Vacation

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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!

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Friday Randomosity: Everyone’s at BlogHer Except Me Edition

I know that pretty much the entire blogosphere is at BlogHer, this very second, forming friendships and meeting their favorite bloggers in person and collecting big bags of SWAG… And I know this because I am NOT there, and am dejectedly hitting “refresh” on my favorite blogs just in case they are updating from NYC.

Anyway. Here’s some randomosity!

* Even though I am pouting – just a little – about not being a BlogHer, I don’t think I could ever go. For one thing, I am hugely awkward in person. For another thing, I am very shy, and would probably spend the whole conference skulking in the backs of rooms and wistfully glancing at the bloglebrities I’d die to meet and then going up to my hotel room and crying.

* My husband and I got into a super huge fight this week. It involved our upcoming vacation. You see, he came home from work at 9:00 in the morning and asked me if I’d had a chance to look at Asheville and Charlottesville and decide where to go on our vacation. I told him I’d only been able to look in Asheville, and I found a really cute B&B called the Biltmore Village Inn. Then HE said that HE’D found something called the Residences at Biltmore that looked really nice. And then he said that he’d also found something called the Inn at the Biltmore that looked really cool too.

Wherein I said, “I JUST told you about the Inn at the Biltmore.”

And he said, “No you didn’t. You just told me about the Residences at Biltmore.”

And I was all, “Are you crazy, man? YOU just told ME about the Residences at Biltmore! I had never heard of that until you JUST NOW TOLD ME!”

And he was all, “Nuh uh.”

And by this point I was in a frothing rage because he was being CRAZY and on top of that STUBBORN, so I screeched, “YOU JUST TOLD ME ABOUT THE RESIDENCES. I WAS THE ONE WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT THE INN AT THE BILTMORE!”

And then he went to brush his teeth and we both calmed down and looked things up. And apparently we are both idiots.

The end.

* Speaking of Asheville. THANK YOU for all your excellent advice! You did absolutely nothing to help me make a decision, but you did make me feel a whole lot better about going to either Charlottesville or Asheville.

However… There’s been a vacation… snafu, if you will.

You see, my MIL just informed my husband that she has a week of her time share available. And I’m not going to pretend I understand time share logistics, but it sounded like we could use it for our vacation.

And let it never be said that I am a spendthrift, Internet! I jumped all over the possibility that our lodging could be FREE.

However, there are no places where we could stay in Asheville or Charlottesville.

Hence the snafu.

There are some OTHER places we could go. (And stay for FREE.) But for some reason, none of those places are particularly appealing to my husband. He is SET on Charlottesville (or Asheville, but he is leaning toward C-Ville). And he is fine with not only a) paying for rooms but b) paying a LOT for rooms and c) having a shorter vacation than we would with the time share.

Baffling, I tell you.

* At this very moment I am eating cottage cheese and carrots. And I have the sinking sensation that the cottage cheese has, shall we say, “turned.”

I mean, I smelled it before I put some on my plate. And I checked the expiration date (Monday the ninth). And I even tasted a little curd, which seemed fine. But now that I’m eating big bites of it, it’s got a weird, sour, “off” sort of taste.

I guess if you see another post like this one, you’ll know who to blame.

* Speaking of food poisoning… because it’s everyone’s favorite topic… If the cottage cheese does me in, that will be the second time this summer that I’ve had food poisoning. Also: The second time EVER.

How can one go 29 years without suffering from food poisoning… and then have two bouts of it in the span of a couple of months?

* By the way, in case you were wondering, the second bout with the ol’ FP was far better than the first bout.

That’s because the first bout occurred while my husband and I were out of town. And we were staying with friends. Who only have one bathroom. Conveniently located right across the hall from their bedroom.

So the second bout did not have that embarrassing side effect. Also, I did not have to deal with Sweat Chills, where you are hot as hell and damp as a wet rag but your teeth are chattering.

Nor did I have to deal with Running Out of Toilet Paper When You Need Toilet Paper More Than You Ever Have in Your Whole Life. Which led to me frantically searching under the bathroom sink in my friends’ house… and then crawling (YES. On my hands and knees) down the hall to the guest room where my husband was blissfully asleep and begging him to help me find the toilet paper.

Y’all. My husband has NEVER – in the entire duration of our nearly nine-year relationship – seen me barf. And I was afraid that Bout One with the Ol’ FP would end that streak. (It didn’t.)

