John Singer Sargent — a watercolor of his room in Genoa — a friend put it on face-book
If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence — George Eliot, Middlemarch
Dear friends and readers,
Last night I received an email from Expedia, the on-line buying service I thought I was so clever to use to buy an airplane ticket to Tampa, Florida, where I hope to visit a friend for a few days. I waited for reading what needed to be done until Yvette could stand by me and this morning she did.
We found that I could not reach any information without signing in, and have finally figured out that I managed to buy my tickets (for this trip and another) without opening an Expedia account. I can’t find my “6 character flight booking code” which is needed to check in on-line. Somehow I reached the spot where I did buy my ticket from Expedia originally, and was reassured I have a ticket. If the airline does not contact me to print a boarding pass, I will have to hope I can print one out at the airport. I worry terribly about this: Will I have to cancel the booking I made with Expedia for LA this coming March and instead try to buy straight from an airline at whatever cost? If I can’t get my money back for the LA, I’ll call the lawyer I used to help me at the DMV; I gave her a retaining fee which means I can call her for other troubles. Meanwhile, how do I get the boarding pass for Tampa?
I never used an on-line booking service before. I did it because I was so puzzled by all the buying choices online and when I tried to contact an airline by phone, I could not reach one. I sat here in my chair for over an hour not knowing what to do, and finally not doing anything until my friend told me about online buying services like Expedia. Then a few days later Yvette helped me buy two sets of tickets through Expedia, the first to go to and from Tampa this week, the second to go to and from LA to ASECS in March (where I’m scheduled to give a paper on the importance of screenplays in filmic art). Ought I to have contacted a travel agent? The last time I did that (many years ago) I discovered I had talked to someone who was going to cheat me out of $3000 somehow or other. Somehow Jim and a friend’s daughter who was a lawyer showed me (and him) what to do to stop this. So I hesitate at contacting a travel agent.
This is just one of many puzzling to distressing experiences I’ve had since Jim died. I must assume he must have had them on our behalf without telling me for all the years we were married — or versions of them that existed pre-on-line existence.
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Ian at breakfast
Before enduring this latest set of tricks (that’s what capitalism is, a constant set of tricks put before you which set up barriers and ways those you are dealing with are using to extract information and more money from you — I found this when I tried to buy a CD set of talking books from Audible.com; the Obamacare website is yet much much worse), earlier this morning, around 7 am when the light came into my room, I was thinking to myself, how complacent I was before Jim died. I fancied I felt for people, fancied I understood how deeply lonely, thwarted, difficult, wretched or tragic many existences are, but now I know that I often came across people who told me a bit of their story that I failed to appreciate, and thus failed in some way to acknowledge, that I failed to offer the compassion in my heart for them I should have because in my own good luck and security I didn’t enter into their case. I was complacent. I am no longer. Now I hear other people loud and clear.
Since he died then, experience has changed fundamentally for me. I look round me and see continually the wrought nature of being alive, it’s like that great roar on the other side of silence that George Eliot talked about. I wonder to myself if others saw and heard it, and realized that I didn’t; if I hurt people’s feelings by my own careless remarks. I know many do not see and hear it, if they come close, they turn away and it is the very basis of their sanity that they refuse to acknowledge what is in front of them.
During this long month and the cruel time of the winter solstice season where one has to read all these expressions of joy, comradeship, family love (!?) others experience or claim to on the Net and elsewhere, with the concomittant fierce censorship of anyone who denies all this occurs or is real, I spent most of my time in my workroom with my cats. It’s been very cold outside, and my skin aches when I’m out there. I have been told the world is filled with people who do not have one deep true intense love for another friend-lover who returns the emotional support and meaning. If this is so, how hard existences are: people turn to friends, to their adult children, to work — Trollope repeated over and over this from Macbeth: The labor we delight in physics pain. That’s why it’s so important to me to choose works of art (books, movies, music, pictures) that are valuable, not rooted in corruption, presenting real truths about life in beautiful (beauty does not have to be pretty at all) ways. How does this experience of art speak to people, is it truly good and useful to them in some way, strengthening, solacing, amusing too (in all senses of that word)
I had one of my realistic dreams last night, or early in the morning as I woke out of it at 5 am, my lower leg or calve (from knee to ankle) in wrenching pain. I jumped out of bed and began to walk and walk to get rid of the intense strain and tension I was gripped by in my leg. In my dream Jim was here and he had sold this house. He did sometimes do central things affecting our lives without telling me first and then would explain to me his motives as if I didn’t need to be consulted, and he had not thought of it; most of the time I did accept his reasoning, and go along with it, but not always. Well this time the thought the house was sold was too much. For a few minutes as I was walking I didn’t realize it all had been a dream and he was dead and the house not sold.
