bouge-bag

Emily: It's a new term we coined while in Savannah. Apparently I need to fill in the blanks. By Chapter Two, Bill expected me to give some background as to why we were going to Savannah in the first place. It wasn't a random trip. But I was still tired and wrote what I wrote instead. Then last night he said bouge-bag and we remembered that we didn't even blog about that. So here I am, filling you in and giving you more info about the trip than you could possibly care about.

Bill: Well, I think it is nice to tell people the why... you don't need to go into great detail or anything. Beside, I am proud of bougebag... it's a good word.

Emily: I met Allison and Megan when I went to church in Savannah while going to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). The church was one square over from the residence hall I was living in and since I didn't have a car that made it safe and convenient. Trinity UMC is one of the oldest Methodist churches in Savannah. John Wesley actually stopped there on his first attempt to bring Methodism to the U.S. and failed epically. The history of the church is better in that it has continued to survive, even after a major fire in the early 90's (I think, I wasn't there yet...). They saved the painting of John Wesley, one of the few things they were able to save, and as the story goes when John was a young boy his mother saved him from a fire, so that's twice that John was saved from a fire... it's the story that the pastor at the time (now retired) loved to tell visitors.

Bill: Hahahahaaahahaahha. Now, what was this blentry about?

Emily: Anyway, back to college. After attending church there for my first semester, I discovered they were looking for a nursery attendant and it was a paid position. I applied and got an interview. Of course I mentioned that I probably wouldn't be around in the summers and if they didn't mind that, would they please consider me? With my background at the time of camp counselor, I must have been qualified because they hired me (I joke, I was well qualified, I had been babysitting since I was ten and had at the time worked as a camp counselor for five years). At some point I met Allison and Megan and by my calculations in the spring of '97 they would have just turned four and two respectively.

They were pretty much the only children and I often entertained them by drawing pictures of animals, which for an art student might be pretty low, but for me was about the best I could do (that'll have to be a post on my blog, I'm not an artist...). Elephants, bunnies, puppies, kitties, turtles... fish. Maybe other animals, I don't remember. I also got to know their mom, Angela, as she stayed with them (us). When Easter fell in the middle of the semester (I don't remember which year) she invited me to come with them to their family gathering. That was very generous and thoughtful, and I did go. Of course I knew exactly five people there, two spent most of the time playing with cousins and hunting eggs. That was okay, I felt loved and I greatly appreciated the invitation.

As my relationship with Bill moved forward (Bill: you call this forward?), they (at least Angela) heard all about it. They probably met him on his visit to Savannah in the spring of '99. When it came time for our wedding it made sense to me to ask the girls to be our flower girls. I had known them for four years and we didn't have any family who was the "right" age (Skylar was fifteen months old at our wedding, not quite old enough so she earned the title of "Honorary Flower Girl). Our ring bearer was a boy that I had babysat since he was an infant, so it worked out that all the children in our wedding party would be from my babysitting brood of sorts.

Angela and I went shopping for the girls' dresses and since it was around Easter time (again) we found the perfect yellow dresses. Angela also helped host a wedding shower at the church for me. Then they came all the way from Savannah, Georgia to Niles, Michigan for our little podunk wedding.

Bill: Well, it may have been little and podunk, but it was our wedding. It was wonderful for so many people to travel and take part. Traveling is expensive. Especially with kids... seems like they aren't as willing to go without meals and sleep on bus benches as adults; and every second not being hugged by a Disney character is a mega-tragedy.

Emily: Then fourteen months after our wedding, we moved to Savannah. They no longer needed me in the Nursery, but I did become a Sunday School Teacher (where I might have taught "The Gospel According to the Simpsons". Maybe).

Bill: And I might have had something to do with that. And I might have helped you teach it. If it happened. I seem to remember it might have. Or not.

Emily: By this time Allison was around seven and Megan was around five. I remember going out to get ice cream with them right before we moved to New Jersey. I'm sure we spent more time with them, but my memory is starting to fade from all our moves.

