Friday, January 29, 2010

What were the odds?


Once again I find myself off to Detroit. I arranged for a flight that left at around noon just so that I could be the good guy and help my wife by getting my daughter off to school. This saves my wife from having to fight with two children to get my daughter ready and to school but results my getting to my destination a lot later than I care for.




Detroit 026
Once I was ready, I walked down stairs to see my wife on her laptop. Much like myself, she is kind of an introvert and spends very little time actually socializing with people, and instead spends a lot of her time online. She looked up at me and grinned and shook her head.
"Your hair looks nice." She told me in a sincere tone, and then went back to looking at her laptop.
"Well thank you!" I said, kind of surprised because she rarely comments on my look, but I am strangely pleased and flattered by her comment.
"I’m sorry you got stuck with a weird husband." I told her with a grin, while standing across the table from her. She looked thoughtful for a moment and then replied.
"No your not."
I looked at her, feeling grateful that my wife doesn’t think I’m all that weird.
"Awe, that’s sweet . . . " I started to say, but then stopped as it struck me that that is NOT what she meant.
"Hold it. You mean ‘no, I’m not sorry that I’m weird’ huh?" I asked her.
"That’s what I meant" she confirmed, still with an ironic smile on her face.
This launched us in to 20 or 30 minute conversation alternating between levity and tragedy. Among other things, she has informed me that a significant reason she has no friends is that she is afraid to bring people to our home because of what they may see or figure out about me. She is afraid to bring people to meet me because of the clues I give off. She is afraid to have friends because I may ruin it for her.
Now for those of you inclined to think my wife unreasonable, I have to point out that this has indeed happened twice already. Once with an acquaintance who never progressed to friend after finding out about me, and once with a really neat woman that had been my wife’s best friend. When her husband found out about me, my wife and I were no longer welcome in their home, and so the friendship died. This did happen, and it was because of what I am, so it’s hard to look her in the eye and tell her that she is being entirely unreasonable. Reasonable or not, this seems to be the new way of things with my wife and I. As I am prepared to leave the house, she let’s me know how unhappy what I am makes her. I don’t know where to go with this. It hurts to know that I make her unhappy and yet it’s the first time in my life that I have been happy. I don’t know what I can do to make the love of my life happy while not making myself utterly miserable . . .




Detroit 030
As I checked in for my flight with US Airways, I see that the lady behind the counter is the same lady that took care of me a month or so ago, and who never once smiled. I recall thinking at the time that it was a shame because she was really beautiful and I was sure she would be stunning if she smiled. Well, it turns out that I was right, because as soon as she saw me, she gave me a huge smile, and she was indeed radiant and stunning. I handed her my tickets and ID and she gave me a little laugh.
"I remember you very well and I don’t need to see your ID." She said with a grin.
"Oh really? Are you saying that I make a bit of an impression then?" I asked with a wink.
Soon I had my bags checked and was in the way through the TSA security where I was set back just a bit by the young lady checking everyone’s ID. She was a young, short, and blond woman with brilliant blue eyes and she reminded me so much of my wife when we first met that I was lost in my memories as she checked my ID.
"I hope you have a great day!" I told her as she handed my documents back to me. She said nothing, but blushed and glanced up into my eyes for a heart stopping moment. I was sort of in a daze, with my thoughts flickering all over the place as I walked away.
Adorable little blond girl with the eyes of my wife from 20 years ago,
Her blushing, probably in embarrassment to be dealing with someone transgendered.
My wife, scared to have friends because of what I am.
Much like a lot of my life these days, today is off to a confusing start. . .
As I sit at the gate getting ready for my flight, I get a text message from my wife telling me that she is sorry for our conversation. As I’m reading it, I see two TSA agents walking down the concourse, a man and a woman, and they are speaking to each other. As they walk on, the guy is literally turning around almost backwards to stare it me as they walk off. At last, they get so far away that he has to turn around and face the woman he is walking with and talking to. I can’t decide if I should smile or be irritated and so I just returned to my wife’s text message. I replied to her that I didn’t want her to feel sorry for what she said or how she felt. It’s important that I know how she feels, but I also confided that I didn’t know what to do to make us both happy. Just as I hit send, I see the two TSA agents returning, this time with a third agent. All three stop not 15 feet from me and have a "casual" conversation. As I am at the end of the concourse, they have just walked a long way to have a casual chat so close to me, and it’s pretty obvious that the idea is to show the third guy the freak show waiting for a flight. Soon they wrap up their conversation and return the way they went, with both of the guys sneaking looks back in my direction. What the hell, I just grinned at both of them as they walked off.
I had a fairly long layover in Charlotte and so chose to have a sit down dinner at Chili’s instead of my typical fast food meal. I started with an entirely healthy meal of salmon and veggies and then destroyed the whole "good for you" concept by getting a couple of 7 & 7 drinks with it. I very rarely drink in airports because it’s too damned expensive and I think it’s a good idea to keep your wits about you while traveling, but somehow it just sounded like a good idea today. When I checked my ticket I was delighted to see that I had a free upgrade to first class and so I flew to Detroit in comfort. There was some sort of maintenance delay, so we sat at the gate for over 30 minutes, but that’s not so bad when your sitting in first class sucking on a couple of screw drivers.
At the Detroit airport, there is a long escalator taking you down to the rental car shuttle busses, and you can look through the plate glass the entire way, so I could see the Avis bus sitting there and waiting. I had intended to stop, put on my coat, and then head outside, but I worried that the bus would pull away while I was putting the coat on. Instead, I chose to just head out the door with no coat for the short walk to the bus, thinking ‘how bad could it be for only 50 feet?’. As I exited the building, the cold reached up and hit me like a slap in the face, and I was still sort of in shock when the bus driver came up to me, almost running.
"Here, give me those bags! You get on the bus where it’s warm and I’ll take care of these!" he said with a gentle smile.
"Thank you SO much!" I told him, with my teeth chattering so badly that I was not sure he recognized it as speech. The bus driver took his seat after putting my bags up, and then turns to me.
"Are you a member of our preferred program? " he asks me.
"I am," I said, and gave him my last name. He looks at his computer for a moment.
"And your first name?" he asks.
"Matthew," I called back to him, all the while looking at the only other passenger on the bus for a reaction to my male name. I’ve got to hand it to the guy, he didn’t even blink or look up.