Maybe I should call this Expedia Perplexities; or, the terrors of being a widow.
My favorite time of day is when I wake and my Clarycat leaps lightly onto my bed, walks around me, and comes over to my right shoulder, snuggles down to get between my shoulder and my arm so this area of my body becomes a human basket for her to lie down in. She licks me, and we lie there together waiting for another day to come into the house for us to live through together. Her soft fur and to me sweet little legs and paws, and her ears are endearing to me.
Clary mid-day
Sylvia
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
I’ve used Expedia many times without any problems, but I have an account with them. In any case, once you have completed a purchase, you should get an email confirming the transaction along with a confirmation code that you can use as a reference.
Elaine
I hadn’t realized I didn’t open an account but when I’ve tried (several times now) to type in my email accress the site refuses to recognize it. I do have a print out and am going to again try to get this online 6 letter code. As I say, if I don’t manage to do it, I’ll live with it, but for LA cancel the flight and try for a travel agent or direct to an airline.
I travel a lot and this is the routine I have. I go to the website for the airport I’m going to, let’s say TPA for Tampa. I look for information about flights and destinations; it is here you will find out all the airlines that will fly from DCA to TPA. A map of the U.S. comes up with an array of all the airlines that fly to Tampa. There’s a tap for “routes” which you click which will show where the airlines are flying from. You click the dot on the map for DCA. A list of the airlines comes up that fly from DCA to Tampa. I would think you would prefer an airline that flies nonstop from DCA to Tampa (there are other, possibly less expensive ways to get there, but they involve stopping somewhere en route, and might go considerable out of your way). I see that Jet Blue Airways, US Airways, and Southwest Airlines operate nonstop flights. I would go to the webpages for each of those airlines, enter the dates you want to travel, the originating airport and destination airport, and one by one, find out the prices. I personally like Jet Blue and dislike Southwest and US Airways, so I would prefer Jet Blue unless it costs a lot more money. Southwest would be second choice because US Airways had a reputation for poor public service. I would choose the less expensive option. The trouble with booking through Expedia or Orbitz is if you run into problems while you are away from home, they have been known to be very unhelpful. Julia once booked a flight through Expedia; she got to the airport to find her flight had been canceled and couldn’t get hold of anyone in customer service to assist her. It might be a lot more work to do it my way, and very tempting to just go to a travel website and have them make the decisions for you, but from others’ experience, they really don’t help you while you’re away from home. Julia had them tell her to call the airline directly, and the airline told her they couldn’t help her with a reservation booked through Expedia, and the whole experience was very unpleasant.
The problem for me with all these steps is I’m not good at navigating. Yvette and I did buy direct from Air Canada for Montreal but she did the navigating and we chose the most obvious which looked good, one stop and it was expensive. It is not a matter of being lazy; I’m not lazy; it’s a matter of being confused and not knowing how to do these steps. It sounds easy click here and click there but in my experience I often don’t see where to click. That’s why I sat there for an hour and a half.
On Julia’s experience, I’d like to know how she got home. Did she have to buy another ticket? This is scaring me — I don’t mind knowing as then I will know what to do.
I did not realize that Expedia and Orbitz would have these problems.
Now, Google DCA to LAX. On Google a list of airlines and flights comes up. Under DCA and LAX there’s a spot for you to enter the dates. I just entered March 6 to 13. A list of airlines and prices for flights comes up. The least expensive airline for those dates is US Airways, a flight with one stop for $391. Alaska Airlines (also reputed very good for customer service and comfortable seats) has a nonstop for $427. For $36 more, I’d go with Alaska Airlines. It doesn’t have to be hard!
Well I’ve bought my ticket for LA through Expedia. Ought I to cancel it? I know nothing about reputations of airlines, only what I’ve experienced. I haven’t got the patience (or trust) to read what other people say on sites about their experiences as customers.
I am thinking I may cancel the Expedia and try the above. All this is making me very nervous.
You may recall that at least once you bought my ticket when I visited you. Jim may have bought it the other time(s?).
