Travel

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Monday Randomosity: I Promise You a REAL Post Someday Soon Edition

So. I went away for work.

My client paid for my plane tickets. They got me transportation to and from the airport. They put me up in a beautiful hotel. They even paid for my MEALS, y’all.

But the hotel?

No. Free. Internet.

Dubbya Tee Eff.

I am way too cheap to pay $9.95 for 24 hours of Internet connection. (And no way would I ask my client to pay for it, when there’s perfectly good Internet at the office.) Which is my way of saying, sorry I didn’t blog for nearly a week!

Now I am back and it is suddenly time again for another week and I am tired. So all I can muster is some sad, tired, jet-lagged, really?-$9.95-for-Internet-when-the-room-costs-god-knows-how-much? randomosity.

* The socks are still on the couch.

I don’t really know what to do about this, Internet. I do know that there’s a fine line between “reminding” and “nagging,” and an even finer line between “nagging” and “why did I marry you again?” so I haven’t even mentioned the socks.

By the way? They are not alone. They are accompanied by several t-shirts and several pairs of pajama/workout pants.

Were you in my position, socks-wise, what, pray tell, would you do?

 

* I crossed the blog life/real life barrier last night. For the first time ever.

I spoke to Anastasia on the phone!

And guess what? Not only is she a Real, Live Person… She is also super charming and nice and friendly!

But, as she and I discussed, it is a little weird when the neat and tidy little world existing inside your computer crosses over into your real life world. I wonder if this is what Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character feels like every week on the Ghost Whisperer.

 

* Speaking of Anastasia, we have our little Accountability Partner fitness/health/weight-loss website up and running. If you want to join, please let me know and I will “invite” you.

 

* My husband spent the weekend working on his fellowship applications. Which is at once exciting and exhausting. Exciting because we are getting closer! To the end! To the point where he is a real practicing doctor!

Exhausting because oh man alive… The recommendation requests… The CV updates… The application fees… The personal statement… The blah blah blah SNORE.

I spent a lot of the day yesterday “helping” him write emails to people he hopes will write him letters of recommendation.

You know, saying very helpful things like, “You should just write, ‘Hey dude, wasssup? Wanna write me a recommendation? That’d be phat, yo.’”

Surprisingly, he spent a lot of the day yesterday ignoring me.

 

* Let’s just come right out and admit that I am not always super at follow through. I mean, how many weeks ago did I tell you that I was going to have a practice Thanksgiving? Like, three weeks ago? And then maybe last week?

Yeah. So I haven’t done it yet.

BUT.

I bought the turkey and some stuffing ingredients and some cranberries and I spent about 45 minutes in Sur La Table, staring at their meager yet indecipherable collection of roasters with complete and utter incomprehension.

So by the end of the week, I will have either made a Practice Thanksgiving (albeit a partial one – I decided to save the mashed potatoes and yams for another day) or I will have $40 worth of turkey going rancid in my fridge.

Honestly, it could go either way at this point.

 

* Speaking of spending ridiculous amounts of money. I bought a new dress! At White Black House Market! It has a ruffly halter!

Of course, once I had the new dress, I realized I needed to buy new shoes as well. And by “needed” I mean “totally didn’t need but really wanted and ohmigod they look so hot with the dress.”

I also needed the adorable little black wristlet purse with the big satin bow. But I was able to stomp on that need with my new black heels.

 

* Why do I need a new dress? Well, I have a Fancy Work To-Do coming up that requires Fancy Garb. My current collection of Fancy Garb is made up of:

– a party dress that displays more cleave-town than my clients need to see…

– an LBD that I love, but that is a wee bit on the small side (read: back fat overflow)…

– a floor-length Jessica McClintock gown I wore to a college ball years ago, apparently in a time when I sold my soul to the devil because there’s no other way I ever fit into something that size.

So. A new dress it is!

 

* The Fancy Work To-Do means that I need to hop on an airplane again soon. Which is not fun. I mean, does anyone really ENJOY flying these days? Maybe if you are in first class, which I wouldn’t know anything about.

I just know that people need to stop sitting in the window seat when they have the middle seat. I know you don’t WANT the middle seat. But neither do I, and I actually checked in at the plumber butt of dawn in order to ensure I had that seat. So just because you sit in it doesn’t mean I am going to forget about it and be okay with the middle.

Seriously. There is NO EXCUSE for sitting in the wrong seat. Even if you have never been on an airplane in your entire life. Your seat is clearly marked on your ticket. PLUS, you had to board BY ROW NUMBER, so you should automatically know that you are in rows 23-37 rather than in row 10. And if you don’t know what E means? Look at the handy little graphic right above the row that tells you E is a middle seat.

I have a lot of Travel-Related Pet Peeves. But sitting in the wrong seat is in the top 5. Above “Hogging Two Arm Rests” but below “Listening to Your iPod at a Volume Everyone Can Hear.”

