Doing it in the dark . . .

I guess that I was tired on my flight out of Austin, because I fell sound asleep on the airplane. Now with most folks, this wouldn’t be much of a problem, but you have to understand that I snore. When I say “I snore”, I mean “I SNORE!”  Let me tell you a little story that puts my snoring into perspective:

I was once in a hotel and sound asleep when the phone on the table rang at about midnight. Not thrilled at being pulled from my sleep, I reached out, picked up the phone and mumbled “Hello?” into it.

There was no one there . . .

Figuring it was just a wrong number and the person on the other end was probably too embarrassed or rude to say something, I went right back to sleep. About twenty minutes later, the phone range again and so I answered it.

“Hello?”

There was no one there . . . I went right back to sleep . . .

About thirty minutes later, around 130A, the damn thing rang again. This time I was angry, so I just reached out and unplugged the phone from the wall, and then went back to sleep. About thirty minutes after that, I awoke with my heart pounding in my chest, because someone is banging on my wall so hard that the cheap hotel paintings hanging there are jumping on their hooks. 

“. . . . YOUR FREAKING SNORING!.

I didn’t catch the first part of his statement, but I figure that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. . .

So with that little story to give it perspective, I'll say it again - I feel asleep on the flight and my own loud snoring woke me up. I sheepishly looked at the poor woman next to me.
"I'm so sorry, but I didn't get much sleep last night and so I was pretty exhausted." I told her, blushing horribly while thinking about how very masculine I know my snoring must have sounded.
"It's no problem." She replied with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and with a tone of voice that made it clear that she wasn't in the least little bit sincere. Just then the male flight attendant walked up to me.
"Did you enjoy your nap?" He asked with a grin.
"I'm SO sorry!" I told him while covering my face with my hands.
"Oh it's not a problem at all. So who is Larry?" He asked 
"Larry?!" I asked him, more than a little bit confused.
"We'll you were yelling his name out in your sleep." He told me with a concerned look on his face. I must have had a shocked look on my face, because he busted up laughing after a few moments.
"I'm just teasing," he told me with a laugh.
When the plane landed an hour so later and I was walking by him on the way off of the airplane, I gave him a wink.
"I'll tell Larry that you said hello!" I quipped at him.
"You do that!" He replied with a laugh.

Things got a little bit interesting when it came time to board my connection. As you enter the gate area, you hand your ticket to a customer service representative who then scans it, tells you to have a great flight, and then off you go. Not THIS time though! I handed her my ticket, she scanned it, and her computer made three loud beeps. At the same time, her monitor went completely red with one message in the center: "DO NOT BOARD PASSENGER"
"What the heck?" She said with a shocked look on her face. "I've never seen this before!"

THAT didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. She frantically pushed keys in her keyboard for two or three minutes while irritated people started to pile up behind me.
"According to this, there is already someone seated in your chair, but your ticket appears to be correct and valid. This might take me a moment or two, so would you mind stepping aside?" She asked with a flustered look on her face.
"Sure" I replied, with more than a bit of a flustered look myself.

The woman behind me was a flawless young lady in her early thirties with long dark hair and a petite figure that probably allowed her to wear those size six things that have been, and always will be, well out of my reach.  That didn't help her here though.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP" went the oh-so-helpful computer when HER ticket was scanned.
"What in the world?" The exasperated gate agent exclaimed to no one in particular.  Since we had just gone from just one customer with a problem, to multiple customers, it suddenly became a priority to figure out what was wrong. While she madly typed away at her terminal, I turned to the beautiful young lady that was apparently in the same boat that I was in.
"I'm sure that YOU are not so very pleased about it, but I'm SO happy to see that it is not just me that has a problem!" I told her.
"It's always something isn't it?" She said with s shrug.

