Yesterday I was more baby hungry than usual. (Yes, it's a little known fact that I'm nearly always baby hungry.)
I went to a friends house and there were a bunch of other moms there with lots of kids, including two of the most deliciously, irresistible babies you can imagine, especially this one. Ouch!
Then I had a lovely dinner with my awesome sisters-and-mother-in-law on the occasion of the one in purple visiting from the eastern seaboard. 
While there I watched a video clip of my impossibly adorable nephews. These boys just throw any baby hunger into an honest-to-goodness ache. They're honestly that cute!
But it didn't end there. No. I finished off the night chatting with my sister and hearing about her two cutelings...starting off with my niece answering the phone and telling me she misses me and wants me to come visit them (they're living on an island in paradise). These two sweethearts are just the epitome of darling. I miss them, too.
Some kids make it so hard to only have two. But I am so grateful for the two that I do have! They're among the worlds most perfect children. At least for me! Love ya Bunch&Gator!
...as a general rule. I just kind of phased out of it about 8 years ago, and it's been a good move for me. We don't have cable, and with our rabbit ears on the set in the basement, we only get PBS and a couple random stations. The kids and Doc regularly watch two shows, which happily air on PBS, so for at least a few more months till they stop working next year, Nature and Nova are a weekly part of their lives. I am glad they're such cute little nerds.
But today I saw this episode of Oprah on the internet, and it was very touching. It's 27 minutes long (commercial free!), so if you have some time, I hope you'll give it a whirl. And have a great day! ♥
These are Cupcakes
What happens to cupcakes if you forgot to add eggs to the batter
This is my remedy for the situation. (I think they'll still get eaten)
Also, Why I don't want a cat.
As mentioned last week, Nea, who gave birth 13 days ago, took her kitties out of their box, and we didn't know where to find them. Perhaps there were predators out, or too many people visiting, but last week when the kids came home from school, there was only one baby left in their box, and then Nea showed up and hauled that kitten off to their unknown locale. Bunch tried to follow her, but couldn't find her.
So today, I tried to keep a lookout all day because there was snow on the ground and I planned to follow her tracks. All morning there was no sign of her. Finally, once the snow was melted (foiled!), I caught her outside eating. I thought "here's my chance, I'll follow her".
It's like she knew that was my intent. She sort of moseyed around, sniffing every blade and branch, looking back to see if I was there. She'd stop and clean herself and stretch, checking to see if I was still watching her. Finally she meandered into the neighbor across the street's back yard.
This particular neighbor is a self-proclaimed recluse. We lived here for 20 months before I ever saw him, and Nea was the cause of our finally meeting him. A dog was in our front yard growling one night, it sounded almost like a bear. Knowing Nea was outside, I opened the door and saw this big black Lab on our walk, and Nea scrunched up into the "halloween cat" posture hissing at it. "NEO", the owner called out from nearby, and then to me he said "Don't worry, he's all bark, no bite". I told him the cat was named Nea, which I thought was funny.
We introduced ourselves and I found out he was our mystery neighbor. He's fairly young, probably mid twenties, nice looking guy. He doesn't work. I don't know how he supports himself, but he said he never interacts with anyone. I asked what he does, ie: college, work. He said he doesn't really do anything. Curious, I pressed him (is he a lotto winner or something?), and he said he's into online games, such as video or role-playing games, not gambling. After chatting for a few minutes, we parted on friendly terms. I'm glad to finally meet him, and hope we see more of him in the future.
So today, I'm standing in his backyard, waiting to see where Nea would go. She wasn't fooled. After playing this game for nearly 2 hours, with me hunting around and listening, she finally hopped up into one of the boats out there. There are two pretty neglected boats in this yard. I'd already looked around in this boat myself, but couldn't see anywhere that they would be, nor could I hear them.
