Meterolgists are Employed for a Reason

Hello from Tulsa.

Now those loyal readers who recall Tulsa from an earlier post may remember that Tulsa...how do I put this nicely.....provides a nice oppurtunity to compose a blog. Not much to blog about, but plenty of time and a comfy bed.

Actually, I'm lucky to even have the bed.

When we were coming in yesterday, the lead on my flight said that she had called the hotel and we would have electricity and hot water. I thought perhaps she was being a little over zealous in her "Flight Manager" responsibilites, but I smiled and nodded.

Turns out, however, that Tulsa has recently experienced some horrible ice storms and huge areas have been without power for days. All of the hotel rooms are sold-out with people escaping their freezing homes and power company workers doing repair work.

Now, I might have actually considered walking around a bit or going to mass at the Church up the street today, but since I only packed a little sundress and it is below freezing, that might not be so wise.

I'm sure I could have advoided all this climate confusion had I checked the weather online before I left New Jersey. However, that would have been impossible because for the past two days all internet activity has pretty much been reduced to watching video clips of "The Flight the Conchords" on YouTube.

Genius. Sheer New Zealandac Genius.

It's entirely Claire's fault I'm now addicted to New Zealand's "fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo".
But it's also because of her that I'm finally reading the Pope's first encylical.
That's what friends are for.

Another Month Bites the Dust....

No one has ever accused me of being particuarly punctual or dependant, but to start a blog and then not update it for over a month is just unacceptable.

The fundamental problem with maintaining said blog is that when one has time to do things like write blog entries, it generally means that one is not doing things that make exciting reading. Combine that with a perfectionist streak and the attention span of a mosquito and you end up with no less than four "unpublished drafts".

Then concerned friends start to ask annoying/flattering/perfectly reasonble questions like "why haven't you updated your blog in a year?" And when you reply thay you haven't even had a blog for a year they say, "why are you so prone to hyperbole?"

But I digress.

The truth is that November passed without a single update, and now I must focus my brillant analysis on the Christmas season.

Decorations of varying quaility are popping up all over the country. In Dallas we watched them erect a three-story evergreen at the Galleria Mall (it was the only free entertainment there and I sure wasn't buying anything at that overpriced pit with 7.5% sales tax). On a recent flight a particularly antsy New Yorker showed me shots from the top of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. His business had just finished the wiring, and it wasn't even lit yet, but I saw the multi-million dollar star and NYC through the branches. It almost made up for the fact that he crowed my galley for about three hours. I've put up a few humble strands of lights around my window and of course there are the giant plastic illumminated candles on the steps of mi casa in Jersey. There are no inflatable winterscapes among the windchimes and garden scuptures yet, but there's still time.

As for destinations, November wasn't really exciting. In fact, the best layover I had was DC for Thankgiving. There's nothing quite like going home in the middle of a four-day trip and filling up on free food to lift one's spirts.

It was however, a month of good crews. Overall, I got along great with my co-workers and I've been around long enough now that I run into people I know all over the airport and at the layover hotels.

On the trip to Dallas I flew with one girl that really reminded me of myself a year ago. Execpt for the fact that she was 22, on a break from school and living at home in PA with her parents and boyfriend (yeah, same house), it was like looking in a mirror.

She was at the 6-month "What have I gotten myself into?!?!" mark. This time it was me trying to convice her that she should stick it out for at least a year because it gets so much better.

And, not only did I encourage her to perservere in her career choice, but I also taught her that cool trick where you put dry ice in a cup of water. Seniority rocks.

A Cure for Global Warming and Other Chilling Activites

It seems the weather has finally checked the calender.

Here in the mid-Atlantic states it is appropriately autumnal. The air is fresh and cool, a bright sun sparkles through golden leaves and Annapolitans participate in seasonal rituals such as pumpkin picking and Navy tailgates.

You can thank me personally for the temperature change because yesterday I shaved my legs.

By October I have every right to hide a little lazy grooming under slacks or pantyhose, but this year I can't bear to put away the fun (easy-traveling) summer clothes. Since I want to continue to dress for the weather (and not have people think I'm voting for Hillary), I did what needed to be done. Of course as soon as I was skirt-worthy, the cold snap snapped.

Guess I'm just fighting global warming one follicle at a time.

But even more terrifying than my overgrown gams was the Halloween Organ Concert at the Naval Academy. Well, maybe not terrifying, but great fun!

Every year the midshipmen transform the Chapel into the eerie setting of the All Saints Day celebration. It's not just a concert it's an experience.