"We'll ladies, I'm sorry, but it insists that there are already people seated in the seats that you are assigned to. Since the rest of first class is full, the best that I can do for you is to give you your own row in coach?" She stated it as a question. I didn't see much question to it though as I had to get to Detroit even if it meant taking a bus.
"No worries, as long as I get there! Oh, and you don't need to give me my own row either, I'm not that antisocial." I told her with a grin. The pretty woman stuck in the same boat with me nodded her agreement to my own statement, and shortly we were entering the aircraft and on our way to our newly assigned seats. As we entered the first class section, I was fully prepared to glare at whoever was in MY seat, but there was no one there, nor in the seat behind it.
behind it. Before I could say anything, the pretty size six spoke up.
"Hey! There IS no one in our seats!" She loudly proclaimed. This got the interest of the flight attendant, and so the young lady shared the story of our plight with her.  While they were taking, I started putting my things away and prepared to take my original seat. You know, the one in first class! Now that the flight attendant had heard the whole "we were told there was someone already seated in our seats story" the flight attendant still looked at me and shook her head.
"I'm sorry, but you will have to take the seats that they told you to use at the gate."
"We'll all righty then!" I said with a disgusted tone of voice, and then I grabbed my stuff and moved back three or four rows, past first class and into cattle territory. No sooner had we got our things stowed away, when the gate agent boarded the airplane and approached us.
"Look, I'm so sorry. I still have no idea what happened, but clearly there is no one already seated in your chairs, so please feel free to move back up to first class." Size six and I just looked at each other, laughed, and started pulling our things back out of the overhead again. Of course by now, general boarding had started and so the two of us had to fight the flow of traffic to make our way back up to the front of the plane while everyone else was trying to get to the back of it.

When the Avis bus pulled up to the airport and the driver came back, I had to grin as I realized that he was the same guy that had given me shit a year or two ago when he had realized what I was. Back then, he had done a double take when he tried it lift my bags onto the bus, because they were good deal heavier than he had expected.
"Wow, you must be really strong!" He had said with a grin back then.
The grin that he gave me THIS time made it clear that HE had also recalled ME.
"Hey! I know you!" He said with a laugh.
"Oh I dunno, I've only been coming here off and on for the better part of a decade." I laughed with him as I collapsed the handles on my suitcase and toolbox.
"Well you go ahead and leave that stuff and get on the bus." He told me. I already had my hand wrapped around the handle of my suitcase and so figured I'd at least put it up on the bus, but as soon as I started to lift it, he put his hand on it and stopped me.
"Ma'am," and he emphasized the word, "please get on the bus. I'll take care of that for you." I looked up and found him staring hard into my eyes. In my last encounters with him, I had thought that he was more or less polite, but the kind of person who liked to kind of cut up with people. I hadn't been sure if he was being honestly friendly or not at the time. This time he seemed pretty sincere and seemed to honestly want to help, and so I sat the bag down and entered the bus while giving him my thanks.

By the time that I got settled into my rental car, it was too dark to see without a light, and so I started looking for an interior light switch in my little SUV so that I could find my GPS and set it up. Apparently I goofed though, because suddenly there was a polite little gong sound, followed by a recorded voice saying something about connecting to OnStar.  I was unsure if that entailed an additional fee or not, and so I frantically looked for an "off" or "end call" option, but all I saw were icons that meant nothing to me. Not knowing what else to do, I hit the same button again and was gratified to hear something along the lines of "call ended".

It lied . . .

About thirty seconds later I hear what is clearly a living human beings voice.
"This is OnStar. What is the nature of the emergency?!" Asked a polite female voice in a most professional tone. I sat there a second, startled that the call apparently hadn't been ended after all, and I guess I waited too long to reply, because she asked again.
"What is the nature of the emergency please?"

I thought about it for a moment before I replied.
"We'll, the nature of the emergency is that there is an idiot running loose in a rental car who apparently can't figure out how to end an OnStar call once it was accidentally started." I told her with a flabbergasted and sarcastic voice. It took her a moment or two to stop laughing.
"That's okay, the system is designed to keep the call active until we can verify if there is an emergency, and if we need to send the police out or not."
"We'll I hope like hell THAT'S not gonna be required!" I laughed. "No one is hurt here. All we have is an ignorant redneck in a rental car that is apparently smarter than I am."
Once again, it took her a moment or two to stop laughing so that she could wish me a good night.

I won't bore you with the details of my work there, suffice it to say that it was a long service call, the weather was miserable, and I was more than a little bit happy when the day to go home rolled around at last. Imagine my joy when I awoke at 6AM on a pitch black morning, to a hotel that was utterly silent, dark, and cold. It seems that sometime during the night, a transformer somewhere had blown, and the hotel had no electricity! At this point, most people would have probably decided that with no lights or power, today would be a great day to just throw on a pair of jeans for my flight, but I was feeling stubborn. In no time at all, I had my laptop setup on the bathroom counter and proceeded to use the light of its screen to apply my makeup. For those things that demanded more light, I downloaded a flashlight app for my iPhone, and we were off to the races. Just for the record, this was a lot harder than it sounds, and I expected to get to the airport to find that my makeup looked like hell. Much to my surprise though, when I got to the airport, I thought that it looked pretty darn good!