 

* For the first time ever, I bought some baby clothes. Not for me, obviously. Or, you know, for the baby that I am NOT PREGNANT with. A friend had a baby a while ago, and I was going to be in her neck of the woods, so I decided to take her a little gift.

I first went to Baby Gap, because that is pretty much the only place I know of that has clothes for Teh Baybays.  And first of all? They should call it Toddler Gap, because there was a teeny tiny section of clothes for actual infants. The rest of the stuff was for kids 24 months and up.

So, going in, I knew that the baby in question was three months old and a boy. That’s it. I mean, I knew his name, but knowing that isn’t going to help me buy him stuff, you know?

Baby Gap had about four things for three-month-old boys. They had plenty of frilly pinkery for three-month-old girls though. Baby boys get screwed in the clothes department, y’all. It’s a wonder that new mothers don’t just give up and buy dresses for their baby boys. I mean, those things are CUTE.

Ahem. Back to Baby Gap. There were approximately ZERO employees in the entire store. So I kind of… stood around… And poked through piles of miniature clothing… And picked up an outfit… And put it back down because do moms really put their babies in miniature button-fly corduroy pants or off-white crocheted onesies?… And gawked at the Super Cute Teensy Weensy Shoes… And didn’t even touch them because three-month-olds don’t wear shoes, right?… And stood around some more.

Finally, I left. I went to Nordstrom, which – much to my great shock – had a baby section. But guess what? They have clothes that don’t fit age ranges, like in Baby Gap. Instead, they have clothes for three-month-old, six-month-old, and nine-month-olds.

Which is REALLY confusing. Because how do you know? Do you buy the three-month-wear and hope that it will fit the kid until six months? Or do you buy the six-month stuff so the kid can grow into it? SO CONFUSING.

And I had to actually ask a salesgirl – who was probably 10 years younger than I am and, while I know she technically could have a couple kids at that age, I am going out on a limb and guessing that she knows exactly as much about kids as I do – for help and she gave me the You Are a Huge Idiot eyebrow.

So I bought a cute little outfit with a guitar on it in the six month size and gave it to my friend and she loved it the end.

Oh! I did remember to ask the cashier if they had any baby legs for boys. I learned about baby legs from Jen, who is awesome, and from whom I probably could have purchased some baby legs if I were capable of planning ahead. The cashier did not, in fact, have baby legs for boys. But I was very impressed with myself for remembering to ask. The end for real.

* Is it just me, or is everyone having babies? I swear, everywhere I look, a high school friend or a college friend or the wife of my husband’s friend or a blog friend or a blogger I stalk is getting  pregnant or popping out a kid.

Some days I wonder if there’s some sort of baby explosion going on. Like the planets are aligned in such a manner that people are getting pregnant out of the blue.

Other days, I think maybe this is the Volvo Phenomenon. You know, where you drive around in your Honda Accord for 10 years without ever seeing a Volvo, but then suddenly you decide your Accord is old and crappy and there’s no iPod dock in it, so you want to upgrade to a Volvo. And as soon as you start lusting after Volvos, they’re EVERYWHERE… In your apartment complex, in your dentist’s parking lot, on The Amazing Race.

This is what happened to me when I wanted my husband to propose to me. I started seeing engaged people everywhere. Everyone was wearing a diamond except me!

So I suspect that this Baby Explosion thing is just the Volvo/Engagement Ring Phenomenon of my late 20s.

 

Well, Internet, now it is your turn to weigh in on these and other weighty topics. I do hope you’ll stop in the comments section and say hello. But even if you choose to navigate away from this nonsense in deep disgust, I wish you a very happy Monday and a lovely week.

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Maybe I Should Have Gotten My Scale a Ticket

Happy Monday, Internet!

 

I know you are anxiously awaiting (HA) my Super-de-Duper Vacation Post all about Asheville. But it is LONG. With many many photos. So it is taking me ten years to write.

 

Also, I have work to do.

 

Plus, this weekend was my husband’s Great Big 30th Birthday Celebration: Part Two. We spent Friday partying with about 20 medical residents. (Who was at the hospital, is my question?)

Then on Saturday, we went to Ikea (prounounced “eye-key” by our navigator) and spent hours wandering through neatly arranged rooms full of furniture we don’t need… searching for the perfect BILLY bookcase with the matching OLSBO door… sitting in fifty different desk chairs until we picked the VERNER option… deciding for, then against, the FIGGJO, DROMMAR, KONCIS, and more… realizing that it was suddenly an hour later than we thought it was and we were about to be late for dinner… getting right to the warehouse portion of the store and discovering that the BILLY bookcase in white was not in stock… and leaving with thirty assorted odds and ends that we didn’t need in the first place.

