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October 31, 2008
Hello Halloween
I got a little bit more time until I have to say goodbye to October.
For your reading pleasure, interesting facts about Dave's song Halloween.
I had two on-time, first class flights home today, two stellar crews, spent my time between flights in Atlanta having Qdoba vegetarian nachos, listening to the woman play the baby grand in the E concourse, and having a delightful conversation in Spanish with Diego, a 18-month old little boy who was standing on the other side of the countertop table where I was eating.
Diego was on his way to London, but seemed way more interested in the straw he was chewing on.
After I ate, I strolled back to the B concourse, talked to my brother, my mom, and left a message for my sister; and wandered to my gate.
(For Halloween today I was dressed as a hopeful Cubs fan.)
At the gate, a man approached me and said, "ah, the Cubs fan I almost knocked over in the E concourse."
Seemed to me I would have remembered almost being knocked over. Maybe not. Tough to say. So I said what came to my mind.
"Huh?"
He made his claim again and then proceeded to launch into a lengthy story about his experiences with the Chicago Cubs.
Without taking a breath it seems, he then told me all about his work, and told me he was on a project from hell.
Then proceeded to describe, in detail, the hell.
The Delta agent called him to the podium, and when he got back he announced to me that the agent had told him to wait to board because he may be upgraded.
Then he just kept on talking. Meanwhile he starts digging in his bag and hands me a business card.
It didn't do much to answer my unspoken question of "who the hell are you?"
Fortunately they called for boarding not long after that, so I excused myself from the one-sided conversation and got on the plane.
Wheels down less than an hour later. No bags checked, Jalepeno at the front of the garage, and no traffic on the highway.
Home.
I turned on the computer and checked my email. Happy to see there were just a couple of new ones, and nothing that needed attention today.
So I shut that down, then went and browsed pondring's stats page.
It's been a busy October. And when I bothered to look to the column on the right, I see its possible pondring will reach 100,000 hits here by the end of the year.
Huh.
That's kind of cool.
And it's also kind of funny, because I don't know who the hell you guys are, either.
Well, that's not entirely true. I think I could now name over 10 of you.
The rest, who's to say.
Happy Halloween, either way.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2008
Well Played Philadelphia
I was pulling for Tampa but I gotta say that is a lovely pileup of red out there on the mound.
Thanks boys. See you next year.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2008
Maybe Your Bag Has a Better Attitude
Low visibility at the Atlanta airport yesterday had air traffic backed up quite a bit.
I was delayed a couple of hours out of St. Louis; missed my connection home, and so had a lengthy wait for the last boat out of Atlanta.
It happens.
It also happens that I didn't have my noise cancelling headphones on me. This means I eavesdropped.
Really, I'm not sure it is considered eavesdropping if the folks are talking so loud it's impossible NOT to hear them. I'd head out to dictionary.com but believe the definition to be incidental to the story.
One loud lady had missed her connection and been rebooked on a flight that was supposed to leave at 10:30 PM out of B11.
When they called for boarding at B11, she got in line, and then was denied boarding. She was told she wasn't on THAT flight.
She then started demanding answers from the gate agent and was going to stand there until she got them.
(Not the best strategy.)
(The simple sign the woman had overlooked was the flight number. They were boarding one flight, she was on another. The time, gate, and destination were coincidental, and a result of backed-up flights.)
She said that she had to throw away a two-dollar cup of Starbucks coffee at her departure airport because "customs" wouldn't let her bring it on the plane. She said she couldn't understand why the airlines didn't allow a hot beverage on the plane.
(Since she was coming from El Paso, I did the math lightening fast in my head and figured that she was simply unaware that one couldn't take drinks through security. The leap she made to that meaning one couldn't take hot beverages on a plane was congruent with the rest of her logic.)
(But it didn't make it any less cringe-inducing to hear.)
She continued.
