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 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)
August 20, 2008
A Sad Sad Day for Music
LeRoi Moore, the saxophone player from the Dave Matthews Band died yesterday.
Sad, sad, sad. And I just knew the music.
Can't compare to those that knew the man.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2008
La La La Hey
Could I have been lost somewhere in Paris?
Not with Nuvi, no. (My ex updated it for me about a month ago, and when he gave it back to me he had changed the vehicle on the display. He said he first considered the wood-paneled station wagon, but in the end decided on the short bus.)
I finished my class in St. Louis today about 3:00 and headed to the airport pondring perhaps getting an earlier flight. I turned in my rental car, got on the bus, got off at the terminal, went inside and checked the boards to find both the 3:00 hour and the 4:00 hour flights to Atlanta cancelled. I tried to check in for my flight at the kiosk and got a message saying that there was some problem with my flight.
So I got in line, and while waiting got on the phone to the travel agent.
Weather in Atlanta, it seems. The travel agent says there is a flight on American through Chicago that would get me home at ten something. Except it left in 45 minutes. Not enough time to make that one.
Everything else headed the right direction is sold out. I tell her I'll continue to wait in line and see what the agent said.
My flight is delayed over two hours. I'd miss my connection in Atlanta, but could drive home from there. I did the math lightening fast in my head and figured I'd be home by about 3 AM.
But there was more math to be done, of the probability variety.
There was the chance that I'd wait around until 8:45 PM, and that flight wouldn't leave at all. Then I'd be stuck in STL for the night, and considering I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow night, that thought didn't appeal to me at all.
I walked away from the agent without checking in or making any decisions and went outside to ponder.
While reaching in my bag for my phone charger, Nuvi jumped out at me and told me that if I drove home (yes from St. Louis), that I'd get here at 4:13 AM.
So I went to the rental car counter, booked a car, and when the guy printed my receipt he said, "wow you got a good deal. Hey, Steve, guess how much her rental is for a one way drop in Greenville?"
Steve didn't venture a guess. I didn't either, but had I, I would have been WAY off.
Fifty six bucks for a mid-size car.
I ask, "does it have tires?"
He says yes, four of them.
"And an engine?"
"Yep. And air conditioning. Can you believe that Steve?"
I really don't think Steve cared. Nor did I. Delta refunded me 400 dollars for the flight I wasn't going to take. Anything less than that for the car was a bonus.
So I got in the car and drove home. Stopped once for gas and two Red Bulls at about midnight, found a great radio station in Nashville, and apart from the fact that I couldn't see the Great Smoky Mountains as I drove through them, it wasn't a bad drive.
I pulled into the rental car return spot in Greenville at 4:14 AM. (Nuvi is like magic sometimes.)
I filled out the little rental return thing, and as I walked toward the terminal noticed an unusual volume of people inside.
As the sliding doors opened, a guy was walking out with a checked bag in his hand. And I could see behind him many people still waiting at baggage claim. I asked him where he had just come from.
"American flight from Chicago. Should have been here at ten something."
I said thanks, dropped my keys off at the counter, found Jalenpeno right where I left her, paid the parking machine, and headed south once more.
When I pulled in my driveway there was standing water on it, and I could see in the headlights that the mulch in the front yard was almost black. Involuntarily my mind went back to the moment at the ticket counter in St. Louis almost exactly 12 hours previous and it played the drive home.
When I opened the door, had any creatures been watching or listening, they would have seen me smile largely and say out loud, "yeah, but we had RAIN."
And everything was okay.
La la la hey.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 04:58 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2008
Hey La La La
Hey my friend it seems your eyes are troubled. Care to share your time with me? Would you say you're feeling low? And so a good idea would be to get it off your mind.
Dave, Dave, Dave. A prelude to an entire evening in a verse.
I love you, man.
So I did. I got it off my mind.
And he said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Then before I could shake my head he asked again, more slowly, and if possible, with even more disbelief in his voice, “are…you…fucking…kidding…me. Who does that?”
And now that some time has passed, I can tell the story.
The he in question asking me this was a story all by himself. Many years younger than me, obscenely good looking, single, professional, and a very stylish dresser.
We were leaning on the railing of an outdoor balcony in a really nice hotel. How we got to be there was a story all by itself too. (He and I leaning – not the physics of getting to the hotel.) My girlfriends, sisters from different mothers, had been with me earlier in the evening (along with about 200 of our closest coworkers and managers) to see my long-term relationship with a man (one of the 200 present) implode. Maybe it was explode. Either way, there was a plode involved. (And that word is now (C) 2008 Me.)
And it would just be an understatement to say that it (the aforementioned plode, you're going to have to pay attention here) caught me off guard.
So my girlfriends rallied around me, deciding I need some distraction. And chose one of the single guys from the crowd as my date for the evening.
No half measures there.
First he should look like a GQ model. Check.
And be totally single and unattached. Check.
And be dressed to the nines, in that model-way. Check.
And be half my age, or there about, please and thank you.
Check. And you’re welcome.
I’ll tell you what I was telepathing to my BFFs and it just about rhymes with are you fucking kidding me: I’m 40, and have just been unceremoniously dismissed by a short, fat, bald man, and you taunt me with the eye candy.
And of course my potential date had an entire arsenal of responses which I’m sure in his young life he has used countless times to fend off ladies: he had plans; it was packing night; he had gone out the night before and wanted an early evening; not no but hell no you’re old; and the now infamous, AYFKM.
Did he use a one of them? Nope, he declared me and my outfit amazing, and took my hand for the rest of the evening.
This thusly began for us on the balcony. Where I got it off my mind. He learned why my girlfriends figured I might need some distraction and general looking-after at that particular moment in history.
And you already know his response.
Was there anything that could be done? No. Then make the best of what’s around.
Let’s see, short fat bald guy avoiding me like Dengue fever, or, um totally the opposite of that standing right there with me holding my hand.
You may already expect that Dave’s got the resolution.
Well she ran up into the light surprised
Her arms are open
Her mind's eye is
Seeing things from a
Better side than most can dream
On a clearer road I feel
Oh you could say she's safe
Whatever tears at her
Whatever holds her down
And if nothing can be done
She'll make the best of what's around.
Hey, la la la.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)