Detroit 2010 01 001


With my starting my trip so late in the day, combined with the delay leaving Charlotte, it was around 9:30 PM when I arrived at the Crowne Plaza hotel. They placed me on the eleventh floor – the priority club floor where they have a lounge just for members. I poked my head in to the almost empty lounge and see a really cute woman about my own age, with short spiked hair, and glittering eyes standing behind the counter.
"Come on in, come on in!" she says with a smile, while waving me in. "You’re just a bit too late for hot snacks, but I’ve still got some chips and cookies."
"Awesome!" I told her as I entered.
She was very friendly and out going and soon we were chatting about nothing specific, while I snacked and ordered a white Russian. Just as I sat down, I realized how tired I was and so I took my snacks and drink to the room with me, where I pulled out my laptop and checked my email. I see that I have an email from Chrissie, a Vanity Club member who also travels a great deal. In it, she says it’s too bad that I hadn’t given her more notice about my trip to Detroit, because she was there tonight as well and was staying at the Crowne Plaza. I sat there looking at the email for a moment, thinking to myself that I was too damned tired, and it was too late, to go be social, but I just couldn’t pass it up. Chrissie and I have been trading emails for about a year now, and have come close to meeting several times, but never quite seemed to get it right. We had been only miles apart a couple of times, and had both even been at the Southern Comfort Conference last year and still we hadn’t managed to connect. Having wanted to meet her for so long, there was just no way I could pass it up if she was in the same darn building I was in, no matter how tired I felt.
I gave her a call and we both laughed to find that we were only separated by a single floor. In short order I was in the elevator on the way to the lobby to meet with her. I only made it down one floor when the elevator stopped and on walks a gentleman who looks at me with a smile.
"Well hello, and yes, I am who your thinking I might be!" he says with a grin.
We made our way to the lounge in the lobby where we sat talking for a few hours about nothing and everything. We have a LOT in common, from family, to traveling for our careers, being transgendered, etc, etc. We were both struck by how incredibly unlikely our meeting that night was. From completely different states we had headed out, working in completely different fields, and we both end up not only in the same city, but at the same hotel, and with no prior planning or coordination with each other. I’d have to say the odds were astronomical against it, but what do I know? It turned out to be serendipitous though, as I really quite liked her, and considering the conversation with my wife this morning, I sort of needed someone to talk to who understood my life. All talked out and exhausted, I was back in my room and headed for bed around 1:30 AM