Nea must have really had to get back to them, either that or she realized I wasn't going to give up (score one for Blue), because she finally cast one last backward glance at me, before slipping through a small hole in the corner under the steering wheel dash and side of the boat, into an unreachable section of the boat. (Score one for Nea.) There is no way anyone would have ever found her hiding spot without witnessing it.
So I know where they are, but we can't see or access them. I guess when they're goodNready they'll come out. Till then, no pictures. Wah!
Word on the street is that Nea took her kitten and fled. Bunch arrived home to find only one remaining kitten in their box, and shortly thereafter she saw Nea hauling that one off too. She tried to follow them, but they disappeared. Likely locale: the neighbors wild, completely neglected back yard, which has an abandoned boat with a couple tarps on it that she'd probably like. Neighbor wasn't home to ask for permission to look around. So at the time of press, the kittens are missing. Sound the Feline Alert!
...I didn't get out of my trip today. I made it back with one hour to spare before I would have turned into a proverbial pumpkin for today.
Then I forgot to check in for todays trip...something we have to do before every trip. So I was awakened an hour before my alarm, with that sick, panic feeling you get when you see a cop's blue lights in your rearview. My phone was ringing and went to voicemail before I could answer it...and then I had to figure out what number I needed to call to beg for mercy and not write me up for my negligence. Nothing like adrenalin at dawn.
I'm dashing off on #3 of 4 flights today. Had 10 minutes in the terminal with free wi-fi so I thought I'd keep all you devoted readers posted.
The good news of the day so far: My flight crew* have promised to dash off the plane and get me some food from Chili's when we stop in Vegas. So I've got that to look forward to. And also, we had a few singing crewmembers on board our flight. They were recently selected by TLC to be part of a new show that is starting up, and they were flying to meet the producers now. Since we were having a happy, lighthearted kind of flight, I broke with tradition and sang a song for everybody that I made up. It was very short and went like this:
We are your cleaning crew,
Oh don't you know
So give us all your trash
before you go.
The applause was deafening!
Ta ta!
*the official term for pilots
A short list of all the things I lost yesterday. - The PA Announcement Booklet that belonged to my co-worker. He loaned it to me since I didn’t have the new one yet.
- The food I bought in NYC to eat during my long long day on the plane. I left it on one aircraft when we switched to another.
- My sister’s favorite hat that she let me use to stay warm while sleeping. It just vanished somewhere.
- My shampoo, conditioner, facial wash, and toothpaste. Left it in my hotel bathtub in my rush to get out the door.
- The combination to the luggage locker I’d stowed my bag in. Luckily I found someone who could tell me what it was again.
- My health…I woke up with a sore throat and a little congestion.
- My mind…when I forgot to check in for my trip this morning on time (!) Bad bad bad!
A short list of all the things I found yesterday:- Hope that today will be better
A friend of mine did an hour-by-hour post of a day in her life right now, and then tagged me to do likewise.
My camera battery is dying, so I've only got a few little shots of my day today, but thought I'd give you a peek into A Day In My Life As A Flight Attendant. This is obviously VASTLY different than my non-flying days.
First off, I work part-time, generally 3-4 days a month. I'm currently between flights on day two of my four days in April.
Here is my messy hotel room. I had a scant few hours of sleep in NYC last night, and am always in a rush to make it to our van to the airport for the first flight of the day.
This is at JFK. I was waiting for my order to be ready at the restaurant in the terminal, so I stopped into the Hudson News store and tried on some cute sunglasses. Like em? I did, but didn't get them.
This is during my flight. We had a full boat going to CA, including a pretty big celebrity.
Steven Spielberg is a really nice guy, and agreed to pose for a photo with me at the end of our flight.
Okay, it's actually Mike Spielberg, his younger, better looking brother.
(Okay, it's not even a Spielberg. But he gets mistaken ALL THE TIME, especially when he's wearing his baseball cap.)