Since the rental car counter at her destination (by now I know it's the same as my destination) obviously would close at midnight, she didn't know how she was going to get where she needed to be.
(In reality, the rental car places stay open until the last flight comes in.)
When the woman finally hangs up the phone, she tries to engage me and another woman seated nearby in conversation by saying she's going to write a letter to Delta.
I don't bite. The other lady does.
They loudly banter their frustrations. And woe at their delays. And angst at the agents unable to increase visibility to greater than quarter of a mile and thus get them home on time.
I smile and pretend I don't understand English.
Then see two pilots sitting a few seats away. One of them looks like a famous actor. I picked up my bag and walked over to him and smiled and said excuse me and asked him if people tell him all the time he looks like anyone in particular.
"Yes."
I smiled again, said I thought so, begged forgiveness for interrupting, and started to walk away.
"Wait," he says. "Who?"
Half hour later, we're still chatting. In English. He's a million miles away, conversationally speaking, from the two women across the way.
(To mention male, and really attractive could possibly be redundant.)
He saw my new tattoo, commented on it, then showed me one of his, which involved pulling aside his shirt collar, so I showed him my first one, which also involved pulling aside my shirt collar, thus causing him to ask what it means, I tell him it's October in Japanese, he says he always wanted something like that but was afraid he'd walk out with something that was really offensive, and not know it.
"I took a dictionary with me."
"Smart woman."
The conversation led to him telling me he was 43 years old, and my telling him I'm 41.
He said I look amazing for 41.
It was all I could do to not quote Austin Powers out loud. (Your stock is rising number one.)
The man was funny, gregarious, and upbeat.
Libra wins. He balanced the previous half hour.
He had to get to work, and I needed to get to my gate.
Where there is one harried gate agent, and a not-yet-opened flight.
I take a seat and wait. And watch. And listen.
To the guy standing behind me saying it's all bullshit.
And to the two guys in line at the podium who missed their connections and demand to know if they will have seats on this flight.
Mary the gate agent tells them they need to go to customer service to get boarding passes. The flight isn't open yet and she can't help them.
They think it's bullshit now too. But they do go off and get their boarding passes. Their places in line are now taken by a single woman who has also missed her connection and is demanding to know whether she has a seat on this flight.
Mary tells her the same thing, but the woman doesn't take her advice. Instead she storms around the gate area also claiming bullshit.
And pretty soon here comes the lady from earlier in the evening.
And the two angry men come back with boarding passes and loudly try to convince the single woman storming around the gate area to really, go down to customer service, they will give her a boarding pass.
The guy standing right behind me tries to engage me in conversation by saying he doesn't understand why they cleared standbys on the previous flight and he didn't get a seat.
I smiled and shrugged slightly.
(Because they probably had, as the sign says, more current day travel interruptions, a higher ticket value, or higher priority status.)
He turns to the guy to his left and that guy bites. They both bitch until the boarding door opens. Neither of them know where their checked baggage is. They both had been told it may not make it on this flight.
Libra steps in, I get upgraded, and sit beside a man content to quietly sip his double scotch on the rocks.
When we finally land home, I claimed my bag, and heard the man that had been bitching beside me in the gate area say he KNEW that his bag had made the earlier flight and again questioned why he himself, did not.
I pondered out loud that perhaps his bag has a better attitude than he did. The man didn't hear me, but the lady grabbing her luggage right beside me laughed and said, "no kidding." (The man had bitched loudly the entire flight home.)
***
I am absolutely loving my new tattoo.
***
I met two men this week that had been in accidents severe enough they needed facial reconstructive surgery.
***
One of the students in my class this week, a former teacher himself, said he had never seen someone with such passion for their work who could keep such consistent intensity and pace for eight or more hours a day for an entire week.
(Earlier he had asked me whether I was exhausted at the end of the day. I said nope.)
***
So, Fenway. Game four of the series, second home game. When everything aligned, I sent a message to my cousin who lives outside of Boston. I'd buy the tickets if he'd go with me.