When the alarm went off at 6AM, the pounding in my head made it abundantly clear that I had way over done it the night before. I mentally started ticking off a list of all I had drank – two 7 & 7’s at dinner, two screw drivers on the plane, a white Russian in the upstairs lounge, and then two glasses of wine with Chrissie.
"Oh my God, you’re an idiot, and on a work night at that!" I scolded myself, but let’s face it, my head hurt too bad to pay attention to what I was saying. Eventually I dragged myself out of bed and headed for my customers. The drive, and in fact the entire day, was cold, dark, and miserable. My customer had told me that he had three instruments for me to look at, but then wheeled out five, and so I wasn’t done until almost 7PM. Given that I had an hours drive to get back to the hotel, and I still had a pounding head, I decided that I was done for the night and wasn’t going to be going anywhere. When I got to my room, I cleaned up a little and headed for the members lounge where I again found the same cute woman manning the place.
"All right! Tonight I’m not too late for the hot stuff I see!" I told her with a grin, as I looked at the assorted snacks, and noted that again she and I were the only ones there.
"Nah, I’ll have the hot stuff out for another hour or so. Come on in and help yourself!" she says. "Would you like something to drink?" At the very mention of a drink, my head throbs so bad that I must have winced.
"God no! I think I had at least one too many of those cute little white Russians last night and my head is killing me." I told her with a grin. She laughed and this set off an hour or more of conversation with her. I don’t know for sure, but suspect that she figured out that I was the cross dresser from the night before, and she completely opened her life up to me. She told me that her divorce to a self centered and unloving man was just about to become final, and that the only good thing she was bringing out of the marriage was three beautiful children. I commented that my own marriage had now lasted for 22 years, and trotted out my favorite joke that the reason it has lasted so long is because I’m not home enough to really irritate her. At this point she shocked me by telling me that her own marriage had lasted 23 years. Wow – 23 years with a selfish, self centered, and unloving man and now she has had enough. Of course it was only a hop-skip-and a jump from that thought to wondering if that is how my wife views me and our marriage.
Until very recently, say the last two or three years, I’ve never flirted with women. I was way too shy and they were far too intimidating to me, but getting out in to the world as Kimberly the last few years, combined with doing field service where you are forced to meet and interact with so many people, has done wonders for my self confidence. I had to say something when she complained that she had no idea how to date anymore, and no idea how she was going to go about meeting a decent guy, and that she was afraid she was going to end up all alone.
"I suspect your not going to have any trouble at all when you’re ready to meet someone. You’re out going, clearly intelligent, and absolutely cute as hell." I blurted out before my brain could talk me out of saying it. I sat there blushing for half a second and wondering if maybe I’d gone too far and said something inappropriate, but she quickly let me off the hook.
"What a sweet thing to say – thank you so much!" she said softly. Still embarrassed that I had acted so boldly, my eyes flickered up to hers for just an instant and I couldn’t help seeing that hers were tearing up. It was probably just as well that two women entered the lounge at that point, thus distracting her from her fears of being lonely. Soon the three women are speaking bluntly about the flaws of husbands and men in general, and I’m flattered that they are willing to have the conversation in front of me.






The next morning I have to get up at 3AM if I want to fly home pretty. It’s a toss up for me as I want the sleep, but I know that I’ll spend the entire trip home being depressed if I don’t go pretty, so once again I find myself up well before the sun. It reminds me of the joke we used to share in the Army about how the US Army was always trying to sneak up on the sun.