* My, this blog post has certainly taken a turn for the disgusting. Thank goodness no one is reading!

* So, in non-barf-related news, I think the Universe has it out for me. Every time I schedule something that looks remotely like a vacation, ten thousand responsibilities pop up.

So next week, I am going to Napa with three very dear high school friends. (YAY!) I am taking off three days to do so. I haven’t taken an actual, honest-to-goodness full day off since… Um… Hmmm… My wedding? Which was December of 2008. Yes, I’ve taken “vacations.” But up till now, those vacations have been spent either a) working full time or b) working part time.

So, of course, now that I am going to take some Real Live Days Off, I have about 30 projects going on. (Which I am DEEPLY thankful for, please don’t get me wrong.) Plus, my in-laws will be here. And I am giving a presentation in a couple of weeks and need to prepare for that.

So. A lot going on.

To top it all off, my husband will be done with stupid night float the day that I leave for Napa.

* I hate night float more than anything in the whole wide world.

* Except maybe food poisoning.

* Nope. Night float wins.

* Did you notice up there when I said I was giving a presentation? Me. The girl who blushes during BOOK CLUB when I have to give my totally un-scientific opinions on the book we just read.

Now, I want to be clear on something. If you hire me to give a presentation, I will give a kick ass presentation. It will be well-researched. It will be clear. It will be well-organized. And it will not exceed the given time limit. (There’s nothing worse than an overly lengthy presentation.) (EXCEPT FOR NIGHT FLOAT.)

But. I hate speaking in front of people.

That doesn’t mean that I can’t do it. I mean, I was a teacher for three full semesters, people. Of college students. Who were about three years younger than I was. (Read: Intimidating and totally not intimidated by me.)

But I’m scared. Hopefully my blushing and shaky voice will subside after the first five minutes.

* If you are somehow NOT at BlogHer, please leave me a detailed comment or post on your blog. Because I am bored and I feel like there’s nothing to read. Whine whine whine.

* My stomach just gave an ominous gurgle. So I’m outtie 5000.

* * * * *

There you have it Internet! Happy Friday!

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Virginia, Really?

Well, Internet, my husband has some vacation time coming up!

In a few months.

What? I didn’t say it was happening right away.

Anyway, my husband has two places in mind for our little getaway: Asheville, North Carolina and Charlottesville, Virginia.

I am ashamed to say that I had to look up exactly which states those cities inhabit. In fact, I was shocked – SHOCKED – to find out that Charlottesville isn’t in South Carolina. I really truly thought that not only did my husband pick two “villes” for us to choose between, but that he picked two Carolinas as well.

(Not that I could tell the Carolinas apart. I mean, they’re not as SEPARATE and DISTINCT as, say, the Dakotas. Those I could pick out of a lineup. South Dakota’s the one with all the red dust on her face.)

(Or is that Utah? Damn. I really suck at geography.)

ANYHOODLE.

My husband chose these two lovely cities and told me to pick one.

Internet, that is WAY too much responsibility.

I mean, what if I pick the suckier of the two? And we end up hating the whole weekend? And even though it was one of my husband’s choices and even though he ASKED ME to choose, he resents me for choosing the wrong one? Nothing kills romance like you-chose-the-wrong-city resentment.

So I was just going to flip a coin, but I’m not really good at that. I’m more likely to break a lightbulb or flip the coin into an air duct than anything else. And then I’d be covered in glass shards and STILL not know where we’re going.

Then I had a brilliant idea!

I have all my lovely readers…

Why not EXPLOIT them and make them choose?

[Edited to Add: This is not where I originally intended this post to end. In fact, I managed to blather on for a good 400+ more words. I guess this is WordPress’s way of saying “SHUT IT, LADY” and trying to educate me in the art of brevity? ANYWAY. I did reveal the song from yesterday in the original, full-length version of this post. And all you Gaga guessers were right (ish): It was “Alejandro.” And it is gone for now, although a) I woke up at 4:00 in the morning with the chorus on repeat in my head AGAIN and b) I now have “Poker Face” stuck in my head. Such is life, I guess. Always having a Gaga song stuck in your head. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I can’t hear it over the pelvis thrusting. And now back to your regularly scheduled Giving Me Vacation Advice.]