Well, duh.
So we went.
Time of my life.
(I'll mention this because it was a first for me. While waiting near the park for my cousin, a stranger asked me whether I was American Indian.)
(People routinely guess Italian, and then less specifically Asian.)
So my cousin arrives.
Funny enough, he's wearing his red Minnesota Twins ball cap, and I'm wearing my red Minnesota sweatshirt.
There wasn't a question that we were going to stop for a beer before the game. The question was where, and he gave me my choice - hopping and loud, or empty and quiet.
Empty and quiet.
He knows just the place.
So we walk a short way to a beautiful old building, go inside, get Shipyard Pumpkin beer (very good, I might add), then go through the bar, through a heavy wooden door and out onto a beautiful private patio. Including us, there were two people out there.
It was empty and quiet. And an utterly beautiful night, weather-wise, in Boston.
We talked and drank and then walked to the ball park. Where, seated behind the pesky pole, we talked and drank some more.
(Of course it was an awesome thing to pass through the turnstile. I put my arm through my cousins's arm and he capably steered me through the crowds as I watched, not at all, where I was going and instead read every sign and looked at every brick and kiosk and face and shirt and thing I could take in.)
(Including where the bathroom was.)
(We put a substantial hurt on the city's supply of Guinness.)
(My cousin has his company's car service on speed dial, so I was chauffeured back to my hotel before they drove him home.)
(My rental car spent the night in Boston and was none the worse for wear when I picked it up the next day.)
***
I regularly read dooce.
Doing so recently reminded me why I don't feel compelled to deal with comments here on pondring.
To be offhand (as opposed to Off hand, which if you look up are two different things) it's because I really don't care what people would write.
To the good, or to the bad, your opinions are yours and you are entitled to them. Thanks if you like it, go some place else if you don't.
It's not hard.
***
So a friend I met some years ago, but haven't heard from in a while recently joined some social networking site. I received an email, not from him, but on his behalf from the site saying that he had put me on a list and I had to click a button or he would think I didn't want to be his friend.
A day or two later I got a reminder email from the site saying I still had not clicked. And my friend "was waiting."
Another day or two later I got another reminder email.
Torass.
***
Posted by Angela Tanner at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2008
Pimps, Rappers, Skinheads, and Nerds
Not long before my birthday I bought myself a new pair of shoes from Zappos.com. I'm not much for brands. I found a pair I liked, they had them in my size, I clicked the button. They were on my doorstep in what seemed like minutes.
They were the perfect size, comfortable, seemed durable, and they were red.
Only after I bought them did I look up the brand.
They are Doc Martens.
The first word I saw in the the first link I found was the word "subculture." I read on. Apparently Doc Martens are popular with the skinheads.
Oh well. I like them, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.
So I wore the shoes to the next family gathering. My sister and I were in my car driving, and I told her that I read after I bought the shoes that apparently they are popular with the skinheads.
"And pimps. And rappers," she added helpfully.
Later that day sitting around with the family, my sister and I were relaying our conversation.
My sister said, "give it a couple of months, and the nerds will be wearing them too."
Shea laughed so hard I thought she was going to spit something out her nose.
My sister claims she meant it as a compliment.
I've been called lots of things, but I don't remember anyone ever calling me a nerd.
But I laughed too.
Cause I suppose I am the nerd of the family. (Peferable, methinks, to being pimp, rapper, or skinhead.)
But the only one with red shoes.
(And yes I did, in fact, get baseball tickets while in Boston. Me and my red shoes got to see the Red Sox play. At Fenway. In the postseason.)
Posted by Angela Tanner at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2008
As The Commercial Goes: I Live for This
Karma blows up my balloons all the time.
Sometimes karma pops them.
(It has to. I'm a Libra.)
Chicago, I will be hopeful for you once again, next year.