Right now I am waiting at the airport for my next flight. It's delayed...so what was going to be an almost 3 hour "sit" between flights, is currently slated to be delayed one hour. If it were delayed 2 more hours, I would be what's called "illegal" to fly tomorrow's trip (not enough rest between trips), and they'd replace me with another flight attendant. But bonus, I am paid for the trip I missed anyway!
But that's not likely to happen. I'll keep you posted when I can...but I don't get that much time online when I'm flying.
Here's me and a random pilot...I don't know his name, and I don't know why my head is all tilted over weird either. It's probably the effect of flying to so many cities the last day. We're in the computer area of our crew lounge. If my camera battery weren't about to die, I'd retake the pic. Yes, I'm actually that vain!
Tonight, I will land (hopefully after 12:05 a.m.!!!) back here. Then, because my sister is a total rock star and is generous enough to host me during my monthly trips, she'll collect my worn out bod and let me crash at her place. Then if I'm not lucky, I'll get to lather, rinse and repeat the past 2 days again...and head home to see the fam after that. But maybe we'll be delayed! But probably not.
I guess, for our customer's sake, I don't really want us to be delayed. And also, this airport has a curfew, and if we land after it, we pay big money in fines to the city. Just today the 2nd major airline of the week announced it was closing it's doors. With the departure of Aloha Airlines and ATA from the airline scene, thousands of my industry fellows are having a lot of stress right now. (and it's gonna be really tough to fly to HI anymore! boo hoo!) I feel for them. So if I get to fly tomorrow, that's a good thing too. Just wish I had my camera charger with me!
Hope you've enjoyed this little slice of my workin' life.
Have you ever planned for something, and then when it didn't work out you were far more distraught by it not happening than you should of been, simply because you'd planned on it?
On Tuesday I had an appointment for a haircut at this nice Aveda salon. They have a "New Artist" side, and a "more experienced artist" side of their salon. The new artists have all been doing hair for years, but are just doing a master's program at Aveda. So getting a cut from a new artist is really affordable, with the added bonus that you don't have to endure the SuperCuts kind of experience to get your hair done. The other stylists are all priced higher, based on experience.
So I need a haircut. I need one bad. In fact, everyone in my entire family needs a haircut. We're all wearing hair long enough so as to not need hats in the cold. In fact, for a while now I've been calling Doc my own "Dr McDreamy", and he confided this week that one of his other classmates has also started referring to his longer locks by calling him "McDreamy". He has promised me that we can do a styling session and use product on it some night, and then take pictures before he cuts it, since he's never had hair this long before, and isn't likely to have it this long anytime in the near future. You can bet I'll keep you posted on that.
But I digress.
So I made the appointment. I was so exited to go. I got there, put on my smock, and then for some reason, felt inspired to just casually ask, to, you know, verify that they had indeed scheduled me with a new artist...only to find out that actually, I was scheduled with a regular (expensive) stylist. She was considerably more spendy than I was willing to pay for a haircut. They didn't have any new artist openings that day. As this was no April Fools joke, I left without my haircut. And then suddenly it seemed like my hair was simply MUCH MUCH worse than I think it would have seemed, had I not been anticipating finally getting that cut.
But on the way home I stopped by the Salt Lake Running Company, and they video taped me running and fitted me for some shoes that will hopefully make my efforts to become a runner successful`...or at least possible. I know that the shoes are only part of the key to it. But if I sustain injuries, you can be sure I won't be successful, so I bit the bullet and bought the shoes, and hope I can stack the odds of success in my favor.
So pardon me now, but I'm on a layover in NYC at the moment, and if I'm going to get a run in at all today, I have to go now. Because not only do I still have to deal with my aforementioned HAIR, but for the rest of the day I'll be on a plane full of people, who hopefully won't all decide to vomit a lot. Like everyone who ate at the cheap "all you can eat" buffet in Las Vegas on their way to the airport last night. You might as well have just renamed the place "Vomit Airlines". It takes a lot to really gross me out, but it was bad.
Toodles!