So sitting in the Charlotte airport waiting for my connecting flight home to Austin, I had four hours to kill. I was sitting down eating lunch when a young lady that I recognized from my own flight sat at the table next to me and struck up a conversation.  We got to talking about families and the like, and I mentioned having three children.
"You must have a good husband that takes care of them while you are gone huh?" She asked me at least three times. I kept considering telling her that she and I both knew damned good and well I don't have a "husband" but instead I kept grinning and telling her "yeah, something like that."

Did I mention that I think my makeup turned out pretty good considering that I did it by the silvery light of a laptop monitor?!  Hell, I'm thinking maybe I ought to put on my makeup in the dark more often . . .

Enough already . . .

Well, what with the holidays and all, I haven't been traveling much at all lately.  Before that, I had made a few trips, but all in boy mode for an assortment of reasons. I had intended to make a trip to Fishkill New York pretty, but I found out on my drive home from the office the night before I left, that my manager was gonna be on one of the same flights that I would be traveling on.  Talk about a close call!  Could you just imagine sitting there as your manager walks past, and hoping like hell that doesn’t recognize you?!

Well, as anyone who has been reading my blog for a while probably knows, I have this nasty little skin condition called Erythema Nodosum. Nasty little problem that one! Usually it results in large and swollen bruises that cover my lower legs for two or three months, but this time it decided to ramp things up to the next level or two.  I was sitting on the couch watching TV with my family when I realized that I was having trouble breathing - it literally hurt to inhale.  I've had asthma my whole life so I pretty much figured that it would probably go away on its own if I didn't pay it too much attention. I was wrong, because in about 45 minutes it went from discomfort to "Oh shit, that HURTS and I can't freaking breath!"

Yeah, you can play tough all you want, but when it hurts so bad to breath that the question "heart attack?" keeps flitting through your mind, those around you do tend to notice.  I hadn't even finished telling her what was wrong when she started insisting that it was time to take a little trip to the emergency room to spend a little quality time with the staff there. The hospital is only about a mile away from our home and so I insisted over my wife's objections on going alone. No, it wasn't altruism on my part - it was the dread of what it was going to be like trying to ride herd on a bored 3 year old and 9 year old in a hospital for a few hours.

So in short order, I was signing in at the front desk of the ER. By the way, if you wanna be seen QUICKLY in an ER, just tell ‘em that you are having chest pain and trouble breathing. That moves you right to the top of their "Awe shit! Get that bastard a doctor and into a bed before he dies on us" list. Despite the fact that it had hurt bad enough to motivate me to go to the hospital, by the time I actually got there I wasn't feeling too bad at all, and this sort of embarrassed me. I mean here I was, hurting a bit, don't get me wrong, but not too bad, and here all of these folks were jumping through hoops. Before I knew it, there were at least four folks surrounding me, attaching things to my chest, setting up recording equipment, and getting needles together.

"Okay, we need to take some blood, so you're gonna feel a small pain as I insert the needle." One young lady said to me.

"Whoa, hold it!” I said loudly enough that everyone stopped and looked at me. “No one said anything about needles being part of this little adventure. If I'd have known that, I would have just stayed at home!"

I told her this with a wink to let her know that I was only kidding. Now that everyone knew I was just an idiot trying to get a laugh, they all went back to work on me

"Well, I'm pretty good at this and I promise to be gentle." She told me with a grin and a wink of her own.

"All right, I guess I can trust you. You know, before anyone gets too excited, I should mention that I have had pleurisy before and it felt quite a bit like this. I don't think I 'm having heart attack or anything, I just thought it was best not to take the chance.” 

One young nurse who was busy gathering supplies paused long enough to give me a shit eating grin.

"Honey, we aren't at all excited. You should SEE us when we are excited! I’m pretty sure that your problem is not with your heart, because people having heart attacks don't enter the ER with a smile on their face and joking with the staff."

"We'll all right then! I'm gonna take a little nap so y'all go on about your business and let me know when you’re done would ya?"  I said with a laugh.

The funny thing was, with all of the excitement and adrenalin, the pain had actually receded, but as things got calmed down and I relaxed, it was coming back in a big way. That was a good news and bad news kind of thing, because on the one hand, no one wants to be in pain, but on the other hand I was feeling like a damned fool for being in an ER when I was no longer really hurting much.

OK, so long story short, there was absolutely nothing wrong with my heart and it was in fact pleurisy again. Of course it took hours, blood tests, and x-rays to prove it, so it was a long night.