How did Julia get home? did she have to buy another ticket at the airport and then get on another plane?
Julia used to work as a person who takes hotel reservations on the phone for Accor Hotels, an international hotel chain. She was paid extra for being able to communicate in French and English, and she could speak Canadian, West African, and Caribbean French, which are different. She learned how to communicate with reservations persons and through persistence eventually managed to get out of there. But she learned to never use an online travel service again! You can do what I just did in the previous post. Just type the route you want into Google. I had never tried that before.
Dave doesn’t know how to book a trip either. He’s never had to learn! I’ve done it for my kids. Didn’t do so well with Julia and Marc’s flight here for the holidays. I booked with British Airways because I am an executive member, due to my flights to France. BA had the best frequent flyer program. The problem is that BA doesn’t have any flights going from Toulouse to Cleveland so while the reservations were under the auspices of BA, they were flying Iberia. The routes got all bolluxed up and the day before they were due to fly, Julia and Marc’s second leg of their flights disappeared from their reservations. Turns out that these flights weren’t cancelled, they just didn’t appear when they checked in online. What a headach that was! So from now on I’ll just investiagate different airlines on that route, and book directly through those airlines.
Yes, Jim and I booked your flights on those occasions. Flying itself was stressful enough for you! I tried to make the flights as little complicated for you as possible!
If you can cancel your ticket without penalty, I’d do it. If not, I wouldn’t and hope for the best. Lots of people use Expedia and Orbitz without problems, or they’d go out of business.
I’ll go to the Tampa this way and if there’s no hitch I may stay with Expedia, but i am tempted to change if I can get my money back.
You are a seasoned perpetual traveler; I am not. The last few years with Jim I was beginning actually to enjoy travel for the first time, but then he began not to want to go: there was a money issue after he retired: I inherited my mother’s money only in the fall he began to be ill; and unexpectedly I have this full insurance money (because he died so young so I also truly loathe it). But he seemed to lose enthusiasm: I’ve a dream to go to Cornwall and couldn’t persuade him two summers ago. For me to use Road Scholar I’ve got to get myself to the places Road Scholar leaves from …
You can learn so much through travel, but this you know. This is a big hurdle for you, but this will open up your life so much. Improved search engines have made life so much easier; I’ll use Google search from now on!
Just to let all friends know who were so kind as to write and try to help: Yvette and I together (I needed her help to see one of the click) “broke through” and I now have my reservation confirmed and my boarding pass. I found that I cannot cancel the LA one but after all this stress I will next time not use an online buying service. Or will try first to buy direct or hire an agent. I get very worn doing these things.
Just got back from HD opera (Merry Widow) and cried and cried (not just a little but began literally to cry) at a couple of Fleming’s songs and now subsiding to needed glass of wine.
1/18/2014, getting ready to go: I should have said this while traveling or taking a trip may enable me to reach a friend or to see a new bit of the world I’ve not before, more likely to revisit with different eyes the ones I saw with Jim, it will neither change much less fundamentally improve my life.
Obvioosly, the conditions of my life are set, its terms from 6 decades of existence and what I am, the physical world and people I’m surrounded by (comfortable, safe more or less but less congenial as time goes by and this place becomes more reactionary-based), cannot make this any more than another now lonely act in the play. Jim was the pivot off my life, he enabled me to become what I have, I lived through as well as with him (as he did me), and now that he’s gone I can be no more than half the self I was, not more than half alive.
Beyond that, less seriously, I’m a homebody and am happiest in my home — and this one is it, with Yvette, Clarycat and Ian. The traveling itself, the trip will be a nervous ordeal and I will be relieved when I’m home again; maybe I’ll learn better how to do and to endure these travails.
I miss travel agents! We have to do it ourselves now. That is the problem with technology. I haven’t used Expedia, but you will be relieved to know that when I flew from London, there was no problem about not having a boarding pass printed out. I’m sure it will all work out for you, but it can make a person very anxious.
I discovered that when I got to the airport I could have downloaded and printed out a boarding pass there. It does seem I should have first “checked in” online within the 24 hours before lest someone take my place. But the plane I was on had empty seats, so even that is not sure. What bothers me is, why make people anxious by such a message? Have the people doing these arrangements nonsense there are human beings trying to secure travel and not be stranded? Do they no longer care at all about customer satisfaction. Do they not know the sources of customer satisfaction? There is a complete indifference to customers on these online services and airline sites.