Black and blue light illuminates the dramatic cobweb-covered architecture of the Chapel while everywhere midshipmen dressed as zombies, ghouls and other bizarre creatures taunt the audience.

The concert itself started out with haunting pieces such as Phantom of the Opera, then silly stuff like the Adams Family and an awesome Thriller complete with choreographed corpses. Later the singing and dancing featured a (perhaps a little stero-)typical number from several different countries and at last a tribute to the dead and the lighting of a memorial candle after which the confetti began to flutter down from the ceiling and a banner unfurled reading "Happy All Saints Day".

I don't have any plans for Halloween itself. I'm just on-call this week, but if this year is anything like last, I'd rather just sit it out.

Last Oct. 29 I was assigned a lovely four-day trip with a long Salt Lake City layover on day one, and a fabulous 24 hours in downtown San Diego on Halloween! My crew turned out to be great. It was on this trip I met my friend Matti, one of the few flight attendants I actually hang out with on the ground, and our first officer was funny and up for hanging out with us on day two.

I had my ruby slippers ready to go as we left Salt Lake, but during the pre-flight checks another flight attenant discovered some damaged equipment. Turned out this particular piece was a "N0-Fly" item, and a rather hard to replace one as well. No other airline in or around Salt Lake City had a spare protective-breathing-hood to lend us, so we were grounded along with over 100 passengers.

Five hours later, when the new eqipment was flown in from Houston, the rest of our trip had long ago been covered by other reserves and we were uncermoniously deadheaded back to Newark. And as if we weren't pathetic enough, when I went to call home and convince my family just how pathetic I was, I discovered my phone had been stolen.

So for now I'm just going to enjoy this beautiful fall weather which I helped to usher in and hope for the best from scheduling.

"She said, 'I think I'll go to Boston'........"

When I was a junior in college I went to Boston for a three-day Model United Nations conference. The events were held at the historic Park Plaza Hotel, right across from Boston Commons, and our school's budget allowed us to stay at a Radisson about two blocks down the street. Other than being February in Boston, it wasn't a bad walk. I decided that I very much liked the city (and couldn't care less for the United Nations).

Just as we were heading back to North Carolina, the charming colonial image was completed by a glistening snowfall. About an hour later, this image was whited-out by the most snow Boston had seen in 100 years.

The next day, Logan airport was operating nearly on schedule, but the Greensboro airfield had seen a little ice herself and therefore halted operations like she had been asked a tough geography question in the final round of the Miss America pagent.

Our long weekend turned into a 6-day extravaganza. The school footed the bill and our international delegation made snow angels in the Public Gardens and watched musicals at the all-night theater. That's when I fell in love with the city.

In the years since MUN I've done my part to keep the relationship alive. I flew up a few times to visit friends and once drove all night with my sister to attend the final Dispatch concert.

However, in my glamourous life as a flight attendant, I've only seen the inside of Logan airport and the short layover hotel.

Despite the infamous delays, I like BOS. The loads are usually light and the passengers know what to expect. (We were once stuck out on the runway for 2 hours without a single complaint or nasty demand. The next flight that same day was to Atlanta, and when that bunch heard it would be 15 minutes until airborne, THREE call bells went off.)

So yesterday, sitting around the megabookstore cafe, longing for my phone to ring I peeked into open time and saw a trip that reported in just two hours. Not just any trip, but a downtown Boston layover. And not just any downtown Boston layover, but 17 hours at the Park Plaza Hotel!

I called scheduling and for the first time ever they actually gave me a trip I requested.

It started out a little ugly, EWR-BOS, back to EWR, then back to BOS. And yes, we were delayed, but it was all worth it once I checked in to my (teeny-tiny, no-view, squeaky-doored) room at the Park Plaza.

It was a perfect autumn day to wander around downtown. Everyone was in good spirits and appopirate garb because the Red Sox had won the first game of the World Series. (The other flight attendant kept checking the score from his nifty phone and giving updates during the delay. I'm glad I wasn't stuck on a metal tube with fans of the losing team.)

I also got to meet up with a friend of a friend for lunch before heading back to the airport and continuing on to Houston, then Dallas.

It was sad to go. But I'm in Texas now and I've finally got that Augustana song out of my head, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnqvjD7Kxs4
so I'm just looking forward to getting back to NJ early tomorrow night and driving home to Maryland. It's going to be a great weekend in Naptown with family, friends and Halloween festivities!

