Cemetery

On our way out of town we stopped at the cemetery to pay our respects to Harriet’s late husband, Bruce, and Dara, the late head of Jewish studies at the university and a mentor to Lizy. We spent a lot of times looking for the graves. There was a Jewish funeral going on near one of the graves so we looked at all the graves except for the ones that were so near the funeral that we would be in their the way. Well as it goes, Dara’s grave was right beside the grave of the person currently being buried so we ended up having to interrupt the funeral for a moment. Lizy put a stone on Dara’s grave and stood for a moment in silence before we moved on. The funeral party didn’t mind.

We never found Bruce’s grave. So it goes.

Drive to Chicago

On the drive back to the Chicago airport we stopped at a McDonalds for lunch. Everyone got something except for me. I ate the final cheese and tomato sandwich I had packed.

Airport

At the airport we went to check our bags, but the people manning the stand told us we had to check in using the app first. Lizy didn’t want to use the app. They pointed to a woman by some check-in machines and said she might be able to help us. She kind of just ignored Lizy for a while looking at her phone and was not helpful at all.

During this time I checked us in using the app and the app gave us two checked bags for free. I told Lizy, but she was frustrated that no one had any agency and everyone was a slave to the electronic system.

“I’m not mad at you. I’m mad for you. You’ve been weakened,” she said sort of to the baggage guy but sort of to the world.

“Let’s not fight the machine today,” I said.

When I’m at the airport I always remind myself that the airport is not a just place, but it’s not my job to make it just. It’s my job to make my flight.