Dichroic Reflections

popping and flying

Last weekend when RUdder and I went shopping, the supermarket was entirely out of popcorn. Popcorn! I ask you, how can a grocery store be out of popcorn? Oh, they had box after box of microwave popcorn: with fake butter, with less fake butter, with "lite" fake butter, with fake toffee, with roasted corn flavor added (we grill corn all the time; it doesn't taste like that), with fake caramel or toffee make with fake sugar. They had all those. What they were missing was plain ordinary popcorn, the kind you pop in a pot that you shake, or in a hot air popper, or, as in our case, in a stove-top popper with a crank to turn. I'm not even all that picky: I'll take "gourmet" or garden-variety, white or yellow or even black corn. I just want real popcorn.

As of last night, we seem to have solved that problem. In fact, we may have solved it for the next decade. We had some errands to do, one of which involved a visit to the local evil warehouse store. ("Evil" because shopping there is always grueling and because I don't like the politics or policies of the associated empire. But some stuff is really cheap there, and more importantly, they're the only place we know that sells peanut oil (needed whenever we deep-fry a turkey) so we maintain a membership and stop in occasionally.) Anyway, we figured we'd look for popcorn there, and by gosh we found it. In 50-pound sacks. We debated for a while about how silly it would be to buy it, but Rudder, as I have mentioned before, thinks big. He is also extremely good at finding places for things. And I eat a lot of popcorn. (So does he, now. When he was trying to lose a couple of pounds to compete as a lightweight at our last regatta, he realized it's filling without a lot of calories, and I think now he's developed a taste for it.) So, we now have fifty pounds of popcorn, at least five years' worth. It won't go bad, especially in this climate, though after a couple of years I might have to soak it in water so it won't be too dried out to pop. I stlil feel a little silly about it, though.

On Saturday, I will be flying to San Diego, for the long cross-country flight required for an Instrument Flight Rating. We'll fly from the local airport southeast of Phoenix to Mclellan-Palomar, do one instrument approach and land there, eat, fly down to Montgomery, fuel up, and fly home. I'm not looking forward to it; it will probably take nearly three hours to get there, depending on wind, and maybe two and a half coming back. I don't even like to drive for more than a couple hours straight. And there will be turbulence over the deserts, and lots of traffic in the city, and controllers to talk to the whole way. At least the traffic won't be my problem: since this is instrument training I'll be under the hood (wearing a visor so I can't see anything but the instrument panel) for a lot of the flight, including all approaches to airports. Also, there are no bathrooms in a Cessna 172. I keep reminding myself there will be an instructor along to help with anything that gives me trouble, and he's very familiar with this run. (That won't help with the lack of bathrooms, however.) On the other hand, it would be awfully nice to be comfortable flying to San Diego or LA for regattas, whenever we don't have to take our own boats. At least this is a little step toward that. The big problem is that I'm a nervous pilot. On this trip I'll have to deal with turbulence, boredown, navigation, busy controllers, air traffic, and strange airport procedures (that is, procedures at strange airports, not strange procedures). Even with cars it took me a long time to get comfortable driving; I didn't get my license until I was 22 because I didn't need it, and maybe because I was a little older I was never the sort of kid who wants to drive everywhere, as much as possible. Now, of course, I can drive a Hummer with boats hanging off the front and back through LA traffic, and did so two weeks ago. I keep reminding myself of that, too.