A few days later I decided that I couldn't put it off any more, and I needed to get a "touch up" laser treatment on my face. If anyone tells you that laser does not hurt, I'm gonna tell you that they are fibbing through their teeth. That shit HURTS, and so I have been putting it off.  This time I had a different laser tech, and I really liked this young lady, though you might think I'm a nutter for my reason. I liked her because she was absolutely brutal with the laser. The lady that had done over a year of treatments for me was a kind woman, and she tended to kind of take her time. Not THIS woman though, nope. She went to town with that laser and though it was painful, she got it over with in less than half of the time.

Zap, zap, zap. . .

"Ouch! Damn that hurts!"

"Okay, you are all done!"

On the route back from getting my face burnt, was a DSW shoe store, and I figured I would take a look, thus giving my face time for the redness to go away before going back to the office. In just a few minutes I found an awesome pair of brown Mary Janes that just begged to go home with me, and being a soft heart that could not bear to hear their pleading, I obliged them. The joke was on me though, because when I got them home and tried them on, I almost fell flat on my face. Along with the bruises on my legs, and the pleurisy in my lungs, my wrists and ankles are ALSO swollen and painful, and when I stood up in the high heels, my left ankle hurt so bad that I yelled out in pain. I figure at this point that so much shit is wrong with me, that if I was horse, a decent owner or vet would shoot me to put me outta my misery. It turns out that the swelling and inflammation in this ankle is just perfect so that the angle of wearing heels causes extreme pain. No heels for Kimberly  . . Damn it. . .   

A doctor I am not, but I am pretty good at troubleshooting, and I think that it is a stretch to think that all of this inflammation is not in some way related – swollen bruises on my legs, joints swollen and painful, and also the pleurisy which is also inflammation. You would think that a good doctor could put all of those symptoms together and come up with some ideas wouldn’t ya?

It's been quite a while since I last got to be pretty and so I was getting just a bit desperate. One of many problems with the concept at this point is that every single pair of shoes that I own are high heels. I do not own a single pair of flats or even low heels for that matter. At first I figured this meant that I couldn't fly pretty, but then it struck me that all I had to do was go buy a pair of flats. I sort of hated the idea to be honest, but I hated the idea of not flying pretty even more. I was complaining about this to my wife, and told her of my plans to go and buy a pair of shoes and I invited her to join me. Before she could reply, my nine year old daughter spoke up.

"If you're going shoe shopping, you aren't going without me! Right?!" she demanded.

I didn't know if I should laugh at her precocious statement or be appalled at her somewhat rude way of inviting herself, but when she started batting her eyes at me in a seriously exaggerated fashion I couldn't help busting out laughing.

"Yes critter, you can go with me." I told her, and then looked at my wife for her response.

"You know, I could use a few minutes of peace and quiet . . . " she told me with a smile, all the while looking at my three year old, back at me, then the boy, then me. . .

"Yes dear, I'll take him with me too." I laughed. She had kind of an odd smile on her face after this, and I figured that it was probably two things conflicting with each other - on the one hand, daddy was taking both critters for the afternoon. On the other hand, he was taking them while he went to buy women's shoes. Talk about a mixed blessing for her!

Well, I did find a couple of pairs that I kind of like, but I'd have to be honest that I am never gonna be terribly excited about flat shoes - they just don't float my boat.

Much to my surprise, DSW does not carry children's shoes, and so my little fashionista was mad as hell at me.

"You told me that I could get a pair of shoes too, but they don't have any for little girls! You fibbed to me!" She accused me, with a hurt and angry look on her face.

"No ma'am, I didn't lie to you. I've never lied to you and I never will. I didn't know that DSW doesn't carry critter shoes, and that is not lying." I replied, with my feelings more than a little hurt.

"I told you that you could get something too, and I meant it. We'll find someplace that sells critters shoes, okay?"

"Okay!" She said quite a bit more cheerfully. "Can we go to the outlet mall?"

And so off to the outlet mall the three of us headed. . .

My big critter got a cute little dress that she liked, along with a pair of calf high boots that she had to talk me into because I was afraid that they might not really be appropriate for a little girl and I feared that her momma might hate them. Turned out that momma loved 'em so it's all good.

My younger critter got only a little stuffed five dollar alligator that just delighted the heck out of him, and I found myself wishing that my daughter was so easily pleased.

Just to top the day off, we all went for a train ride!

I did indeed make my trip to Denver pretty, but I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't wear my heels. Flats are okay, but just not as much fun.

