Friday, November 30, 2007

New York, New York

Ah, New York for the holidays. My husband and I flew to NY on Thanksgiving morning to spend the holiday with family and friends. A forty minute layover in O'Hare was cause for concern, but in spite of pre-blizzard conditions in Chicago, we made our connection and were off the ground within 15 minutes of our scheduled departure. This would be my first time back to the city during the holiday season...my list of tourist to-do's included Rockefeller Center (tree, skating rink) and 5th Ave (shop windows)among other things because I have never gotten to see them all decked out for Christmas.

We had a lovely dinner with family and friends. There was much to celebrate as one friend recently found out she was pregnant and her brother was interviewing for grad school the next morning.

There was no shopping for us on Black Friday. We enjoyed very natural rising (no alarm clock waking aid) and then headed into the city for dinner at The View and a show. The View is on the 48th Floor of they Marriott. The seating area of the restaurant revolves, providing diners with a dazzling display of the NY skyline in panoramic views. Unfortunately, we were enjoying each other's company so much, we hardly took notice of the vista. Not to worry, we'll be back again.

We nearly lingered too long at dinner, arriving at the theater in the middle of the first song of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It was a wonderful show with several laugh out loud moments.

Saturday we took a driving tour of Staten Island to show off my childhood home, my dad's childhood haunts, and the little people house, among other things. Eric had a hard time believing it took nearly three hours to circumnavigate an island 14 miles long and 7 miles wide! After the island tour it was off to M&M's house for an Italian feast. And when I say feast, it is no exaggeration! We began with olives, chips and dip, bread stuffed with chicken parmigiana, and focaccia bread. For the main course we dined on pasta ears and sauce, sausage, fragioli, meatballs, and eggplant parmigiana. And of course, no feast is complete without dessert: pound cake with powdered sugar, ice cream, apple pie, and limoncello.

Sunday was another day for natural rising. We went back into the city for the Rockette's at Radio City Music Hall. Before the show we walked along 5th Avenue to take in the window displays and made our way down to Rockefeller Center. The tree was there, but unfortunately won't be lit until tonight, so that's another item still to be checked off the to-do list another time. We had brunch at the Bryant Park Grill behind the public library. The park was ringed with boutiques selling all kinds of trinkets and doo dads for Christmas and in the middle of the park was another temporary ice skating rink with -- believe it or not -- free ice skating!

The Rockette's were fantastic. And what a treat to see them at Radio City. My all time favorite will always be the toy soldiers number. What incredibly precise choreography! After the show I had to jump in a cab to La Guardia so I could be home for work on Monday. Cruelty of all cruelty, after getting in at 1:30 Monday morning, I had to be back at the airport for a reserve shift at 6:00 a.m. However, this was hardly a price to pay for such a grand Thanksgiving weekend!

Back to Work

Since my last enthusiastic post, I have indeed gone back to work with a vengeance. I thoroughly enjoyed my "three day" trip to West Palm Beach. That trip consisted of a red eye to WPB, a 25 hour lay over, a day at the beach, a lovely meal by the water, getting stung by a jelly fish, and a surprisingly good dinner at the hotel restaurant, and a 3 1/2 hour flight back to Denver. I got back from WPB in the morning and left for another overnight in Ft. Lauderdale that night. It was gorgeouse weather, but I was so exhausted from the red eye flight and no sleep all day prior, that I slept nearly all of my 12 hour layover away.

A pattern is becoming apparent to me. It seems that on each flight, there is one character that sticks out to me. On the WPB flight, it was a little old Jewish grandma. She had been interviewed by the local WPB news station because she was on the first flight from WPB to Denver on Frontier. She was going out for her grandson's Bar-Mitzvah. I wheeled her up the jet way where a customer service agent was waiting. She said, "I saw you on tv the other day." Little Grandma's response was, "I know, how did my hair look? Did I look ok?"

What a great trip to come back to work for!

I had a brief respite with a Thanksgiving visit to family and friends in NY. Since the holiday, I've been to Phoenix and Milwaukee.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Another Trip, Finally

I'm minutes from stepping out the door for my next trip...to West Palm Beach, FL, of all places. The posting has been a little (or a lot) thing lately due to a dearth of flights for me. It's been exactly two weeks since I've been at an airport and it's felt so WEIRD! I did manage to knit most of a scarf, write a couple of freelance articles, paint nearly the entire interior of our house, reorganize the kitchen cabinets, and read a couple of books. I'm not cut out to be a desperate housewife...or maybe I am, because more than three days at home not working makes me desperate to get out and do something or see someone -- anything!

So, I'll return in two days with fresh travel stories and a skin tone that's a shade or two darker if the weatherman received my request for good beach bumming weather.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

Well, one of mine anyway. I was sitting in a local Barnes and Noble killing time before meeting some friends for dinner, reading the Knitting for Peace book I would be splurging on, when someone caught my eye browsing the Crafts shelving ahead of me. It was a woman who had clearly been enjoying her retirement years for likely as long as I've been looking forward to my own. She wasn't wearing a kooky hat and her pants weren't swiveled askance. Rather, it was what she was toting that drew my attention. She was cruising the bookstore with a collapsible shopping basket on wheels.

My first thought was, "Now that's the way to go about increasing your home library!" Since grad school is over, I have lost my ability to justify spending hundreds of dollars on books in one blow every few months. In fact, I've relegated myself to bimonthly trips to the library to keep my literary coffers stocked. Ironically, the size of my neighborhood library is about 1/4 the size of the Barnes and Noble I was sitting in, and I could likely read through its collection in about three years of concerted effort. Thank goodness for Interlibrary Loan programs.

Now, however, thanks to this lovely pensioner and her mobile shopping basket, I have a new dream. One day, I too will buy books by the wheely basket load.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Streamline

It occurred to me as I was riding the employee bus back to the parking lot after my grueling three day trip that the best people to be smashed into a large, mass-transit vehicle with are flight attendants. For the most part, they fit the stereotype -- svelt and streamline. Although we all have luggage, we are very good at juggling multiple personal bags and squeezing rollerbags into the most impossible crevices. Most impressively, not only can one person fit for each indentation in the bench seating, but five flight attendants can squeeze into spaces intended for four normal people.

This opens up a whole other side of mass transportation for me.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

First 2-Hour Call Out

Yikes! I just got a call from crew scheduling for a three day trip...reporting in two hours. And here I am blogging. It's such a glamorous life. Here's the schedule
Denver - Portland
Portland - Denver
Denver - Minneapolis lay over
Minneapolis - Denver
Denver - Milwaukee
Milwaukee - Denver
Denver - Seattle lay over
Seattle - Denver
Denver - San Jose, CA
San Jose, CA -Denver

Whew, I'm tired already. The most I've flown so far is two legs in a day. My last trip was just an overnight, one leg per day. I've been spoiled.

It's off to get ready. Happy flying!