Monterrey

I forgot how much I like this city. I like flying down here. It's a long flight but the passengers are nice and there's almost always at least one expat who will have interesting conversations with me. I like to get off the plane and have all the airport staff be so friendly. I like going to a hotel where they treat us like regular guests instead of second rate ones because we're air crew. I like how different it is from home. I don't like the poverty down here but it is good to help me remember how blessed I am. I like how the people seem to be very happy with themselves. I like how there are always families walking together. I like how I can look out my window and see the lights of the houses as they creep up the mountains. Any city surrounded by mountains is nice. I like to see the sidewalk vendors with their random foods. I like to see what other people feel is normal and wonderful, even though I might disagree. I like that I saw a horse pulling a cart down the side of the interestate. I like to see lots and lots of people who are under 5 feet tall and don't seem to feel short. It seem like Monterrey is being rejuvenated. It seems a little more cleaned up and together than on previous visits (though it still smells awful at times.) I like all the funny little cars. I like the walking street with all the shops with funny, cheap clothes. I like that you can stand in front of one 7-11 and see two more down the street. Even though I'm only about 2 hours from Texas I feel like I've gone somewhere. I'm glad I'm here today.

Triumph!

I feel like I've come 180 degrees today. When I got the hotel today I was really frustrated. Frustrated with so many things that I couldn't do anything about. The main two at that point were our old apartment complex and my employer. I've been playing phone tag for about 3 weeks with our old complex. They said we owed them money. They sent us a letter about it. Tanya went over there. They said they'd get back to us. They never did. Collections started calling us. We went back over there. They said they'd call us. Collections called us. The apartment never called us back. Even when we called. And called. And called. So I got really mad. Molly talked to her lawyer boss. Confirmed that what they were doing was illegal. We were running out of time. They weren't calling us back. I wasn't paying money I didn't owe. Finally today, after a million unreturned calls I yelled (as much as I can) at two innocent receptionists. One finally decided to stop being stupid. She finally called me back after 2 calls today and said they weren't charging us the rent for when we didn't live there. That's awfully nice of them. It's really said when you have to be a complete jerk to get anything accomplished. But I am very, very relieved that it's taken care of. I'm still going to call the collections people to make sure it actually happened. I don't want to have to go through the hassle of getting it taken off my credit.

I also decided I have to do something about the way I feel about work these days. I'm still not sure what to do but I went for a walk around Lafayette. I don't know if it was the physical activity, the nice scenery, the sun, or the awesome sandwich I ate but I feel better. I have to get up at 4:10am tomorrow so I'm going to watch some tv and go to sleep soon. I'm too much fun. At least I'm not a grouch now.

Borderline feels like I’m going to lose my mind

I have reached that point where I feel like all I can do is complain about work. It's not so much my actual job that I want to complain about as the never staying at home for more than 5 minutes-ness of it. I just saw that I got integrated. This means that I have to do a nap on Saturday night. This means that I will be working 12 days in a row. It's legal as long as I have a 24 hour break in there somewhere. This ruins lots of my plans. Arg...

I've had all sorts of interesting people on my flights lately. I had a stupid idiot who thought that because there weren't any "no smoking" signs on the ramp in Tulsa, then he could smoke while waiting to board the plane. Nevermind that the jet was being fueled about 30 feet away. I had a lady who was so yellow that I thought it was makeup at first. I've seen people who were jaundiced but this was unreal. I felt really bad for her cause I know she couldn't have been healthy. I've also begun judging pilots by the passwords they use. If they say a brand of soda or our passwords I immediately file them in the loser category. And it takes a lot to work your way out of that once you're there. So unimaginative...

If I go to sleep now I can sleep for 9.6 hours and that would make me happy.

PS. I've decided if I'm ever going to live in a hotel, other than the one in Key West, it would be here. This tempurapedic (sp) is scrumptious. And did I mention that I love king size beds?

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic and when that fog horn blows I will be coming home

My Thanksgiving weekend is over. I'm getting ready to go to work for the first of at least six days. I did it to myself so I really shouldn't complain. I should be thankful I have a job. I'm thankful for a lot of things. I'm just not in a very "let's blog about thankfulness" mood. I'm not sure what kind of mood I'm in.

I spent the day yesterday cooking with my mother and two of my sisters. I sometimes forget how amazing my family is. I wish my other sisters and brothers had been there. The tea still wasn't as good as when Peter makes it. When I spend time with Joy I am reminded what a self centered life I lead. She's a rockstar. When I hear about what Israel is up to these days I'm reminded how small my world is right now. When I talk to Peter I think of how unadventurous I've become. These all seem negative but they actually inspire me to change, which is good.