As is just about typical these days, I was parking at the airport when I received an automated call from Delta airlines telling me that my flight had been delayed by 45 minutes. Since I'd only had a bit over an hour to catch my connection in Atlanta, this was more than a little bit concerning because it seemed unlikely that I would now be able to catch my connecting flight. At the Delta counter, Mona, my favorite customer service representative there, told me to go ahead and keep my original connection, and she would back me up on the next flight from Atlanta to Denver just in case I couldn't make it. That sounded like a good plan to me, so off I went to the gate area.

As I sat there waiting for my flight to board, a woman about my own age glanced at me and then spoke.

"I like your outfit," she said quietly. "It's very pretty."

"Thank you. I know it is a bit over the top, but I figured what the hell!" I replied with a grin while holding my arm up and waving my huge lace sleeves about in the air.

"Oh no, I don't agree! I think it's a great outfit and not over the top at all!" She reaffirmed kindly.

Well, I got to Atlanta with about 25 minutes to make it to my next gate, so I was kind of stepping it out as I exited the plane. Delta has a great system for showing travelers where their next connecting flight is. They have a monitor right there as you exit the plane, and they show the connecting flights and gates for everyone that is on the arriving flight. I looked down the list until I saw "Denver" and then headed out for the gate it specified. It turns out that it was clear at the other end the same concourse I had arrived in, so it could have been better and it could have been worse. When I arrived at the gate, I confirmed that Denver was indeed the next flight scheduled to leave from it, but was stunned to note the time of departure - 5:45PM! Apparently their system had already decided that I couldn't make my scheduled flight and so had shown me the gate for the next flight to Denver. Madder than hell that they had done that to me, and that I had failed to catch it before making the long walk, I made my way to the bank of monitors that display all flights and gates, and had to laugh when I found that my scheduled flight was right next to where I had landed. Needless to say, I was not amused while I hiked all of the way back up the concourse! I managed to make it there in time and was pleased to discover that my seat was still valid, and much to my surprise, my bags also managed to make the flight.

The next morning, I was awoken a bit before six by a phone call from my sister to tell me that my step father had died a couple of hours earlier. I had mixed feelings about this for a lot of reasons that would be hard to explain without writing an entire book on the subject. When we had first met him over half a century ago, he had seemed like a kind of fun person, and he clearly liked my mother. My mother was not getting any younger and having chosen to live way to hell and gone out in the Mojave desert, she didn't exactly have men standing in line to date her, so we were all fairly happy for her when they were married. That optimism was quickly called into question when it soon became abundantly clear that he had a major alcohol and drug addiction problem. He was a decorated Vietnam vet with two bronze stars and a Purple Heart to his credit, but like so many others who shared his experience, he came away from it with deep scars that are not visible to the eye. . .

I see no point to sharing all of the frightening or sad moments that come with being family with someone addicted to the hardest and nastiest of drugs. There were fun moments, there were terrifying moments, and there were moments filled with despair. . .

After many years of this, my mother at last had enough, and told him to choose - it was either the drugs or her, but he could not have both of them. After a great deal of time and effort, and the help of AA and a few fine friends that he met there,  he managed to kick it all and went completely clean and straight for more than fifteen years.

My sister and her children lived only an hour or so away from him, and he became not only a decent grandfather to her children, but an exceptionally good one who made it to every single little league game and always made time to visit them and be part of their lives. He never became a man that I liked, but he did manage to earn my respect, and all of this was possible because he loved my mother enough to kick the drugs.  Then came the day a few years ago when my mother died, leaving him alone in an empty home, twenty miles from a small town, and about a mile from the nearest neighbor.

The grandchildren that he had tried to be a good grandfather to were all grown now and moved far away raising their own families.

His friends from AA had both died of old age several years back.

There was no reason now for him to stay sober.

In six months he was drinking again, telling everyone not to worry, that it was just a beer or two. I told him several times that he was making a huge mistake, but as you would expect from an addict; he would not or could not listen. In a year or less he was back on hard drugs, and I again told him that he was making a horrible mistake but you cannot argue with the addiction. It does not reason and it feels no compassion or remorse for those that it chews up and spits out in its wake. I couldn't stand to watch the destruction of the man that had once made me laugh, then allowed drugs to turn that laughter to hate and fear, and then fought long and hard to become someone that I respected and so I only called him rarely, perhaps once every six months or so.

I hated to hear his speech slurred and slow.

I hated to think of how my mother would feel if she knew.

I find myself wondering even as I type this if my mother is in heaven looking down and angry that I didn't try harder to stop him?

Apparently he had had enough himself, and he told my sister a few weeks ago that he was going to eat his own gun soon. My sister had not shared this with me until after he had died, but I can't say that I was surprised to hear of it. Well, it seems that God or the universe got the last laugh on him, because he died of natural causes before he could make good on his threat.