Meanwhile, Hank and I are looking forward to an exciting rest of the post season.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2008
Happy Birthday to Me
While I was out digging in the dirt yesterday, I kept looking down thinking I had something on my arm.
I did. A new tattoo. Tattoo two.
My firedancer. With her newly-tattooed red aura which will go away. And that’s okay.
I went in to the shop on Sunday. An odd little man behind the counter got some basic information from me, and then asked me which artist I wanted.
I said, “I looked on your website, and any of them would be overqualified for what I want, and it’s okay if they laugh at me.”
After a few moments, I was introduced to an artist, whose name I did not catch due to the very high volume of the rock music playing. He was busy with someone else, but stopped for a moment to see the little picture I brought with me, and give me an estimate.
The odd little man got a deposit from me, and made an appointment for Monday at 12:30.
I will admit that the artist scared me ever so slightly. But he seemed to do good work.
When I got there yesterday, I went to use the bathroom, and noticed him in his room spraying down everything. I then noticed that the bathroom was cleaner than pretty much any other one I’ve ever seen, and the checklists on the walls were up to date.
Better 5S than most businesses I’ve seen, too. (I know they have to. Technically, there are lots of places that have to and yet, don’t.)
And the artist, turned out to be named Buck, was a teddy bear.
He had printed a template and held it out to me once I got settled in.
I held out the same template, modified to suit the style of me.
I wanted smooth lines. I wanted her ass smaller. And her arms to look less like stumps. More symmetrical. And no ribs showing. Solid black. I did leave her right arm ever so slightly spooky.
So he suggested he make the tracing directly from my drawing. I said cool.
When Buck had the outline cut out, he placed it on the very center of my forearm. Which was a different place than I had said I wanted a day earlier.
Then I was surprised to find I had a preference to NOT have it centered. He moved it up, and moved it down, and I decided on up.
Oh, how very much it felt like he was slicing into my arm with a large sharp knife. I was sure if I looked, that I would see my right forearm flayed, firedancer flap of skin flapping in the wind, so to speak.
And yet, I looked. Glanced, really. And didn’t see any blood. I think he was barely done with her foot.
I admitted to Buck I’m a bit of a woos, so he capably held my arm down after that.
Once it was way past too late to change her location, he told me that the further up the forearm one goes toward the elbow, the more painful it is.
I said had he told me that at the beginning, she’d be a lot lower on my arm.
He said he never mentions pain to someone.
I thought that sounded like a really good strategy.
So as it turned out, it’s a different size, different color, and in a totally different place than Sunday's tattoo would have been.
Pondring anything does that, you know.
Sometimes it conjures better.
Now if I can just get Dave to autograph her with a 41.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2008
C'Mon Philadelphia
Just one more grand slam.
Now would be a good time.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2008
Oh, October
(And once again ladies and gentlemen...)
Hello, October.
It's only three days old and it's already been delightful.
For the first time (I think ever but I'll have to check my notes) I will be working in a city that has a team in the postseason. I may not actually make it to the game, but the fact that there is the potential to do so alone is exciting.
I remain hopeful for Chicago.
After an on-time, direct flight to Houston last weekend, I found my name on the rental car board, got my space number, and walked to it. I saw the car in the space, figured there was a mistake, walked back to the board, rechecked the number, it hadn't changed, and walked back to the car, put my stuff in it, and drove it away.
It was a brand-new mustang with Sirius satellite radio. Ergo, Coffeehouse and Dave and Maroon 5 for days.
Last night I reversed the trip, and boarded the plane in Houston. I took my aisle seat. As the plane filled up, a group of three ladies boarded. One of them was next to me in the window seat. She was an elderly lady, and while she in no way looked fragile, I offered to move to the window if she wanted the aisle seat.
She did.
When she sat down she asked me if the airplane had a bathroom on it. I said yes, and told her it was in the back. She said she preferred the aisle because it made it easier for her to get to the bathroom. I said it was no problem, that I actually was going to nap, and sitting next to the window suited me better.