I rearranged my room on Thursday (under Jamie's supervision - though he didn't actually do anything :-P). We'll see if it helps with the neatness issue I have.

I bought a black, knee-length peacoat and I'm really excited about wearing it to work today.

I love Davefm on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

I ate so much good food in the last week.

I flew 26 hours in 4 days this week. Sometimes I feel like I never stop going. Then I wonder if my life will always be like this. Tonight I'll be in Flint, MI. Tomorrow night I'll be home. Tues-Thurs I'll be in Wilmington, NC, Lafayette, LA, and Monterrey, Mexico. That's the plan anyway. I saw my first snow of the year the other day when we did a Minneapolis turn. The flakes were the size of my eyeball.

broadcasting live from melbourne, fl

Last night I dreamed I saw one of the new A380s take off. It was a very funny shaped plane to begin with. Kind of had the nose of a dolphin. Then as it got in the air I saw it had a trailer it was towing. It started to dive for the ground and then went back up, almost as if to say "ha! just kidding". Last time I checked you can't send a plane diving toward the earth and then immediately change back to the regularly heaven bound course. Not an A380 anyway. And definitely not like they did in my dream.

I feel like all I've done lately is work and travel. I had a wonderful visit with Kim and family Friday night. I got to meet the new Mia Grace. Both of her children are quite scrumptious. We wouldn't expect anything less from her. The rest of the weekend was running errands, the Jones House Thanksgiving, Mama's birthday, J's birthday, church, sleep. Then back to work at 6am on Monday morning. I was in Key West Monday night. It was beautiful. I am quite in love with the hotel we stay in down there. I'd love to be able to stay there for more than 14 or 19 hours at a time. I went home last night, got a clean shirt, slept, and am back at work now. I bought an extended life battery for my phone since the one I have keeps dying in one day. It's far, far worse. I went to bed last night with 3 of 4 bars on it and this morning I woke up at 7:35 - an hour late to see that my phone was dead. I still made it work on time but it was awful. J brought Molly and me food from the new kebab place in PTC. It was very good and I got to have the leftovers today. I probably killed my passengers with my hummus breath, but some of them deserved it. I had a man offer to let me keep the change from his $100 in exchange for my phone number... Talk about temptation. He wasn't too bad either. But what kind of girl sells her phone number.... Yeah, that kind.

It's a jolly good night in Melbourne. There is some party going on out at the pool and they're playing extremely loud rock music, so for possibly the first time in my life I'm giong to sleep with earplugs in. I just hope I hear my alarm when it goes off at 4:10.

Oh Atlanta, I hear you calling...

Whenever I'm really ready to go home this song comes to mind.

Yesterday I was thinking that I couldn't remember the last time I saw it rain. It's been a dry year in Georgia. We usually get so much rain we're sick of it. Now it's been a long, long time. It just started pouring down rain here in Little Rock. Even have some thunder going on. It's beautiful. I love to watch it and love the sound of it. There's a church in view right outside that I've been looking at all day. Crazy thing is, I can barely see it now it's raining so hard.

My life has been very full lately. After receiving the unpleasant news last week I was surrounded by loved ones all weekend. We celebrated Jamie's birthday. Had a lovely brunch at my new favorite breakfast place - J. Christopher's. Got to go to the Church of the Apostles with the parents and had the best mashed potatoes I've ever had at the dinner afterwards. Cooked dinner with Jersey. Good times all around.

I'm headed back to Atlanta in a couple hours and then on to Mobile for the night. Should be home tomorrow around 9pm. Then I'm going to Cincinnati to see the fabulous Kimba Jean. The rest of the weekend will be celebrating birthdays and early Thanksgivings.
I'm so unmotivated to go to work.

When the frost is on the punkin...

Then it's officially too cold for me. I'm about to scurry, yes scurry like a little mouse off to work. Yesterday, in my infinite wisdom and forethought, I picked up a dayline for today. I needed to make more money to save up for potentially training for a new job. Then after I got off the phone picking that up I checked my email and saw that no, there will be no training for any new job. Don't now why. Guess they didn't like my interview. I'm coping. Very disappointed. Not liking rejection. Tired of thinking about it, but you know how your mind doesn't just let it go like that. At least I get time and a half for the dayline. Like my dad has reminded me, it's all in God's hands. And like J says, I still have a good job and am fabulously healthy. Always look on the bright side of life, huh Jamie. Still...arg.

Off to work - that is, if I can find my way out of this disaster I call my room. It's reached an all time catastrophe level. Who wants to clean it for me?

Breaking news - there's an onion warning on the interstate. Beware.

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Coincidences/ coincidenci/ coincidi

I feel like everything I write these days is very "this is what I had for lunch" type writing. I kind of feel like not writing until I have something good, but I need to keep at it. Sorry for those who have to suffer through it.