 

But then… Sunday…

 

Sunday, we went here:

With these (please excuse the hang-nailed thumb):

 

We wore our team colors. Only a few people booed at us (and no one spit on us!).

 

We sat in great seats with this fabulous view:

And watched some of this:

We were shocked and delighted when we were ahead (it was short-lived):

We ate stadium food and sunburned only the left sides of our faces.

After we left, we ate one of these (okay, only my husband ate one of those – I had a much healthier meals of chicken wings and curly fries):

Yes, there are fries IN the sandwich.

 

It was a great time.

 

But now we are home for longer than three days, and I am Getting Serious about not only eating better (see: no more sandwiches with fries in them) but about exercising as well. (I think I may rescue my old nemesis Jillian Michaels from her dusty shelf.)

 

Because after Asheville and this little football weekend? My scale HATES me.

 

By the way? We went back to “Eye-Key” after the game to pick up our BILLY bookcase. My husband will put it together today. (I know you were super worried.) We also managed to pick up some of these:

And some of these:

And some of these:

I promise that a really long, possibly horrifically boring Asheville Recap with lots of pretty pictures is coming soon.

 

How was your weekend?

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Friday Randomosity: Too Much Travel Edition

I think the Internet is some sort of metaphysical quagmire stuck right smack in the middle of the space/time continuum, because man… When you’ve been away for the Internet for two weeks, it seems like ten thousand years.

So I was gone for a while, during which I completely sucked at life. Including falling far behind on my blog commenting and failing miserably at the online writing group I JUST JOINED. Way to make a first impression. Sheesh.

But I am not going to whine too extensively during this post (YOU ARE WELCOME) and instead tell you all about my travels!

  • In the past three weeks, I have been on eight different airplanes. Since I hate flying, and since taking off and landing terrify me, the past few weeks have been fraught with much tension and breath-holding and muttered repetitions of pleasedon’tcrashpleasedon’tcrashpleasedon’tcrash and many many daymares based on all the documentaries about plane crashes I’ve ever seen. Throw some footage of the 9/11 tragedy in there and season liberally with unfamiliar plane sounds that the flight attendants are TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS TO, and you’ve got some fun times.
  • First I flew to California for my girls’ weekend. Which was awesome and involved much drinking of wine. Fun fact: If you drink one-ounce portions of red wines all day long? You grow to hate red wine.
  • Another fun fact? If you go to Napa with a bunch of girlfriends, you will likely spend a LOT of money. Like, a LOT. Like, ohmygodwhatwasIthinking.

My husband and I have been saving and saving and saving (we save my entire paycheck, every month, in an untouchable savings account). I am pretty sure we’re saving for our eventual house, but I also think we are saving for Just in Case – you know, some terrible tragedy or job loss or car crash. (Okay, my husband probably doesn’t think in terms of Worst Case Scenarios. But SOMEONE has to!) But we are building up something nice and sturdy for ourselves. Nothing to brag about. But we feel proud of the little nest egg we’re creating.

So it shouldn’t be like, detrimental to our future if I splurge a little on a weekend with the girls. But I can’t help feeling Enormous Guilt.

My husband and I certainly aren’t rolling in it, but we have enough. Enough to live on. Enough to save. Enough to pay for some lovely little luxuries. We are so very fortunate.

But I am one of those people who is always waiting for the Other Shoe. And while I don’t actually know the origin of that phrase, I always picture myself sitting on a chair or whatever, minding my business, when all of a sudden a giant shoe – like a big ol’ black Doc Marten boot – comes barreling out of the sky and wallops me in the face.

Now that I had this Super Big Fun Spendy Weekend, I am certain that the universe is searching through a stack of Spice Girl platforms and spike heels, selecting the perfect one to toss in my face.

  • On my flights to and from California, we actually got a meal. A meal! On the airplane! That we didn’t have to pay extra for! I thought those were relics from a kinder, happier time – like handwritten letters. But no – Continental gave me a meal. It was a “chicken enchilada” which was actually pretty tasty! Although I was so ecstatic that they were feeding me on my five-hour flight, I would have eaten goat testicles with great gusto.
  • When I travel, I usually find myself completely irritated by human kind. Like the lanky German gal who sat next to me on one flight and kept elbowing me. As in, she couldn’t keep her stupid arm on the armrest and insisted on violating my personal space.

Note to travelers: If your arm touches the arm of the person next to you, and she immediately pulls her arm away, do not accept that as an invitation to move your arm closer to her.

Nowhere do I value my personal space more than on an airplane. I mean, you get about six cubic feet of space all to yourself – well, yourself and your overstuffed purse – and I want every single centimeter of that space to be inviolate. So when my fellow passengers feel the need to get all up in my grill, I get CRANKY.

