Join Me in Snarkville

The airlines are a tricky, tricky lot.  Don’t trust their wily ways… (more…)

…it was a good week. Surely I could detail for you the stories of

• When Duke offered to “rescue” me from Seattle because I was sad on the phone as I explained my travel delay.
• The woman who was delayed with me who insisted I eat some of her steak while we ate dinner.
• The card for the stateroom delivery that never showed up, and then turned out to be paperwork for the seminar I was at.
• The couple at our seminar who thought “business casual” meant short shorts and tee shirts. This woman in this couple also didn’t seem to be able to sit through the seminar without getting up every 5 minutes.
• How the guide on the zip line tour had to remind me to breathe every time I sailed in for a landing and how I perfectly described the 750 line between trees as “Holy Poo.”  (Aren’t you glad I’m a college graduate?)
• Feeling like a professional photographer when I was asked for copies of my photos after entertaining the troops on the bus in the customs line.

But I really learned a lot during my time away from home alone. So, before I return to my normal life of posting, I thought we should review my list of stuff I learned while traveling by myself. (more…)

Updated with the photo link. 

Ahem. Just in case you are ever in this position, learn from my experience. When in doubt the man in uniform with a gun will ALWAYS win. It is as universal a truth as bread landing jelly side down and when mama is not happy nobody is happy.

Allow me to explain. After a delightful week of hard, grueling work on the ship scouting and suffering for Sea Socks ‘08, I boarded a bus for Seattle airport. I boarded said bus in Vancouver and had to go a whole 158 miles and across the border. I was ready for a delay at the border, but not what happened.

First, we had the most negative bus driver in the world. He hated Canadians. He hated that he got a ticket the night before. He was not happy. He got on the announcements and said, “crossing the boarder will take between 45 minutes and 4 hours” then he kept on talking. He spun people up around me and I was forced (for my own mental health) to calm people down. we sat in line at the border for something close to 2 hours before talking to anyone. Then it happened.

Customs Guy boards the bus and says. “Ok, everyone will need to get off the bus, but you can leave you bags.”

Bus Driver argues: “But these people just got off a ship and we came directly here.”

CG: I understand, but it is procedure and I will try to make it as a quick as possible.

BD: This isn’t right….we are all Americans {note, this was not true}…

CG: Um, sir. You need to go park over there please.

At this point, the bus driver tells us that this has never happened before.

All of the doors to the bus were popped open. There dogs sniffing. There was a dog who wagged his tail four times or whatever. Next thing I know, we are off the bus with our bags walking through customs.

So, I’m standing there in my line, mentally calculating my total time in Canada since the beginning of the trip (less than 12 hours) Total purchases: One backpack.

A new ticked off customs guy walks up to the older gentleman next to me and asks for his bag. He proceeds to search it. What does he find? Prescription Meds. LEGAL Prescription Meds. Was it completely apparent that the only reason his bag was searched was because there was a greater chance that he had meds in his bag than mine? Oh, you bet.

We get through customs. Then everytime there was any sort of slow down on the road, the driver would get off the highway and drove surface streets. URGH.

My flight was at 3:16pm. We arrived at the airport at 3:10pm. Double URGH.

I planned on flying stand=by on one of the three later flights. The customer service lady told me “Not going to happen, the earliest I can get you out is 7pm tomorrow night.”

Um, yup.

Ok, so I got put up in a hotel for the night and while surfing the web, I found a routing through Portland that got me in 5 hours sooner. I took it. Finally, I got home — but what an experience.

The good news is that I met 8 wonderful women from Mexia, TX and we had a blast together during our side trip.

Oh, did you want to know what I saw on the cruise?

Ahem, Flickr to the rescue.

(Written at the beginning of the journey)

August 12, 2007

Sitting in the airport at the worst hour possible: 4:30am. The problems with this are HUGE. First, the coffee place is NOT open. Oh, there are people there playing with money and turning on the machines, but I am being taunted with the IDEA of coffee and none of the actual caffeine. Next, there is my bag.

You see I carry this lovely laptop in a backpack type bag. I picked it up to throw it on my shoulder as I exited the car this morning to discover one of the cats (and I have a theory) has sprayed it. I have ode to cat pee coming from one of the straps of my bag. And as you guessed it, there is NO bag vendor open at the airport at 4:30am. I briefly wondered if the kind people of the coffee place would let me move said laptop to one of their paperbags — but I fear the level of protection it would provide. At this point, I’m unsure of my course of action. Do I try to clean it, knowing full well there is no way to get the smell of ode to cat pee out of ANYTHING? Or does it get tossed just as soon as I can find a bag vendor with an option? Urgh, and my mind can not process any of this while the lovely Peet’s person is teasing me with counting change at a shocking slowly pace. Does this woman not understand that the Queen without her coffee is like a day without sunshine?