They Don't Use Crystal Balls in Oklahoma

In my 18 months as a reserve flight attendant, I've developed a certain ability to predict the actions of Crew Scheduling.

Using the information available on the crew communication website (what trips are in open time, how many people are one the reserve list, how many days I'm "good for", how many hours I've already flown that month), plus a bit a personal experience (we choose our flight preference for each day, and choosing "No Preference" pretty much guarantees I'll get Airport Alert), I can anticipate whether or not I'll be going anywhere in the very near future.

There are exceptions to the rule of course (people get sick, there are storms, we charter the Cleveland Indians to go to NYC and don't crew the flight until the day before), but overall I know how ready I need to be.

You can imagine my excitement when I (who was good for three days and at the top of the list) saw a lovely 3-day trip with 32-hour layover in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico sitting right there at the top of the list. And, it didn't even check in until 4:30pm.

I checked to make sure my swimsuit was packed, threw my uniform in the wash and off I went to joyfully fulfill my Sunday obligation (thank God for Sunday evening masses!).

Assignments are generally given out at 9pm for the next day, so when I returned, I gathered my uniform and checked my schedule to see just when I should arrive and head down to the islands (I wanted to leave myself enough time to go through Duty-Free).

And so, here it is, Tuesday afternoon and I write from sunny downtown Tulsa (yeah...Oklahoma). Turns out that scheduling and I weren't using quite the same divination tools.

Now, you've probably heard bored adolescents say, "there's nothing to do here", loosely translating to "there's no where for me to appear wild and get provocative pictures for MySpace here." But, these youths could not be accused of pubescent melodrama in they were, in fact, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I've been here three times before, each time walking at least a mile in a different direction and truly, there is nothing to do, save go to the bank, the hospital, church or buy bail bonds (you chose the order).

As for my selection, I chose church. Thanks to one of my favorite websites masstimes.org, I learned that the Catholic Church up the street had a 12:05 daily mass.

So I had a reason to crawl out of bed. And trust me, when it's the Double Tree mattresses, it takes a pretty good reason.

I was further rewarded for my effort when I passed this mailbox on my journey. And yes, just in case you were wondering, you can get a postcard of Tulsa.

Chose between Native American theme (the name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw words "okla" meaning people, and "humma" meaning red), or grassy field with tornado.
In fact, two lucky readers will soon be recieving postcards sent from this very mailbox.

At least postage is cheaper in Tulsa than Agudilla. I wonder if R2D2 can predict where I'll be sent next.

The Secret to a Perfect Flight

Apparently the best way to ensure an absolutely uneventful and as-scheduled flight is to be looking for a good story.

Create a humble Internet presence and promise wacky tales of aviation. Make sure you get the link out to as many people as you can then watch in awe as your passengers are generally polite, the weather good and your crews pleasant to work with.

Seriously, we did Chicago, Newark and Boston for the past two days without a single delay.
It's just eerie.

We ended up today in Scottsdale, AZ where I basically napped (we left Boston on time, but it was still 5am), worked out and caught up on back episodes of my favorite podcast, "catholicunderground" www.catholicunderground.com.

Old Town Scottsdale is cute in the southwestern touristy way, very similar to Old Town Albuquerque. Which of course reminded me of the adventure my mom and I took back in February to New Mexico and Arizona. It was her first time flying on my pass and her first time that far west. We took the world's longest tram to the highest peak in the Sandia Mountains and hiked to the bottom of Canyon de Chelly.

The scenery was breathtaking, but even more amazing was that we were together in the same car and hotel rooms for 6 days without a single argument.

Anyway, back here in Scottsdale I ventured out, basically just in search of a postcard to for my favorite former charge back in Annapolis. I guess they didn't get the memo out here in the dessert about it being October, because I broke a sweat.

Most of the charming little stores were closed, but inside Walgreeen's I found a postcard rack. Somehow I resisted the urge to bring home the 3 inch tarantula embedded in acrylic that was also for sale.

So now I shall complete my correspondence mission and hit the hay (that's my western reference in honor of AZ). I need my sleep because we are headed out to Orange County tomorrow. California people are always special, so I might have a better tale next time.

Good Thing God is Outside Time

As I was heading out the door this morning I remembered that it was October.

So I took a second to flip the page on my freebie church calendar (you know the one: Renaissance reproductions of Jesus/Mary/Saints, little colored dots to tell you what vestments the priests are wearing, the saint of the day, and a dozen or so ads for funeral homes). There I discovered it was the feast of the Guardian Angels.

This struck me as quite relevant because I'd actually been reading up on the subject lately.