But anyway. On one flight, I met some purely charming people. People who were actually NICE and THOUGHTFUL. People who cared about other humans and who were CONSIDERATE of their fellow passengers! It was like hitting the air-travel jackpot.

First, I fell asleep. (This is my coping mechanism for the Flying Terror.) And I was apparently asleep when the flight attendant came by with the meal. (The actual meal!) Instead of letting me wake up and drool all over the meals that they got and I didn’t, my seat mates snagged me a meal! And stowed it on their postage-stamp sized tray table until I woke up! How sweet is that?

And then – because I also try to Be Considerate – I waited to pee until my seatmates started unbuckling to go use the bathroom. (I was in the window seat.) And, to make things easier, they let me go first!

I love them. And I love how they held hands and prayed together during the takeoff and landing.

When I saw one of them by the baggage claim a few days later (we’d apparently flown home on the same flight), she squealed like we were long lost friends and asked me all about my weekend.

Now how often does that happen? Faith in humanity restored!

  • Now that I’ve gotten the happy, positive “Not All Humans Suck” bullet out of the way, let me tell you about the Bad and the Ugly of my flights.

The Bad was a mother sitting behind me and the sweet, considerate couple. She had two girls, ages about five and seven, I’d guess. And the girls spent the ENTIRE five-hour flight kicking the back of my seat and the seat back of the girl next to me.

When I’m on an airplane, I have the weird ability to sleep no matter what. (Coping Mechanism, I’m telling you.) So I just… slept. But the poor gal next to me. She kept turning around, and very politely reminding the girl not to kick her seat.

The mom did NOTHING. Not a single thing.

Now, I know it must be hellacious to travel with kids, let alone TWO kids. And I will concede that MAYBE it’s possible for a mother to not notice her child brutalizing the passenger in front of her. (Although my mom would have grabbed my ankles and given me her Do Not Eff With Me glare and told me it was unacceptable the instant my toe touched the seat pocket.)

But come on. If the passenger in front of you has to turn around and asks your kid not to kick the seat… Not once but like, ten times… Wouldn’t you feel MORTIFIED? And wouldn’t you do SOMETHING? Like at least admonish your child?

I mean, I guess it’s one thing if your kid is two or three and doesn’t understand consequences or something. But I’d say a five-year-old is old enough to know better, wouldn’t you? And a seven-year-old should be able to at least restrain HERSELF. Not to mention the WELL OVER THREE-YEARS-OLD MOTHER, who could have put the kibosh on the whole matter with a few words and/or threats.

It is not bad parenting to discipline your kid. It is not bad parenting to prevent your kid from doing something they want to do – especially if that something is driving other people crazy.

  • And the Ugly… This was a dude in front of me on the eighth and very last flight of the past few weeks. He had doused himself in a pungent cologne of Eau de Sweat and Onions. And he was wearing a tank top. Do I have to tell you about my Deep Disdain for Non-Exercising Men Wearing Tank Tops? Do I? And of all the dudes in all the lands, this dude is the very last one who should ever wear a tank top.
  • Speaking of tank tops. When I fly, I wear jeans, a shirt, and a sweater or sweatshirt. Because airplanes are FREEZING. In the winter, I wear boots and heavy socks – even if I’m flying to Florida.

(I wore sandals on all my recent flights because I didn’t have room in my luggage to NOT wear them, and my feet nearly fell off they were so cold.)

But it seems to me that the vast majority of travelers prefer to wear, well, nothing. I saw countless teenagery-age girls in the terminal wearing teeny little camisoles and those might-as-well-just-wear-boy-short-underwear Daisy Dukes and flip flops.

How do they not freeze? HOW?

  • Take this as a public service announcement: Be really, really careful when you open your 3-ounce bottle of hand sanitizer while on the plane. I was careless and ended up with hand sanitizer in my eyes. Like, a lot of hand sanitizer. Two ounces, if you want my super-scientific estimate.

Since the last thing I want to do is Panic On The Plane, I silently squealed in pain and terror as I contemplated my impending blindness. Then – without opening my dripping, goopy eyes – I felt around under my seat for my purse to fish around for a Kleenex or a napkin.

I normally keep all matter of handy little doohickeys in my purse – from plastic silverware to band-aids to hair ties to packets of hot sauce to a fold-up hairbrush to a mirror to an extra bracelet to bank deposit envelopes to Shout wipes and more – but on this occasion, I had neither Kleenex nor napkins. So I had to make do with a Charmin toilet seat cover.

  • And this is totally not related to travel at all, but my OCD is preventing me from ending with just nine bullets…. Have you heard the Katy Perry song about peacocks? If so, please answer me this: What the hell is wrong with her? And what the hell is wrong with people who ENJOY that kind of thing? (Which, in case I come across as too judgy here, includes my husband, who has played that song for me no fewer than 29 times since I got home.) (Punishment for leaving him for so long?)

Happy Friday, Internet!