So, did I mention that my feelings about his passing were seriously mixed? At the very least, I salute the man who served his country at great cost to his soul. I respect the man who kicked heroin and coke long enough to be a decent husband and a good grandfather, and I mourn the failure of a mere mortal to escape his demons.

As if this week had not brought enough emotional turmoil, this very evening I was to meet much of my estranged family from my father’s side. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you are probably aware that my own father was a raging alcoholic who often beat his wives, and more than once slapped his children around as well. After my mother left him, he went on to multiple other marriages and had two more children - my "half" brother "Sonny" and my "half" sister Tracy. When she was only five or six years old, in an apparent moment of clarity, my father realized that he had no business raising a daughter. In one of the few admirable things he had ever done, he allowed a couple from Georgia to adopt her. With any luck, she would have a shot at a decent life. This was nowhere near as simple and as clean as the words make it sound though, but that's another story. Suffice it to say that I never saw my little sister again, and after my father’s death, no one had any idea at all where she was or how to reach her. Using the Internet, I had been looking for her for the better part of fifteen years and had finally met with success a year or so ago. After I found her, we had spoken to each other several times by phone, but since she lived in Washington state, there was no way to meet in person, at least not until she and her daughter recently moved to Colorado! Since my half-brother had been living in Colorado for years, this gave us the first opportunity in forty years for all of us to see each other - myself, my little brother and his fiancé, his daughter and her fiancé, and my little sister and her daughter.

God I hope like hell that this next generation doesn't screw things up as badly as the last one did . . .

Can't wear heels . . .

Now I'm bummed. I've got a fairly rare skin condition called Erythema Nodosum (http://dermatology.cdlib.org/DOJvol8num1/reviews/enodosum/requena.html)

The shit really sucks because it hurts quite badly and despite what the articles say, it leaves my legs permanently disfigured  - discolored and with depressions where the nodules used to be.

Well, for the most part this has been an ego and a grin-and-bear-it kind of thing.
Ego because I hate the way it makes my legs look
grin-and-bear-it because I have to deal with my legs hurting pretty badly.

This time, it's gone a bit beyond that though, because most of my joints are swollen and hurt quite badly - my ankles and wrists.

Why am I telling you this? Yesterday I was picking out shoes for my upcoming trip, and I found a pair that I liked and tried them on. . . and I almost fell flat on my damned face! The pain from my left ankle when at that angle and with weight on it was absolutely stunning. It goes without saying that I will NOT be going anywhere pretty for a while because I can't wear my damned heels

DAMN IT . . .

Of course, I guess that I can go shopping for women's flats, but that seems like SUCH a waste . . .

Still here . . .

I thought that I'd take a moment to let y'all know that I am still alive and kicking!
I have been doing a lot of traveling, but for an assortment of reasons, I have not been able to make the trips pretty.

As an example, I recently had to make a trip to Fishkill NY to work on a system that had failed there. I found out on my drive home from the office the night before I left that my manager was going to be traveling on the very same flight that I was on. That could have been immensely uncomfortable and unpleasant for all involved because he has made it clear over the years how he feels about "those kind of people"!

Anyway, I'm still here, still breathing, and still working, but have nothing to really blog about . . .

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and happy Holidays!

P.S. - When you're picking out gifts, don't forget that I wear size 10 shoes and that I am a dress size 12 to 14 (leaning more toward the 14). All gifts can be mailed to my attention at . . . ah, never mind . . .   :)

"Purse, backpack, toolbox, suitcase . . ."