Detroit 2010 01 005




Detroit 2010 01 008
On the rental car shuttle bus, a man a couple of seats down strikes up a conversation with me.
"Are you in Detroit for a convention?" he asks.
"No, I was here working on a broken instrument" I replied. "Are you here for a convention?"
"Nope, I just come to Detroit once a month or so" he tells me. He has an odd look in his eye and smile on his face, as if he is amused by some sort of inside joke that only he knows about. I can’t help but notice the fact that he was intentionally vague and assume it has something to do with his inside joke. We chatted about nothing for the five minute ride to the airport. You know, I’m still wondering what kind of convention he thought would bring a cross dresser to Detroit, and what brings him to Detroit once a month that puts such an odd grin on his face.
I can’t use my coat when I land in Austin anyway because I’ll be changing back to boy mode, so the first thing I do as I enter into the airport is to stop, pull off my heavy coat, and pack it away in my bag. Soon I’m pulling my bag and tool box toward the airline counter when I hear a male voice directly behind me.
"You must be going someplace warm if your not bothering with a coat!" I turn to see an airport employee smiling at me.
"You betcha! I’m going to Austin Texas and it’s a lot warmer there!" I said with a laugh.
Today I’m taking the scenic route home and flying through Phoenix Arizona on my way to Austin. Soon I’m sitting on the plane next to a young lady who smiles and chats a little off and on. She doesn’t seem to be at all put off by me so that’s cool. Had a little giggle when the flight attendant walks up to each of us in first class, confirming our names and getting our drinks. Every one she approaches, she looks at them and reads their first and last names off, confirming that they are who her list says should be in that seat. When she gets to me, she kindly uses only my last name.
"And you are Ms XXX?" she asks me, with a soft smile.
"Yes ma’am, That works for me!" I grinned back at her.
"And what shall I call you dear?" she asks. Clearly she is giving the chance to give her a female name, but it didn’t really occur to me until after I’d responded out of habit.
"Matt is fine." I told her.
She was a sweetheart though and never once called me "Matt". I was either "hon" or "dear" for the rest of the flight.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

High Heels and Snow

Longmont CO 2010 14 004       ............
This week I was off to Longmont Colorado to install a mass spectrometer and to train the customer in it’s operation. Colorado is an absolutely beautiful state and I do tend to enjoy my trips there, but this time it was a bit colder than I like, and with more than a little snow.
.. ..
It seems that there are so many TG’s flying these days that no one even bats an eye at me in the airports anymore. I consider that to be a mixed blessing sort of thing, because on some level I guess I had been enjoying the reactions that I used to get. It had amused me to see people do a double take, re-evaluate their preconceptions, and then step up to the plate and treat me like a human being. Not these days though – it’s just business as usual with everyone involved, with me being treated no better or worse than anyone else

Longmont CO 2010 14 003
.. ..
My flight was a direct one from Austin to Denver and so I arrived fairly early in the day. As this was just a travel day, it gave me most of the afternoon to have fun, and so I did! I started by plotting out the Goodwill stores between the airport and Longmont and found two that I headed out for. The first was on Colfax avenue in Denver / Aurora, and if you have ever spent any time in the area, you probably know that Colfax is not one of the safest or nicest areas to visit. My wife and I had lived only a couple of miles from there when I was attending a year long course on Lowery AFB many years ago, and so I knew this, but still I didn’t let it intimidate me. The first thing I noticed as I stepped out of the car in the parking lot was that high heels were less than ideal on snow and ice. I just reminded myself that if I took small and careful steps, I would probably avoid making a complete ass out of myself by ending up on my face or backside.
As I closed the car door, I noticed two African American women approaching me in the parking lot, also headed for the Goodwill entrance. To be honest, they looked just a bit on the rough side, with both of them looking tired and disheveled. As I locked the car door and started to make my way to the store, I glanced at them both and gave them a smile, and then one of them spoke to me.
“Girl, don’t you look pretty!” she said while returning my smile.
“Well thank you! I try anyway.” I replied. While we were speaking, the other lady was looking at my shoes, something I have come to recognize as sort of a greeting ritual with women.
“Sweetheart, you better be careful on the snow and ice in those heels.” She said, with kind of a “tsk tsk” attitude. I just grinned at her.
“Oh hell, I have a lot of practice in these things!” I told her. About that time I had reached the door and held it open for both of them.
“Well thank you!” they both told me almost in unison and both with genuine smiles.
“It seems fair to me. You two gave me a smile after all.” I told them with a wink.
I did my shopping and found lots of baby clothes for my son. Goodwill rocks for this sort of thing because lets face it, babies do not wear out their clothing. They grow far too fast to be wearing an outfit long enough to do any damage to it, and so you can buy these cute little PJ’s that are like new for only a dollar each. I also found a cute little (and I do mean little) multicolored skirt. That one’s gonna get put away until it gets a lot warmer!
.. ..
I hit up one more thrift store on the way to Longmont but found nothing of interest there. What did amuse me a little was that as I approached the door, there was young man coming out of it. At first he paused to hold the door for me, then you could see the light in his head go off as he “read” me, and he just let the door go while giving me a mean hearted look. I just smiled at him and expect that this probably irritated him more than anything else I could have done.
.. ..
When I checked in at the Holiday Inn Express in Longmont, the lady behind the counter was a real doll. Very friendly, very professional, and clearly a really nice person. We chatted about this and that as she checked me in. At one point she let out a small whistle and commented that she had never seen anyone with as many points as I have with their chain.

