Join Me in Snarkville

Next up in the joys that is traveling with the Queen is the getting from the airport to the hotel. I took a shuttle. It was cheaper than a taxi and with so much more excitement for the money.

You see, I feared for my life. I wanted to beg the driver to just pull over ALREADY and let me out — problem was we weren’t out of the airport yet and the walk would have been far. Seriously, this was THAT scary. Here’s the short list:

• Failed to obey most traffic laws. These included lanes, stop signs, u-turns, and my personal favorite LOOKING before MERGING.
• Failed to close the back doors of the shuttle after letting couple #1 out and getting ON.THE.ROAD. This was only made worse by the stop IN the road to close the doors.
• Getting lost, not once, BUT TWICE, on way to my hotel. We spent 20+ extras minutes finding the hotel — this would have caused the need for those fun U-turns.
• Did I mention that I get car sick? Um, when you floor the gas and slam on the brake, I will very nearly puke. I was four shades of white when I arrived and was still shaking when I got on the phone to register my complaint.
• Finally, he was kind enough to play some computer geek talk show at FULL volume and despite my requests (yes, plural) to turn it down, he kept turning it up.

As my parents and I love to quote the old Jack Lemon movie, the Outoftowners, “It will all be in the letter”

(Yes, I’ve requested a full refund, the phone rep was horrified at my experience.)

However, I am safe (and wiser) and I’m setting sail. Thus all is good now.

Dear Air Carriers of the Nation:

I still think air travel is an amazing value. Despite the less and less you give us and the more and more we pay. I recently flew on 4 flights, paid about $200 for the priveledge — that’s works out to be $50 a leg. For my $50, I wanted you, my airline friends to know the value I got.

• Exactly, 4 Bisoff Cookies. These are by far my favorites and I got 4 whole cookies. (no, not 4 whole packages)
• I got 4 drinks, two cranberry and club sodas, one hot tea, and one water.
• I got the joy of having my trash sit in front of me waiting for someone to notice me as they stolled by. I think I averaged one trash pick-up per flight — I happen to like the added challenge of having my trash on the tray (or balance in my lap) and also attempt to get up to potty.
• I had 4 hours of being truly STUCK in my window seat, because you miss booked someone who cannot walk in the aisle (not a bulkhead) and left me to wonder how I was ever going to get off this plane. (No, I was not happy about the clastraphobia I experienced.
• I had 4 different people with their heads competely and totally in my lap. No, this was not as thrilling as it sounds, in fact it was gross, icky, and horrible when I had to reach for something from the floor.
• I got to enjoy the same movie on every single flight I was on. While I happened to enjoy The Holiday, I’m tired of it — 4 times will do that to even Kate Winslet herself.
• I got to be late and early at the same time.
• I got to enjoy the fact that despite the properly timed connections I’d planned, I was unable to stop to get food at any airport and thus went foodless on all travel days. In this I really appreciate your consistancy.
• I got to where I was going safely and with decent humor from your staff. This I truly, all snark aside, appreciate. But what I mostly appreciated is that today, you held even first class back and allowed two Marines to get off the plane first because (and I quote the captain), “They are home on leave and if we can let them have one more minute with their family, we should. Thank you for your service.” There was a standing (and stooping) ovation for them as they left the plane. I think one of them REALLY wished his camo was plane colored though.

Thank you and keep up the good work at giving me good value for my dollar.

The Queen

I’m not sure if I should announce this or not, but since everyone knows I’m headed off on a cruise and will probably be looking for the inevidiable list of things I’ve done to make people laugh at me. I have pre-written a few things for your enjoyment before I leave. While I truly hope to scope out a signal long enough to post some real cruise updates, I’ll be writing the whole week and will upload as I get the chance. (more…)

When writing yesterday’s post about the tight connections, I thought about what the ideal situation would be.  I even dared to speak it outloud. 

“I want my first flight to be a little early and my second flight to be late.”

Ah, you know what they say about being careful what you wish for? (more…)

I have a tight connection on one of my many upcoming flights.  Not because I scheduled a scant 38 minutes to navigate from one end of an airport to the potential other end (or walk to another state, who knows), but because my dear sweet air carrier with the mostest (I mean cheapest) changed the flight schedule.

Yes, I’ve been living in denial about this shift and its affect on me, until today.  Well, since I had nothing else pressing on me to get done, I thought I’d call the airline and discuss their policy (this may have been prompted by the warnings I was reading that said, “failure to be in the gate area 10 minutes prior to departure will result in fortfiture of your seat and you will not be re-booked”)  Deep breaths. (more…)

Updated to add:  As of 3:30pm on Tuesday, I have still NOT packed a dang thing. 

I have another royal title. I’m not just the Queen of Snarkville, I am also the Princess of Procrastination. I mean why do today what can be put off until tomorrow. (I fear this perhaps explains the dust bunnies that threaten to take over — but I digress.)