I was supposed to have the weekend and the entire next week at home, and considering that in the last three weeks I’ve only seen my family for a combined total of about ten hours, i was really looking forward to it. That wasn't to be though.
Friday morning I entered my office for the first time in three weeks and stopped at my manager’s office to say hello.
"Good morning Frank, how the hell are you?" I asked him, trying to sound a good deal more cheerful than I really felt. He just looked at me for a moment and shook his head from side to side.
"It's a bad day, to be honest. A very bad day. Why don't you come on in and close the door behind you." He told me.
"Well THAT doesn't sound so good!" I replied, with more than a little bit of nervous in my voice. I'd never seen my manager look this bummed out, and to be honest, it scared the hell outta me because I know full well that my company is in the process of layoffs. His demeanor filled me with the dreadful thought that maybe my number was up, despite his repeated assurances through the years that I would never have to worry about that as long as he was my manager. With my heart feeling like a lead weight at the bottom of my chest, I entered his office, closed the door, and took a seat.
"Okay, so what's up doc?" I asked, still trying to keep the mood lite.
"I don't know how to tell you this, but I need you on an airplane tomorrow morning."
I kid you not, I almost cried with relief right there on the spot. Here I was, afraid that I was about to lose a job that I know I cannot replace, and afraid that I was going to have to face my wife and children and tell them that I had failed in my most sacred responsibility - to provide for them. Instead, it seems that he had only felt horribly guilty about having to ask me to be away from home for another weekend, and possibly for thanksgiving as well. As compared to my fear of losing my job, being told that I was needed was an incredible relief.
"God damn it Frank, don't DO that to me! You scared the shit outta me the way you were acting! You don't EVER need to apologize for sending me on a service call. I don't give a shit what day it is or where the work is to be done, this is my job and I REALLY like my job!" I told him softly, still feeling like I might fall over with relief.
"Well, I know it can't be easy when you have children at home." He said apologetically.
"Yeah, that can be a bit of a problem, but it's not half the problem as telling them that they are gonna be homeless in a month." I replied with a laugh.
Now all I had to do was tell my wife that she was going to have to cancel her plans for a badly needed Saturday away from the children, and explain to my little ones why I could not take them to the movies as I had told them that I was going to.

After having spent over a decade active duty army with me, my wife was quick to understand and support my need to "put the mission first". My daughter on the other hand. .

"But WHY do you have to go? Tomorrow is Saturday!" She wailed, and then let loose with huge sobs. Her tears brought her little brother running to see what was wrong.
"Tomorrow is Saturday and daddy has to go bye bye again!" She wailed at him loudly.
In all my years of traveling, this is the first time that my daughter has ever gotten upset about my leaving, and it really tore me up. Soon all three of us were teary eyed and I was in the unenviable position of trying to explain to two little people why I had no choice in the matter, and that whether I liked it or not, I DID have to get on that plane in the morning if we wanted to have a home, toys to fill it with, and food to eat. With a heavy heart, I headed up stairs to see if I had enough clean clothes for the trip, and to pack them if I did. My three year old son followed me up the stairs, because let's face it, it doesn't matter what daddy is doing, my son wants to be with me. So there I am, putting things in my suitcase and trying to keep a close eye on what the critter was taking out of the suitcase, when it occurred to me how I could make my nine year old daughter smile. I walked out to the stairwell and yelled down to her.

"Hey Audrey?!"
"What?" She yelled back, taking off the headphones that she was using with the IPad.
"I need to put together a couple of outfits and really could use your help." I told her, trying to sound sincere without crossing the line and sounding patronizing. I honestly don't think that I have ever seen my daughter move so fast before, because she dropped the IPad on the couch like it was a hot potato, and then ran so fast up the stairs that she actually beat me into my bedroom a few steps away. You see my daughter considers herself to be quite the little fashion expert, and she has often tried to help me pick out outfits before. You have no idea of the risk that I was taking with this diversion though, because my daughter has a very "unique" sense of fashion. There have been countless times when my wife and I have given each other the "oh my God" look after seeing the outfits that she has come downstairs wearing before, but except for the rare occasion when she has worn something that was too short or not warm enough for a cold day, we let her do her own thing. We both feel that it hurts no one to let her express herself and be her own individual. The problem in this context is that she thinks everyone else should be just as brave and unique as she is, and willing to take the same fashion risks. Alas, I am not. .  .

