And now, a word from our pilot

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain. I apologize for our delay from leaving the gate, but the system that starts the airplane is malfunctioning. We’ve sent for a new system and it should be here shortly.”

This is not how I want to start my flight. What system? Obviously, starting an airplane is not a simple matter of turning a key. How can you get another system and then immediately fly? Shouldn’t someone test it out first? What if the plane dies while we are in the air? How will we restart it? When I fly I want everyone to just tell me things are great and there is nothing to worry about.

Then there are the safety instructions. I never listen to them. My thought is that if the plane goes down, I am not going to be needing the seat cushion as a floatation device. I’ve seen photos of what’s left of airliners that crashed into the ocean. By that point you are beyond needing a flotation device. I supposed if you gently ran off a runway into water, then you might have a chance of needing the flotation device.

What I want is for someone to tell me if the noise I hear is just a normal noise or is that a bolt working loose from the wing? I hate to sit where I can even see the wings because I saw that Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner where the gremlin like thing is out there tearing off parts of the airplane.

When ever there is severe turbulence or if there is an unusually loud noise, I always look at the flight attendants. If they look like it’s nothing, then I try not to worry. But, then I worry they are just well trained not to show panic.

Obviously, since I’m writing this blog entry, my plane did not go down due to a faulty starter system. But, I still have the flight home to think about!

My tomato tree

Every year I plant a tomato plant or two. It is as close to the garden of my youth as I think I want to get. While I love fresh from the garden corn, peas and green beans, I don't like all the work that goes into a garden. But, I do enjoy a fresh bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. So, I put out tomato plants.

This year I put out two. One of them is a normal sized tomato plant. The other one has turned into a tree. It is more than 5 1/2 feet tall and about 5 feet wide. I have four stakes holding it up. It might actually be taller, but I ran out of anything tall enough to stake it to. So, the top part is now drooping down.

I have no idea what kind of tomato plant I bought. I think it was just a regular plant that was supposed to produced normal sized tomatoes. Somehow it turned into a giant. One of my relatives who is more farm savvy than I am said it is a rouge tomato plant and that I should have pruned it back so that it spent its time growing tomatoes and not growing tall. But, I was so fascinated by its growth that I couldn't do that. So, I have a really tall tomato plant producing tomatoes that are smaller than golf balls. They still taste good though. But, it sure does take a lot of them to make a BLT.