It struck me as even more relevant when I was NOT struck by the speeding car that appeared in my blind spot on the way to the airport. In honor of the guardian angels I decided to exercise my spiritual imagination in a particular way today.

Growing up, angels had always been around.

At least bearing bowls of holy water, passing notes to Mary on the stained glass, and so on. They were always a lovely symbolic motif, but not really essential. Maybe even a little distracting.

And one trip down the New Age aisle at the mega-bookstore and the whole angel thing got really weird really fast.

But, as usual the Truth is stranger than a I could have made up, yet makes perfect sense.

I'll let you get the details on your own, but some essentials are:

• Angels are real
  
• All angels have already been created (and there are more than we can ever count)
• They already know everything they ever will, and, unlike humans who can be forgiven, angels get ONE CHANCE to chose or reject God (and some do reject Him, I can think of one off the top of my head......)
• They are pure spirits, are not bound by matter, and therefore have control over matter
• (and this one is my favorite!) Out of love, God gives us an individual angel guardian at birth.

Which brings me back to the plane.

I decided to envision every person accompanied and protected by their own angel.

Now, of course I knew better that to imagine humanish creatures with wings or pudgy cheeks. But then everyone was just stuck with a sort of cloudy presence; a Cool-Whip dollop of the supernatural, more like Casper the ghost than a vigorous protector.

But when I tried to imagine the angels with more personality, I got stuck. Why did God pick a particular angel to guard a certain person? Did they share similar interests? Would someone who liked to praise God through song get a musical angel for example? Would the angels communicate with each other above their respective charges? And if we were all here on the same plane, where they working as a team to get us there safely, or was each more concerned with the individual state of the human soul?

And the more I thought about it, the more crowded it got in there.

And the more I saw the angels being active, the more I saw how everyone was completely ignoring them. This made me sad. After all, God gave all these special friends and no one could be bothered. And the sadder I got, the more outraged I got until I realized that I was so outraged that I hadn't bothered to chat with my own angel since the sigh of relief for not getting sideswiped.

By the grace of God, at that point I had to pour some drinks.

The rest of the day went fairly smoothly, and tonight we are here in Boston. It's a short night, but I was eager to blog a bit and do a little research to make sure I didn't accidentally post anything too heretical. In the process I confirmed what I had was in line with Church teaching..... except for the date.

Turns out today is the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux and that October 2 is the angels.

I guess this is just an example of humans getting a second chance.

Catch you in Phoenix tomorrow.

When You Gotta Go, You Gotta Go

So, what do you do on a Saturday night in New Jersey when scheduling has not called, your best friends are either visiting with out-of-state relatives or being soon-to-be-wed recluses, and you just don't feel like riding the train into New York?

Fly to Washington DC of course.

At least that's what I did because at about 7:30 last night I just really wanted to be home.

I took at advantage of that dubious jumpseat privilege and hopped on the last flight to DCA. (note: the secret of being a successful homesick flight attendant is to make home a place where there are 6 flights a day and always seats open)

My parents were less than eager to pick me up from the airport at midnight and come right back this afternoon, but before I could feel too dejected my sister jumped in and suggested I visit her at school. The DC metro runs directly from the airport to campus.

The flight was a first for me: 109 open seats and we arrived 45 minutes early. In fact the whole trip was a first: it's Laura's senior year and I have never stayed over, not even when I lived in Annapolis.

Let me just say, college life is pretty great when you don't have to deal with those silly classes. Midnight snacks, marathon Court TV, working out in the spectacular campus gym (the place was more spacious and sunlight than Terminal C), and catching up with (as she saved her number on my phone ) "Awsome Laura".

I was also fortunate enough to be on the computer at just the right time to pick up a nice 4 day trip for tomorrow, so I won't fear the phone ringing at least until Thursday. A short night in Boston, then a long Pheniox, AZ and Orange County, CA.

Now, I say that college life was great without the classes because I didn't have any. My dear sister on the hand does, She has a lot of work this semester and she's also president of a campus organization, so please keep her in your prayers.

I'll admit it's pretty nice to have a job that lets me hop on a plane whenever I'm feeling a little homesick. But then again if I didn't have the job, I wouldn't have moved to NJ and be feeling homesick in the first place. So I guess it all balances out.

The Blog that Never Was and the "Beauty" of Saving Souls

After a wonderful week in my hometown where I hammered out my inaugural blog, ate my parents' food, worked it off at Jazzercise and did remarkable little else, I was welcomed back to the real world (if the term can be be applied to life as a flight attendant) with a 1 am call from my friendly crew scheduler.