Fast forward to the time of Facebook and Allison found and friended me. We started writing and catching up. She played softball for her high school until an injury (which is still a mystery) stopped her. She loves animals (hmmm was it all those drawings??) and soon had her driver's license. Bill refused to believe she was older than seven and I had to really convince him when she turned seventeen. Then I realized she would be graduating from high school and we had not been back to Savannah since we moved to Jersey. That would not do. I insisted we would go down there and while we had originally planned and thought it could be a week long trip, stopping to see many friends and family along the way (which had been discussed every year since we moved but could never be acted on), it turned out that would just not work into our schedule. We settled for a short, quick weekend trip via air travel.

Bill: And boy is my sister peeved we didn't see her.

Emily: Thank goodness for facebook. I've been able to keep up with Allison and see what she's been up to and look at pictures. It might have been a lot more awkward had we not had that tool for communication. While I won't establish any stereotypes, Bill did joke around with Megan and called her bougey. Like most females, she might have a tendancy to be a little more high-maintanance. That's okay, I do too. Allison is a little bit more laid back and you can tell that by her personality. There's nothing wrong with either, it's what makes the world go 'round. Anyway, the bougie name calling brings us to this post. Bill's going to have to jump in here, because I completely forget what guy we called bougebag, which of course is a mash-up of douche bag and bougie.

Bill: Me either, but if I said it, it must have been true. I am a keen and dispassionate observer of the human condition. For those of you who haven't been in Savannah, 12 in 6 people are terrible drivers through and through. I am sure that the person onto whom I hung the moniker bougebag deserved it. Certainly, this will be one that will go into the Uebbing dictionary.

Chapter Two

Emily: Bill told me to start the next chapter. And truthfully I'm not sure where to go from that. I already blogged about the little things we did the rest of the weekend, so I'll jump ahead to the flight (aka epic journey) back home. It all began... hmm where do I begin?


Bill: Begin at the beginning. We went to Savannah because you went to college there and met a lot of people. Among them, the Canady's who you met at church. They had two sweet little daughters, Allison and Megan. They were the flower girls in our wedding. When we moved back to Savannah after our wedding, we attended church with them, and the girls were in the Sunday School class you and I taught together. So, even though it had been nine years since we had seen them, they were nice enough to open their lovely home to us and even introduce us to their neighbors and invite us to a party. That's where you should begin.


Emily: Bill and I decided to drive around and take photos and leave the Canady's to their afternoon preparing for graduation (yes, we went all the way there and weren't able to attend the graduation because it started at 4pm on Sunday. I never ever thought it would be on a Sunday, but it was). Bill suggested that we go out to Bonaventure cemetary to take photos. I agreed, even though I hadn't charged the camera battery and we were down to twenty minutes or so left on it.

Now, let's admit something right here. Neither of us remembered how to get there. Bill was sure he could find it by "feel" or "smell" or some sort of bloodhound scent.


Bill: I love cemetaries. I got that from my mom. Now, Bonaventure is simply the most gorgeous and peaceful place I have ever seen... well, that's filled with corpses, anyway. I used to pack a lunch and go their frequently by myself to just look over the bluff to the ICW and enjoy the centuries worth of tombstones, monliths, obelesks, mouseliums, crypts, and sarcophaguses, (sarcophagii?).


Emily: And I just knew we could find it. Rewind to the car rental counter when the man asked us if we wanted a map and we laughed at him. Now here we are laughing at that and wondering if we would actually find Bonaventure or if we would miss our plane because we would be lost wondering the marshland of Savannah...

After a couple of harrowing minutes (mostly of me screaming about turning right because Bill was pulling out into intersections far enough to see what was coming - really not a good idea to plant shrubbery on every single corner) {Bill: I WAS turning... I like to know if we are about to get creamed before I just dart out} we found it when we came to the road called, are you ready for this? Bonaventure. Duh. How could we forget that? Well we did, but we found it anyway. We drove around and took many pictures. Several of which will get printed and framed and hung in our living room.