So for lunch today.... Just kidding. I've been having thoughts about coincidences (I think coincidenci sounds much better) lately. I was raised to think that things weren't so much coincidences as from God. If something ever seemed a little odd or too coincidental I would try to see if there was something I needed to learn or some way I could grow from the incident - like God was trying to get my attention. I still don't believe anything happens by chance and do believe that God directs our paths and is ever present in our lives, but sometimes I have a hard time finding the God-ness in what seems like a total random coincidence. And not that God isn't involved in the tiny things of life, I believe He is, but these are just too tiny and silly.

The other day I flew with a guy and we were talking about speaking incorrectly. We discussed how people really shouldn't say "I could care less" because if they could care less it defeats the point they're trying to get across. Then my FO mentioned the phrase 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. I've never ever heard this before. I always thought it was 'the proof is in the pudding', not realizing what it meant. Then, not 8 hours later, I'm back home and in the doctor's office for my stupid back. We're discussing chiropractors and his answer as to whether they're really any good is... yes, you guessed it 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. I'm just like wtf mate? This may seem really stupid to non word Nazis, but I couldn't believe that I was hearing this twice. We decided that God must be telling me to go buy some pudding on the way home.

Last week I was reading Hemingway. I finished it while I was at home and had another collection of his short stories in my car that I meant to bring with me but forgot when I was hurrying. I was really bummed and was scanning the planes for left books so I wouldn't get bored on my trip. We get to the airport yesterday and as we're waiting 3 hours for the plane someone mentions their lost and found box. I asked if they had any books in there. I'm expecting these dime a dozen action thriller paperbacks. Sometimes I can suffer through them. He said that there were a few but there was only good one. And what does he bring back to me? Hemingway's Farewell to Arms. One that I was very interested in reading. This may not seem that coincidental except that never when you are actually wanting to read someone do you find their books. And a few months ago I probably wouldn't have even been interested in reading Hemingway. Anyway... it's a really good book and I'm pleased that I found it. It's the story of an American ambulance driver who is in the Italian army in WW1. He's falling in love with an English nurse. We'll see what happens...

I'm in Tulsa and have to get up at 6am but am not even tired. I took some ambien but it hasn't done anything for me. Blah. Three more legs and I'm home. Woo hoo.

I had a two hour break in Atlanta tonight and 4 of my passengers from my first flight asked me to eat dinner with them. They're 4 military types, 3 men, 1 lady, on their to Dubai and then one somewhere else for a conference. I've realized that if you're going to go on a date, the airport could possibly be the safest place ever to do it. You're always in wide open public. There's nowhere for someone to run should there be an indiscretion. If it turns out terrible it's pretty easy to lose yourself in the airport. We had a nice, fun dinner though. It's funny cause one of my friends was telling me yesterday that he views every one of my flights like playing the lottery. Every time you get a chance to have someone amazing on there. The odds are kind of like the lottery as well, but every once in a while you win and meet someone cool.

The subject is due to my love for using an i to pluralize words. It makes me happy.

You see the smile that’s on my mouth, it’s hiding the words that won’t come out

All of the great many fascinating things I have to blog about have been one-upped by the phone interview I just did. I wasn't going to write anything on here about my potential job, just because if I don't get it I'm going to be really sad, but you'd all find out anyway. We all know I can't keep my own secrets. I just did a phone interview and I feel like it was awful. One of the questions I didn't even have an answer for, and instead of saying why I didn't have an answer I just said I didn't know. I think I did really well on some of the other ones though... I guess we'll just have to wait and see. You can only expect so much from on the spot question asking. Hopefully they don't make that the be-all end-all of who I am. So far I've had one mini phone interview, filled out a ridiculous assessment, and now had this interview. Hopefully I get another one.

Other than that, I'm back at work now. I basically had 4 days off over the weekend and it was really great. I got to spend time with a lot of different friends and family. I got to have dinner with TanJoe on Thursday and hear about the honeymoon. It sounded like such a good time that I'm thinking about going on one soon. I did lots of errands. Got things taken care of, which always makes me feel good. I saw my family (well what's left of it in Georgia) a couple of times. Mrs. Fields and I made an IKEA run. I found out that one of the reasons my battery barely lasts a day is because I haven't updated it in 5 months so evidently it's still searching for towers that no longer are there. Word to you Verizon users, do your updates. It helps.

The weather has taken a sudden turn toward winter and I'm not really a fan. I actually broke out the hideous work pants for the first time since last winter. I could get another pair that looks better, but I'd really rather not buy more uniform pieces for my current job.

I'm thinking of venturing out into the great unknown of Bloomington. I have 2.5 hours left until I go to the airport and I'm kind of getting tired of breathing hot, dry air.