chicken bus story, please understand that I am still sleep deprived, jet lagged, and understandably worn out. I have not had a full night's sleep since I left San Diego. My good friend Ray had to submit his thesis yesterday morning, so my nights have been swallowed up with correcting his grammar and English as a foreign language writing. When I have hit the pillow (close to midnight), my brain was running at 125% and I lay there sleepless for hours at a time. Then I woke up and taught all day...and NIGHT. I started teaching a corporate English class this week (Tuesday and Thursday), so I'm not even home until after 9:00, when I commence with thesis revisions. OMG! But I love teaching the adults at Enics. They are some of the smartest people I have ever met, engineers and software designers...

Ok. The flight from San Diego to LA was short and sweet, except that I was puzzled about the boarding pass I received in SD for my LA to Beijing flight. Why did it say boarding time: 7:40 AM instead of 1:20 AM? I was stressed, wondering whether I got the time wrong or if the airport made a mistake. Once at the sprawling, 125-terminal LAX, I stuck to a girl armed with a paper that listed her flight time to Beijing as 1:40 AM. I thought if I followed her, surely the people at the China Air desk would put me on the 1:40 flight and not make me spend the night at the airport. We had to ask about 75 LAX employees (with limited English ability) to direct us to the international check-in at terminal 2. On the way I spotted arrival/departure screens and cringed when I saw "delayed" flashing in the same row as the information for the 1:40 AM flight to Beijing. Therefore, I was not surprised when the woman behind the check-in counter said, "Sorry but your flight has been delayed 7 hours." Then she added, "Board the bus with the other passengers to the Hilton." When that sunk in, my frown turned upside down. I had never stayed at a Hilton, but I was under the assumption that Hiltons are a wee bit more posh than Motel 6s.

Apparently my excitement about staying in a fancy hotel led to extra friendliness. The woman behind the Hilton counter laughed after everything I said and seemed pleased to announce, "I am putting you in an executive suite. Enjoy it." And that I did! Unfortunately, I didn't have any pajamas or clean clothes. In order to preserve the cleanliness of those I had on, I stripped, jumped in the non-water-preserving shower, and jumped into bed... a big, soft, cloud of a bed. I rolled around, stretched out, and rolled around some more. Then I chowed down on a Tofurky sausage I had the good sense to pack (ok, my mom had the good sense to tell me to pack it). The Hilton had prepared dinners for us, but they were of the meaty variety. Once full, I did more rolling and stretching. I didn't want to fall asleep without taking in as much luxury as my sleepy senses were capable of enjoying. Sadly, five hours passed in deep sleep, and before I knew it, I was on a bus back to the airport.

I spent the 2 hours at the airport walking around the terminal and spending the last of my American money, all the while keeping my eyes on the tallest group of Chinese men I had ever seen. Their backpacks were all embroidered with "China" and they wore matching green warmup jackets. I figured they were some sort of basketball team. I later learned that they were the Chinese olympic volleyball team. And I met the Chinese olympic diving team. The 2008 olympic gold medalist in diving actually spent most of the flight talking with a Chinese man in my row. The man is a Presbyterian pastor in America. There's a miniseries about his life on Chinese television (so he says). When he wasn't attempting to get me to commit to go to church, he was fascinating. I'm not sure how he crossed paths with the diver, but the kid (he's only 16 now, 13 when he won the gold medal in 2008), was enthralled with everything the man said. I took pictures but haven't unpacked the cable to connect my camera to my computer. Later.

I took a Tylenol PM but often woke up when my head slipped or my mouth hung open uncomfortable. I'd say I had about 4 hours of interrupted sleep. Not too bad. EXCEPT for the fact that I landed at 12:00, was home at 1:45, and had to get on the subway at 3:00 to go teach a new class. I barely had time to register the stink in my stale apartment. And I still haven't had time to do anything about it. My suitcase is still zipped up in the middle of my living room. My carryon is open on the kitchen table because I pulled out my makeup. I didn't make it home until 9:30 that night (I don't even know what night that was anymore). Did I mention that I spent a few hours that night working on Ray's thesis!? Then I woke up at 5:45 and worked all day. Spent the night at my friend Rebecca's because she lives close to school, allowing an hour of sleep-in time and taking off a few in commute. BUT I worked on that thesis again! And tossed and turned all night. Ahhhhhh! Then I taught all day yesterday and hopped in a van at 5:00 to go teach the corporate English class until 8:30. In my own bed by 10:00 but wired on the copious amounts of coffee I downed all day to make it through. And up at 6:00 AM, still wired. It's now 7:57 AM. Time to relax. I'll deal with the stink and suitcases and lack of fresh food later.

我 爱 我 父母！

I love my parents!

These are my beautiful parents. And when I say beautiful, I mean their faces AND their guts. I thought about flying home to attend my grandfather's memorial, but I just couldn't swing it without borrowing money... and I already owe them $1000 for paying half my tuition (just defended my thesis in February... that's right: it cost $2000 to talk about a paper I wrote for an hour or so with a few professors. Granted, the professors are AMAZING people, to whom I am eternally grateful for contributing to my education...). Anyhow, I did not approach the subject of flying home with my parents because I'm in a hole. Then, I got a short and sweet email from my momma: "Can you come to Grampa's memorial? We will buy you a ticket." Yippee! Thank you, Parents!

The planning of my grandfather's memorial has been a joyful bonding event for the Secor/Schute/Etc. family. Group emails literally warm me up several times a day (and that beautiful Beijing spring I was reveling in went back on vacation...it's cold here again, so I'm loving the cyberlove). Family members are compiling a list of Grampa's favorite songs to play at a low volume before, during, and after the memorial service. And I'm not talking about elevator music. Grampa's favorite album was The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. A few Rolling Stones songs will also be played. The CD we plan to make will be full of great tunes. And my cousin Serena, who Grampa called Cinderella, is collecting photos of our grandfather and putting together a slideshow. She reportedly has some of him as a baby and child. Yay!

Thank you for financing my trip home so I can participate in and attend Grampa's memorial, Momma and Pappason! I will see you soon!

Ken Secor 11/1/2009

Date of the memorial: 4/23

I will head out the 14th and come back the 25th =)