So, I have only a few more days until I throw off the office chains and bust out of here into the wide blue yonder. (Gee, Drama much?) Thus, as one would guess I have a few loose ends to tie up. Even normal, non-procrastinating royalty would have a few loose ends to tie. Ah, yes, I expect that everyone would be packing and sending out the “I’m on vacation” e-mails. However, I think my to do list, combined with my sort-of done list gives me claim to my royal title. (more…)

In case you’ve seen or spoken to me for the last two weeks, I owe you my humblest apologies.  I’ve been only slightly freaked out (now, that is the understatement of the year) and focused on the upcoming cruise.  (Ladies, if you are out there, I’m certain it will be a blast, just ignore my insanity.)

So, because I’ve been so focused, I’ve been completely ignoring the important things involved in being a wife and mother — LAUNDRY.  Um, so when I pulled the last pair of clean undies out the drawer and Prince looked at me with those sad eyes and asked (in that small voice that you know he’s a little scared of me), “Honey, I know you’ve been nuts lately, but I could really use some clean socks.”  (The smart part of him both ducked and ran out the door.)

Thus began my Friday of laundry.  [In general, when I haven’t lost my mind, I earmark Fridays as my “Good Housewife Day”  where I clean and take care of the family stuff. But since the beginning of April, I’ve yet to accomplish my typical Fridays.] So, I sort the loads in our room and I wander into the laundry room (in Frankenhouse, my laundry room is actually the third bedroom) only to trip over the last package of tolietpaper.  THAT was the straw that broken the camel’s back.  Next thing I knew half of the laundry room was in the hall; I was on the phone with Prince asking if I could throw something away.  By noon, I threw out two bags of trash, moved major pieces of furniture around three rooms, and was wondering if I would be done by the time the boys got home.  Barely, I was.

Now, there are 100 OTHER things that were top priority, not the least of which was actually finishing the laundry, but NO, what absolutely HAD to be done was my laundry room HAD to be clean.  At the very end of my day, I was telling this story on myself to a friend and her reaction was, “oh, *I* understand, since you entertain in your laundry room ALL the time.”  Um, Dara, next time you come to the house, I’m *SO* entertaining you in the laundry room — and now the giant squishy chair is in there so you can be comfortable.

First, for all of you e-mailing and calling and begging — my news is about business and NOT that there is a baby in my future. Please stop knitting baby things.

The other day I was getting my haircut and touching up my blonde to find out….that my greys will not take certain kinds of dye!  Oh, yes, I’m serious here, folks, not one but TWO dyes were tried and TWO dyes failed.  My guy sighes and looks at me kindly and says, “Well, I guess we are just going to have to go to the damaging stuff, I’m sorry.”  I looked up and said, “I have East Coast hair, it doesn’t believe in non-damaging, earth friendly, hippy dyes.”  Now, why he didn’t laugh is still beyond me.

And tomorrow is a major holiday here in the land of the hippy, Earth Day.  Now,  I remember when this ranked up there with Arbor Day and Talk like a Pirate Day, but oh, boy, folks, tomorrow is a BIG deal here.  Ok, it is the Earth folks and we all live here and we should take care of it — I get that.  But we should have Earth Day parties?  Huh?  Oh, wait, maybe we should celebrate our finally taking the REALLY old electronics out of house to somewhere to turn in (because frankly in my wrapped thinking, if you really care about the Earth instead of having a parade on Earth day, perhaps, you should reward people for recycling by cutting their garbage bill or have year round locations to take your electronics for free, instead of charging 364 days a year — but then again, I don’t do Valentine’s Day either, so I must not get these holiday things)?  I don’t know, maybe I’m cold in my old age, or maybe the chemicals on my hair have damaged brain cells, but I don’t exactly get why Earth Day is a top story on the news here.

I have news. Serious and important news. News I desperately want to share, but I can’t….YET. It is literally eating me up inside. I’m giddy with excitement and want to scream from the mountain tops, but alas, I can not…..YET. But I will. And when I do, I may just pop, with the joy of it all.

We have some friends who also have amazing news that they can’t share, but one of them (and yes, db, I’m looking right at you) is having a HARD time with it. Granted he’s got to keep his mouth shut longer than the week and a half I have to — but still. I teased him before, because really, how hard is it to push it to the back of your mind and move one. Um, db, I humbly apolgize, because it is HAAARRRRDDDDD. (more…)

If you haven’t heard, I’m taking 89 of my newest friends on a cruise next week.  Oh, yes, I a little stressed, why do you ask?  In the past weeks, I’ve been packing boxes, gathering things together, attempting not to lose my mind (I’ve failed a few times, trust me, it wasn’t pretty.)

In my latest attempt at totally finishing up, so I can get to the part where I pack clean underwear for my trip, I brought the last boxes in from the garage (the cold garage with that oddly annoying ‘garage smell’) and put them next to my desk.  I spent the better part of yesterday packing, repacking, and checking the contents of said boxes.  No, they have not shipped yet.

Late last night, I was working on yet another flyer for the trip and asked the Prince’s help.  He walked over to my desk, looked at the piles and asked, “How does one get from here to there safely?”

“Um, safety is a relative term at this point.  I’m thinking if you make it without falling on your butt you are ahead of me.”