Unrelated to any of the above:
For sale CHEAP, one kitty. Very friendly. Sweet and kind. Unsure which you may receive in the box as it could be a kitten OR an older cat ticked off at me for shoving meds down her throat. I will pack in bubble wrap and ship to the destination of your choice.

Also, unrelated to any of the above:
I’m suddenly seeking opinions for laptop bags. All thoughts welcome. Priorities include: lightweight, protective, easy to carry, fit in overhead OR under seat in front of me; and look as little like a laptop bag as humanly possible. I’m considering roller backpack. Bonus plan would be if it could also hold plane knitting and perhaps might be unattractive to a cat.

Updated to add:

There is a lovely, although slightly stinky ex-laptop bag in the Vancouver airport. I found a bag vendor there and paid probably too much for a CLEAN backpack, but I got the mission accomplished. I swapped out the bags and then had this horrible thought, someone is going to see me leave this OLD bag in the airport and there will be a bomb squad and everything. I thought about telling a security officer what was up — but frankly trying to explain that I brought cat pee over the border freaks me out a bit. So, I opted to shove it in a garbage can and walk away very, very quickly.

This blog entry is costing me per minute.  I’d strongly suggest that you read it slowly to get the full effect and most enjoyment out of my pricey post.

First, I’m in Alaska.  Folks, I’m closer to the Artic Circle than I am to you — except the reader from Alaska –which, hey, HI!!!  I’m also, enjoying the sunniest 80 degree day that Juneau has probably ever seen.

I’ve done things I’ve never done before, including a zip line tour of a rainforrest — one line was 750 feet long and 150 up in the air.  I LOVED it.  I have seen both black and brown bears, killer whales, AND about 6 humpback whales.  The latter of this list, I saw while feeding on herring and they are amazing.  I will have photos for you when I’m back — prepare now to be in awe — and I don’t mean my photo skills. 

Other things I’ve done that I never thought I would do.  Travel alone.  Yup, Prince and Duke are not with me — and I miss them HORRIBLY, but I have a feeling the boys have had fun this week too.  Sent a bottle of wine to a complete stranger — Yup, well he is a client, and he sent me a bottle first.  FWIW, Cakebread Cellars makes an awesome wine.  Danced in the disco every single night of the cruise thus far.  Yes, I said every single night.

I’ve got so much to tell you about this trip, but I must run away for a little bit.  I return to normal life soon.

(and as our captain says with every announcement — Queen, Out. — Well, he says, just “out.”  And he’s Greek an perhaps YOUNGER than me.)

Yes, I know I’ve been MIA lately. I’d love to say it is because I’ve had SO much going on that I just couldn’t see straight, but that just wouldn’t be true. The reality is that I’ve fought a 3 day long headache, I’m not sleeping well at night, and I’ve been more than a wee bit grumpy. While my grumpy is normally great fodder for a blog post, it isn’t good fodder for my life returning to normal/sanity, thus I took a much needed little vacation and hope that I’m ready to return to my full snarky self. Ahem, moving forward.

I promised to tell you all about our little trip to Playmobil. And I keep my promises. (more…)

My day began yesterday at 1am PDT.  (because that truly sounds worse than the 4am EDT that my alarm went off.)  My day ended at 9:30pm PDT.  Yup. It was a long day and yup, I was pooped.

First off, if anyone doubted Duke’s true calling to be a world traveller, they would have screamed from the rooftops as to how wrong they were yesterday.  Yes, he’s an independent three (and a half) who wanted to put his shoes in his OWN tray.  But he confidently walked through security with the “You don’t want to check my empty milk cup” swagger.  He also was the talk of airports he was in — mostly because I’m a horrible mommy who makes him pull his own backpack, but still. (more…)

Wow am I tired. It isn’t like I’ve been doing much lately, but wow, that nothing has been pretty exhausting.

• Sea Socks has been a success. I am pretty sure that fun was had by all and I’m absolutely positive that there is are folks on the Vision of the Seas still shaking their heads over the shock that 89 knitters did NOT mean 89 little old ladies who were quiet and knitting baby booties. Instead, 89 knitters meant, karakoe singing, Cosmo drinking, rowdy bunch of ladies. To say that people were stunned is an understatement.
• I’ve been living on airplanes lately. Seriously, I’m so tired of taking my shoes off, unpacking my bag to go through security, waiting at the gate, sitting next to the cougher — you know the one, and wondering why the guy next to me ALWAYS seems to take up his seat AND half of mine.
• I’ve completed two PAIRS of socks during this trip.  Since I’ve been gone less than two weeks, I’ve been averaging a pair a week — which is rather shocking for me.  What really surprises me is that I finished them without feeling like I was ignoring everything around me.

So alas, I get on the last set of planes tomorrow and I’m ready to be home for a bit.  I’m also ready to figure out how I’m getting home from the airport — which of course is a minor detail I’ve completely left until the very last minute.

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