We then headed over to Baldinos, home of the giant jersey sub (much like Jersey Mike's for those of you who are familiar with that chain). We did not eat the sandwiches there. Oh no. We took them with us to let the "soakage" happen.


Bill: For those of you not familiar with the term, (and who would be because it is made up); soakage is the process whereby you allow all the goodness of a complex sandwhich to meld together. Especially the oily bits which need time to distribute the flavors and soak into the bread... hence soakage. The first time Em told me this I almost had her committed. But, she was right. Soakage is a must.


Emily: The plan was to eat them on the plane (we ended up eating them in the airport because we were hungry). We drove around a little more before heading to the airport.

Turning in the rental car was easy. Going through security was easy. I had not heard anything about the tornadoes and there were no delays for our flights. Our plane came in from Atlanta and it was a little late (just five or ten minutes). They got it prepped for us and we boarded. And then we missed our window to take off. So we had to sit and wait to get clearance (btw, both Bill and I know more about airports/flying than the average person, we're just nerds that way). It's not a big deal to wait, because the papers all say it takes an hour to fly to Atlanta, but under no circumstances have I ever flown that flight in a full hour. Nope, it takes 32 minutes, 26 with a tail wind. So I knew that we had plenty of time (of course we also had a two hour layover for that extra cushion). Of course what I didn't know was that our pilot was also practicing to be a race car driver, once he was given clearance to take off, he still had to make the turn onto the runway and he already had the engines fired up quite a bit. Had it not been for the extremely large couple on the port side of the plane, we might have tipped over (I only make mention of the large couple because the man couldn't even buckle his seat belt nor could he stow his carry on).


Bill: Yeah, but it was landing that was the most fun. All was smooth and normal until we got onto the high speed turn off and Captain Ricky Bobby decided we were gonna slide that plane sideways right to the gate. Seriously, it was like sitting in the back of a bus and you are sure the world is ending.


Emily: It was Atlanta. Never, ever fly through Atlanta on a Sunday night. Busy does not describe that airport, runway, or terminal.

After we landed, we sat waiting to cross the runway not once, but three times. Then we got all the way over to the terminals only to be told by the pilot that our gate was in fact still occupied. He was good about updating us, and then got a bit cheeky and told us it was actually a Mexican stand-off at the gate.


Bill: Yeah. I think it was likely the only time I have had a pilot tell it like it is... "Ladies and gentlemen, I told you earlier our gate was still occupied, but actually, it is open... we just can't get to it. In fact, we have something of a Mexican standoff going on here. The ground crew is getting it all worked out and we'll be in the gate in just a couple minutes."


Emily: Finally we were at the gate and deplaning (de plane! de plane!) Several people behind us (which wasn't really that many because we were pretty far back) had connecting flights that were boarding right now! We stayed out of the way, we still had two hours.

One of our favorite acronyms is that Delta stands for: Don't Ever Leave The Airport. We created a few new ones. Delays Even Longer Through Atlanta and Dammit Emily Leave the Airport. Yeah, I just typed that.



Bill: And I made them up.


Emily: We cruised the fifteen gates down to the flight to Detroit. We stopped at the restrooms. I went first and came out with paper towel. We took a photo and sent it to the Canady's. Scott works at Georgia Pacific and his roller is the one that makes the paper towel for the Atlanta airport!! How cool is that?


Bill: That was my idea, too. I was on fire.


Emily: Bill bought Krystals (and here I thought I was done eating for the next week) and we took turns walking around. I got in a mile, in my flip flops with a blister. Not bad...


Bill: And I still have a stomach ache from the Krystals. But we made it home after leaving late from Atlanta. In fact, 45 minutes late. and we arrived in Detroit 3 minutes late. We were hauling the mail for sure. Of course, this was the flight where we were sitting right next to the engines, back in the steerage section with the rest of the poor.