He informed me that I was going to Miami for two nights!! Then (not quite) apologetically (enough) added that it was via Houston and Philadelphia at 4.30 am for the next two days.

So, I took a power nap on my new comforter (I love Target), and headed to the airport where I proceeded to spend four days in a sleep-deprived fog.

On my day of leisure I did begin drafting a blog entry filled with witty insight but if you had a choice between editing a blog post or frolicking in the waves in your gym shorts (my swimsuit was a causality of a 1 am quick call), what would you chose?

Anyway, as you can imagine, after that trip, I spent the majority of yesterday lounging at my favorite mega-bookstore. I was fully recovered in time to meet up with my favorite heresy-busting fellow September baby, Claire, and self-inflict pain in the name of female beauty norms.

Actually, I was eager to get a manicure, and I needed my eyebrows done too.

Now, I'm sure many of you are familiar with the concept of waxing or tweezing one's eyebrows, but if you are truly looking for first-class hair removal, let me recommend a trip to Little India and a good "threading".

In this procedure, your stylist takes an seemingly harmless piece of everyday button thread, winds it around her fingers, and forces your head back in a chair. She then creates an elaborate web by anchoring the strand in her teeth while still managing to chatter to overhead in rapid Hindi. You must then participate in this ordeal by pulling your own skin tighter than Joan Rivers as the professional above rolls the thread along your browline, thereby entwining each hair and tearing it out with such precision she could probably inscribe your initials. The results are amazing.

And if you are at all put off by the thought of gazing up the nostrils and curled lips of Ms. Patel, don't worry, your eyes will be watering in agony, so you won't mind the view.

I was quite proud of my stoicism on this particular occasion, but was humbled when, from the next chair, through clenched teeth I overheard, "I don't know how many souls are getting out of purgatory, but I am offering this up!"

Thank you, Claire, for reminding me of the redemtive value of suffering. Next time I'll remember to unite my sorrows to those of Chirst. And who is the patron saint of hair-removal anyway?

Later, newly edged and enjoying the warm weather, we decided to shop around this colorful neighborhood. Claire was in the market for some new head coverings, and what better place to find a Latin-Mass appropriate chapel veil than Little India?

And who should greet us at the first store?

The four-foot cardboard cut out of not just any open-shirted, rippling-abbed Bollywood heartthrob, but the very man who broke into anquished song as I lay awake in London on my token international trip, jet-lagged, difting in and out of sleep as he difted between unintelligiable English and subtitled Hindi.

It was a bittersweet reunion. I now knew where I could get my double-disc special edition DVD of "Kal Ho Naa Ho", but that in it he meets his tragic end.

So perhaps it was his soul that Claire hurried to heaven, but at any rate, the next time I'm trying to deciper melodramatic dialouge over epic dance routines, I'll be peering from under perfectly shaped eyebrows.

Shameless Self-Promotion Attempt #1

(Composed Sept. 18, 2007 from the heart of City Dock)

I sit here in the window on an utterly perfect September afternoon overlooking Annapolis City Dock, venti decaf within grasp, attempting to compose (what I hope will be) the most difficult entry to this new Internet adventure of mine: to convince you, that these publicly posted personal musing will be not only somewhat entertaining, but perhaps even informative and inspirational.

I'm confident you will be vaguely captivated by my story because the preceding 18 months have been undeniably fascinating .....to me at least.

In March of 2006 I was a 24 year-old college educated nanny trying to look busy in my search for a "real job" within commuting distance of my parents house while secretly praying God might suddenly draft me as a foot solider in some Apocalyptic battle, thereby saving me that whole interview process and retirement planning.

Today I am one of the "most professional men and women in the [airline] industry....highly trained in emergency procedures" and "dedicated to clean safe and affordable air transportation".

I've been coast to coast in the US, touched down on three continents and 5 time zones and moved my 2001 Saturn full of my earthly possessions to three addresses in New Jersey. Along the way I've gained 35 lbs (that's actually a good thing), an incredible group of friends, and a lot of perspective.

Since nothing encourages existential contemplation and desperate pleas for divine revelation quite like an ATC delay, I'm convinced that life as a reserve flight attendant is such an effective metaphor for the temporary incarnation of our immortal souls, it is worth entrusting to that most venerated of records: the blogspot.

And so, if you are a friend who might actually care where I am, or a new acquaintance through this Internet endeavour, I invite you aboard.