....

....
Longmont CO 2010 14 007

The following day was uneventful, starting off with my spending most of it with my customer. A very nice guy, originally from China, and when I took him to lunch we had an enjoyable discussion trading stories about the places we had seen and been to. After work, I drove to Loveland to meet with my half brother and his wife. I had never met her before and so was looking forward to it.
The evening was full of mixed feelings. Pleasure at seeing him again and in meeting his lovely wife, and some small sorrow as we discussed our younger lives and some of the low and high moments in them. He went through a bunch of old photos that he had acquired when our father had died and found and offered me a few that included my mother. I tried not to tear up as I looked at the pictures of this young, skinny, and beautiful woman that had given me life and love and who was now gone. So, an evening catching up on things and with lots of mixed emotions and feelings.
.. ..
The next morning I woke to the sight of a light snow fall through the window. Very pretty to look at as long as I didn’t have to be out in it. As I entered the dinning area of the hotel for a cup of coffee and some oatmeal, I couldn’t noticing that every single one of the half dozen women in the room were drop dead gorgeous, and I mean gorgeous. The lady at the counter was a 20 something brunette with adorable hair and glittering eyes. The lady running the breakfast was a tall blond girl, with flawless skin and piercing blue eyes. The two ladies sitting at a table eating and talking business, clearly planning their work day, were also exceptionally pretty. In the midst of all of this beauty was me, a tired old guy with crooked and yellow teeth, and no hair. Feeing old and unattractive, I once again headed out of the hotel to my customer’s facility to continue the training.
.. ..
Fortunately my customer was exceptionally sharp, and we were done at around 11AM, and so he escorted me to the exit. As we approached the door, you could see a very heavy snowfall through the windows, with the world out there being a more or less solid white. As I got in to the car, I noticed that my shoes had a heavy coating of snow and ice on them, and so I had to re-open the door and kick it off. As I was doing so, it occurred to me that the only female shoes I have are pumps, and that they weren’t gonna be a lot of fun in thick snow and ice. On the drive to the hotel, I seriously considered my options for what was feasible to do for the rest of the afternoon. Did I really want to be walking through foot deep snow wearing pumps? Would I freeze? Would I damage my shoes? ‘Maybe I should just stay drab or stay in the hotel . . .’ I thought to myself.
“Nah, not only no, but hell no! I’m gonna go shopping for boots!” I decided, and so I did!

I kept glancing out of the window as I was getting cleaned up and ready, and it was pretty much just a white haze of heavy snowfall. I tried to take a few photographs that would do the snowfall justice, but I’m afraid they failed to capture the essence and wonder of the thing.

Longmont CO 2010 14 011
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.. ..Longmont CO 2010 14 022

Longmont CO 2010 14 021
.. ..