We couldn't believe we saw the lights of Cleveland before I even drained my second cup of coffee and second back of peanuts, (I think the flight attendant had a crush on me... he was very nice). Air travel suddenly started making sense.

And that was essentially our trip to Savannah. I guess. In a nutshell.

Outbound Dirtroit-Hotlanta-Slovannah

Bill: Friday morning, 4:45 am and the alarm indicated it was time to go. I was surprised to be awakened by the alarm, because I usually can't sleep the night before I travel. So, fresh from my 5 hours of rest, I sprung to action... like a wet noodle. Our 129 mile drive from Grand Rapids to Detroit Metropolitan Airport was uneventful. Smooth. Traffic free. I was scared. We could have slept another half hour if I knew things were going to go that well.

Emily : I cannot handle that, I'm the reason we really got up and left early, because if for half a second it looks like we're going to be even one minute late, I freak out.

Bill: But, since I seldom do go well, especially when you really need them to, we erred on the side of caution. It was clear that it would be a full flight on the 757, which meant one of us (Emily) would have to squeeze in the center seat. At least the man sitting there was quiet, thin and did not smell.

Emily: Amen.

Bill: I was starting to get real nervous now as things were just too convenient. It was a quick on-time flight with nice service and clear air later and we were in the worlds worst place ever; Atlanta Hartsfield International Gateway to Hell. You can try to make a huge airport run smoothly. You can manage human traffic with signs and regularly scheduled trams and polylingual PA announcements. You can also put lipstick on a pig and when you are done, what you have is a pig. No matter to us as we were on time, early, even. We went to the next gate and settled in. The first time I ever drove to Savannah I was delirious with exhaustion and dismayed to learn that Savannah is a full 5 hours away from the Atlanta airport. No wonder Sherman's men didn't plunder the city. They were tired from walking all that way down Route 16 (which at the time I think was only 2 lanes instead of 4). Once we we took to the sky, however it would be a 31 minute hop to the jewel of Georgia. Did you know Avis and Budget merged? Yeah, us either. We walked past that counter enough times to wear down the carpet. But Em figured it out by actually reading a sign. I tell you, women are amazing. I would still be walking back and forth waiting for my rental car to just run me over. At the counter, we received good natured ribbing from the man when we told him we used to live in Savannah. Most people are incredulous when you tell them you left to move to a place where it snows. He was the first of many to draw back in horror and ask, (from the bottom of his blessed heart), "Why!?!" He regained his composure enough to offer us an upgrade to a Mustang or a Camaro. Mustang, please. That's a whole 'nother blentry. Grabber blue on black leather 'Stang later and we were wheeling toward Pooler, Georgia.

Emily: Which turned out to be eight miles from the airport, but felt like forever because it was HOT!

Bill: See, we're not even there yet and she's already bitching about the heat. This is why we moved. Little did I know the complaining wouldn't stop, the topic just changed. Pooler used to be a spit of land on the boundary of the airport that was important only because if a plane crashed there, no one would care. My how things have changed. And that's where we'll pick up chapter 2.

Emily: And I ask you this: have you figured it out yet? Is this going to work for all of you? Also, just to add more, here's the link to my blog with the pictures.

Bill: And to my blog for more about the Mustang.

Blah Blah Blog, have you any wool?

We are starting a new blog. Who is we (you might want to know)? Bill and Emily. Bill thought of the name for the blog once when we were both sharing similar thoughts on a topic. Yet we continued to post separately on our own blogs.

We just returned from an epic journey and I decided (because I am the female) that we needed to get this blog started. We had too many things to share and with several family and friends reading each of our blogs we (I) thought this would be easier on you.

Stay tuned while we figure out how exactly we should do this. Bill insists that I have to be the straight man (because he is not - and yes, when he said that he meant it that way) and he doesn't think I can do that. So while we fight over that, we also have to figure out how we type these posts. But for now, while he mows the lawn and I sit at my computer, I had to get a post started and get you all acquainted with what we're about to do. We hope you enjoy!