Finding Joy in Snarkville

As of the typing of this, I’m sitting at a Recharge station in the Atlanta airport.  I’m sitting here because I took a bump off my flight across country in exchange for money.  (Cold Hard Cash!!  Mir would be proud, I think)

However, this is not a simple story of me going from having a seat on one flight to sitting on the next flight.  No, because this is me, it comes with a story.  Does anyone remember the “Perfect Storm”  where the forces of nature unite together and create a horrible storm and people die?  Well, no one dies in my story, but it about as many things that can go wrong as humanly possible. (more…)

Today was a day of travel for all of Snarkville. So, since I am beyond tired and about to scream if I don’t get 20 more minutes to get to the end of my audiobook — you get the notes (yes, the actual notes I took today to spark my blog post in the future).

1. When going to bed last night, I explained to Duke that we were getting up early to go to the airport and he needed to get dressed and not stall. So he tells me, “You have to turn the light on and say, ‘Good Morning, did you have a good sleep? We go to the airport now.’ Then I say, ‘Yes, I had a good sleep.’ and I get dressed.” Scripted yes, but worked like a charm. Thanks, Duke for planning that part of my day for me.
2. The streets are REALLY dark at night. (Profound much?)
3. How long does it take to print a bag tag and acknowledge my existance? Perhaps I’ve done this too much that I was asked by the line lady if I needed help because I was just standing there. Of course, I was standing there because I had already checked in and just wanted to hand them my bags filled with all the liquids I couldn’t carry on the plane.
4. Duke announced to first class on the plane that “I’m HERE.” Oh yes, that was fun.
5. My 4 year old son was better behaved than my “old enough to be my mother” fellow passenger on the other side of me. For the record, SIT STILL. You need not get everything out of your bag, hit me with it, elbow me fighting for the armrest (YOUR OTHER armrest), lean on me (in fact touching me in any way is out), and please don’t TOUCH my drink.
6. Why am I invisible when traveling with Duke. The flight crews don’t seem to notice him either — this is most noticeable when I need trash picked up, so I can grab something off the floor.
7. Do NOT stop my seasoned traveler son to tell him how to read his boarding pass to find his seat number. He KNOWS this and you stopping him was weird to him. (As was trying to tell him to sit back in his seat so he couldn’t look out the window.
8. My Bose headphones are a deadly weapon? WHAT? Yes, I was not allowed to put my headphone case in the pocket in front of me because ‘it is heavy and could hurt you if it came flying out.’ I also could not HOLD it, put it in my lap, or between me and Duke. However, I could keep on knitting with my pointy metal knitting needles. When was the last time you heard of anyone needing stitches from a random headphone case accident?
9. Walking down steep stairs with two bags and a Duke is HARD.
10. I don’t eat enough while traveling — got here and was HUNGRY. Ate an onion loaf — felt much better. Was it the food or the grease? Don’t answer, I don’t really care.
11. iPhone ticked me off for the first time ever — it interrupted my attempt to call Prince to keep beeping at me to accept texts from Prince. The problem was it wouldn’t let me hang up the phone until I’d accepted the text messages. That was SUPER annoying — Prince probably has a voicemail saying things like “Why won’t this thing hang up already….URGH.”

Don’t you wish you got to travel with me? I should warn you, I make you haul your own bag and don’t put up with poor in plane behavior.

I want desperately to tell you that day one as a stay/work-at-home mommy was awesome and amazing and the best thing ever.  I want to tell you that my fears have been calmed because I can totally do this and my house has never been cleaner, the child never better behaved, and I’ve never been happier.  Alas, I’d be lying — but in summary it was a good day. (more…)

Yesterday I plucked my poor son out of his school.  We stormed out of the door declaring that the fence gate would not hit us on the way out in our bottoms.  Alas, this storming may have looked a lot more like sniffling and cupcake eating — but it was storming nonetheless. (more…)