Longmont CO 2010 14 025


As I made it to my rental car, I discovered that in the short time it had been parked, it was already covered in snow, and with a nice layer of ice over the windows. Joy of joys – it is now that I find out that Avis had not provided me with a ice scrapper, so I just let the car and defroster run long enough to clear most of the windshield and then headed out.
.. ..
The first place I hit up on my search for boots was Kohls, but I didn’t find any boots there that I liked. As long as I was there though, I decided to continue to browse the other areas of the store. As I was looking through their trinkets, bracelets, and necklaces, I noticed a blond woman, very well dressed and quite pretty, and it was with a shock that I realized that she was almost certainly a TG! I wasn’t positive, and so I kept glancing at her trying to make up my mind and maybe hoping to catch her eye to start a conversation. At one point she and I were on opposite sides of the same rack, and still she had never looked my way, so I took the plunge.
“Hey, you didn’t swipe all the cute stuff before I got here did you?” I asked her with a grin. She looked up at me and laughed.
“No, I left lots of stuff!” she told me. If she was TG, she had a flawless voice, because after hearing her speak I now put the odds at only about 50%. Utterly unsure if she was or was not TG, I took the conversation no further and we went our separate ways.
The snow had of course continued to fall while I was shopping, and nothing had been done to clear the parking lot, and so off I went, traipsing through a foot of snow in my pumps. Just as I got near my car, I became acquainted with a hazard in doing this. Under the snow was a rough pile of frozen material that you couldn’t see and I had stepped squarely on top of it. I went sliding, arms waving and flailing about, trying to keep my balance and to avoid ending up on my caboose. At last, I came to a stop, just barely keeping my balance, and glanced around to see if any one had seen my performance. Sure enough, sitting in the idling car next to mine was someone keeping warm, and he was looking at me with a huge grin. I gave him an “Oops!” look and got into my car.
.. ..
Next, I tried JC Penny, and this time I found boots I liked . . . but not in my size. They only came as large as a 9 and I need 10’s, so off I went again.  My next stop was Sears and Dillards in a mall across the street. The mall was clearly a victim of the economy and a lot of its shops were closed and vacant, so that was a bit of a bummer. As I entered Sears, I saw the tool section and went looking for a cheap ice scrapper for my rental car. I decided I’d rather spend two or three of my own dollars to buy a scrapper than try and improvise to get my windows clear tomorrow morning when it came time to head for the airport. As I was looking through the tool section, a fairly gruff looking SA looked at me a couple of times and at last gave a half hearted offer of help.
“Can I help you?” he asks in a tone making it clear his offer is not in the least bit sincere.
“Yes please. I need a window scrapper for my rental car.” I told him.
“You mean for automotive?” he asks in a bored tone. Of course I’m thinking to myself that ‘Yes, wanting it for my rental car did sort of imply automotive’ but I wasn’t gonna take the risk of being a smart ass with this guy.
“Yes,” I repeated, “For my car.”  He looked at me for a second and then pointed a bit further down the store,
“Automotive is that way. Ask one of those guys.” He says dismissively and then walks away.
“Thanks so much!” I told his back with a smile, while thinking ‘what an asshole’ to myself. Ice scrapper in hand, I headed to their shoe section where I again found no boots that met my apparently unusual desires. I want black leather, knee high, two and a half to three inch heels, and with a rounded toe. Why is that so damned hard to find? I HATE the pointed toe boots because I think they are ugly, make my feet look huge, and remind me of the wicked witch’s shoes.
.. ..
After I paid for my ice scrapper, I headed out of Sears and entered the mall to make my way to Dillards, but on my way to Dillards I came across a “Famous Footwear” store and entered it. As I walked in, there was a short and petite young man wearing a name tag who glanced up at me.
“You look gorgeous!” he said in a very enthusiastic and effeminate demeanor. He paused and took a look at my pumps.
“I love those shoes, and in plaid too!” he said.
“Thank you so much!” I told him, blushing at the unexpected warmth of his greeting.
“Now all I need is a set of boots so I have something a bit more appropriate for your weather here.” 
“Let me know if I can help you.” He said with a smile, while waving his hand in the generally direction of the boots. I browsed through them and found a pair that I liked, but they also only had size nines on the shelf. I knew it was probably pointless, but still I went to ask the SA if they might have them in a larger size in stock. As I approached him, he was speaking with another 20 something year old male and I could hear little bits as I approach.
“Honey, I’ve never owned that kind of heel. I like these!” one is saying to the other. Clearly I am not the only male in the store that wears high heels. Oh well, as I had suspected, they did not have the boots I liked in a larger size, and so once again I had struck out. I continued on to Dillards where I was well treated, but again failed to find any that I liked.
.. ..
Giving up on the search for boots for the day, I headed off to the movie theater I had passed in the same mall. As I made my way through the almost empty mall, I passed two or three groups of teenagers, and none paid me the least bit of attention.
.. ..
I watched the new “Twilight” movie, about a young lady that falls in love with a vampire, and then manages to seriously complicate things by latter falling in love with a werewolf – the mortal enemy of vampires. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and found it oddly touching, but I can’t say much more with out being a spoiler. I couldn’t help but grin as I heard at least a dozen women and girls in the theater gasp at the last line at the end of the movie.
.. ..
After the movie I slowly made my way to the hotel, more than a little surprised that there didn’t seem to be much effort to clear the streets in a place that gets so much snow. That’s OK though, I had lived in Denver for a year, and in Bavaria Germany for three, and so I have fairly decent skills for driving in snow. As I entered the hotel lobby, the clerk behind the counter gives me a smile as I stomp the snow off of my pumps. I just shook my head as I spoke to her.
“Important note to self – high heels and ice . . . “ I paused, and then we both finished the sentence together.
“ . . . do not mix”, I said.
“. . . are a bad idea!” she said at the same time with a laugh.