Well, I didn't nap at all.
Mary Edith was 77 years old. She had lost her husband three years, almost to the day, earlier. She was travelling with two of her girlfriends on buddy passes because one of her friends' sons-in-law (?) is a pilot.
Mary Edith was known to her friends back home (Iowa) as Edith, but when she and her husband moved to California she began to go by Mary. I called her Mary Edith because that was what she seemed to prefer.
She has four children, seven grandchildren, one of whom, a grandson, also does something with computers, and lives in Washington state. She has three great grandchildren, and three more on the way - one set of twins, girls, and another one of as yet undetermined sex.
She wanted to name one of her daughters Jolene, but her Dad didn't like the name, so she deferred to him. And has always regretted doing so. She hoped one of her twin great granddaughters would have Jolene in her name.
(I got to hoping so too.)
Mary Edith had a wicked sense of humor. I don't have the focus at the moment to tell the whole story about the priest and the weapons, but I will give you the punch line.
I said, "so we asked the priest whether he preferred a .38 or a .22."
Mary Edith said, "if you didn't know the story, that could be taken the wrong way."
She paused, then added, "is that her waist size or her bust size?"
She then mentioned Sarah Palin.
And I told her I really paid no attention to politics, and it was really one of those three things I wouldn't discuss anyway.
She got the hint and we went on to other things.
She asked me if I go to church. I gave her the short answer, no.
Mary Edith wasn't so willing to let that one go. I didn't take any offense at it at all, I just said gently to her that religion was there with politics for me. One of the things about me I simply don't defend to anyone.
She went on for a bit longer. I give her credit for persistence, but eventually I did say to her, "Mary Edith, you're going to have to find another topic of conversation."
Then she got the hint, and we went on to other things.
What she packed. Why she packed it. How she packed it. And whether it was gate checked, or regular checked baggage.
Gatlinburg. The beaches of North Carolina. The Phillipines, Greenville, and Guam.
She still wears her wedding ring, and still has pictures of her husband in her bedroom. She misses him. They were married for 54 years.
At some point Mary Edith asked me where I thought we were, geographically. I took a look out the window, and in that brief moment, Mary Edith leaned across the aisle and struck up a conversation with the young lady in 1A. (Three seats across.)
Very soon, Mary Edith was introducing me to Keeke. Keeke was her real name, it had a familial origin and she liked her name now but didn't while she was younger.
Keeke had recently moved to Houson, had graduated from college five months ago, and worked with very small kids in a very large church in Houston. She was going to visit her family for the weekend.
Keeke was without power for only 24 hours after Ike, and without water for three days. She knew she was one of the very lucky ones.
When we landed and got off the plane, Mary Edith forget to wait for her gate-checked bag. As we walked up the jetway she wondered whether she should go back for it, or whether her girlfriends, who were at the back of the plane, would see it and get it for her.
I suggested that we wait up in the terminal, and if they didn't bring her bag, I would go down and get it for her.
So while we were standing there saying that, a man from the flight said that her friends down the jetway had seen Mary Edith's bag sitting there, discussed the possibility that she had forgotten it, and were bringing it to her.
Mary Edith introduced me to her two friends. Mary Edith told them that when she got on the plane I had said I was going to nap. Julia said to me, "I bet you didn't get any sleep at all."
She said that everywhere they go they have to pull Mary Edith away from conversations with people.
I was not surprised in the least.
Nor was I surprised we landed early.
October just has that way about it.
In other yesterday news, I made the decision on what and where for my new tattoos. I'm getting two, although just one in October. I'm going to put off the third one until December when I go to Guam.
Just because I can.
And I haven't even mentioned October's best news thus far.
I have 11 days at home centered around my birthday.
And I STILL haven't mentioned October's best news thus far.
And don't intend to. It's mine.
Happy birthday to me.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)