"Ok!" Said little miss fashion expert. "NOW I'll show you how to dress like a young person!" She said this smugly, sounding as if it were about time that I conceded the fact that I needed her help with fashion. Her comment sent shivers of dread up and down my spine, and if you had seen some of her outfits in the past, you would understand why.
"Now hold on critter! You do understand that some things that look right on a little girl your age are not going to look right on an old person my age right?"
"Sure!" She said so quickly and dismissively that I knew for absolute certain that she believed no such thing.
"All right, so here is my problem" I told her. "I've got this really pretty patchwork peasant skirt with lots of different colors in it, and I just can't decide what top to wear with it. I've picked out some that I think might work, but I just can't decide."
I laid the floaty skirt out on the bed and then showed her the pile of red and purple tops that I had set aside as possibilities. I thought that I might outsmart her by limiting her choices to only those that I already thought might work.
"Ok, so here is our 'maybe' pile, and here is our 'no' pile." She told me, pointing to two different spots on the bed. She came up with that idea so quickly that I suspect that maybe this is something that momma has taught her for choosing her own outfits.
"Sure! That works!" I replied with a laugh, and we started working our way through my pile of options.
"Nope. . . "
"Maybe . . ."
"UGLY!"
"Maybe . . . "
"That looks too much like an old lady . . . "
All of these opinions she offered while setting the tops in the appropriate piles. In the end, we had maybe four purple tops in the "maybe" pile, but none of them made for a really awesome outfit.
"Maybe we should look at some other colors!" Suggested my little fashionista, and then before I could slow her down, she had bounced off of the bed and had buried herself deep inside of my closet.
"Oh hell. . . "I thought to myself, knowing that my plan to limit her choices had just crashed and burned. Now there was no telling what she might come up with.
"What about blue?!" She asked
"Umm, I don't think so." I told her, but still we held a couple of blue tops up to the skirt so that she could satisfy herself that it wasn't gonna work well.
"How 'bout pink?! If you wore pink, you could wear these shoes with it!" She said, pointing at a pair of four and a half inch bright pink stilettos.
"Umm, I don't think so . . . " I repeated again, but yet again we had to hold a few tops up to the skirt just to convince her that it wasn't gonna be an option.
We went through a few more options in this way before she pointed at a black sweater top with silver and gold sparkles in it.
"What do you think about sparkly black?!" She asked, tugging on the top and looking up to see my face. I was reaching the end of my patience and was trying to figure out how in the hell I was gonna find a way out of this without hurting her feelings, but then I paused for a second. I never would have considered pairing the two, but the more that I looked at it, the more that I thought it might well be our best bet yet. I took the skirt and laid it out on the floor, then placed the black sparkly sweater at the top of the skirt to see what they would look like together. Much to my surprise, I thought it looked like a great outfit, and very much like something that I thought that I might look good in. I took out a red belt and laid it across the top, and then set a pair of red shoes at the bottom. My daughter stood there with her hands on her hips, positively beaming with pride in her selection.
"That's the one! That's my favorite!" She loudly announced.
"I think you did it critter! I never would have thought of that one. Thank you SO much for your help!" I told her and then knelt down to hug her. It was right about then that grandpa showed up for our Friday night pizza dinner, so I again thanked her for her help, and reminded her that we probably shouldn't a tell grandpa what she had been helping me with. We held hands on the way downstairs and my little fashion expert was no longer upset and unhappy that I had to go away again. Clearly my plan to distract her had worked spectacularly well, but now I'm prolly gonna have to live with the precedent that I just set. It's gonna be exhausting if she takes it upon herself to "help" me pick outfits every time that I travel!

After dinner was done, and grandpa left for home, I headed back upstairs to pack my male clothes, and then burst out laughing as I was zipping up my suitcase. It had just struck me that I had thought I was done and was zipping up the suitcase, and yet I hadn't packed a single male shirt for work - not ONE! Sure am glad that I realized this BEFORE I found myself at the airport!

That night before I went to sleep, I changed the alarm on my cell phone to 3AM, and then fell off to sleep with my wife laying in bed next to me and watching TV. The next thing I know, my wife is waking me up and it is 3:45 AM - a full 45 minutes after my alarm was supposed to have gone off! It seems that I had once again failed to recall that my daily alarm is set to go off only on week days and so if my wife had not just happened to wake up, I would have missed my flights.

Much to my shock, the lines at the TSA checkpoint in the airport were HUGE! They did the usual zig-zag thing at the checkpoint, but then the line extended half way down the concourse! The only times I had ever seen the lines this long were during the yearly South by Southwest music festival. I knew that there were a lot of people headed in to Austin for the Formula 1 race, but I hadn't thought that any of them would be headed back out already! Fortunately, as a frequent flier, I get to use a special lane that only had three people in it.

"Please state your full name." The female TSA agent told me as I handed her my ID and ticket.
"Matthew Huddle." I offered. To my great amusement, her eyes jerked up to look at me with shock and surprise clearly written in them. She looked back and forth at my ID and my face several times.
"I'm not even gonna ask. . ." She finally said with a mischievous grin.
"Welcome to Austin! I'm just doing my little part to keep it weird!" I replied with a wink.
"Good for you! You have a great day and a nice flight!" She said with a laugh as she handed me back my documents.

As I walked away from her, I realized that on some level I had missed surprising people that way. It is great for my ego when it is so obvious that they had not realized that I was really a male until I had to tell them with my ID. As often as I fly these days, most of the TSA folks in Austin recognize me and of course know what I am, but this woman I had not seen before.
Of course it pretty much goes without saying that the damned body scanner flagged me, because they do more often than not, and so there I was with another TSA inspector in front of me.
"Ok, I'm going to have to pat you down here, here, and here!" She said with a grin as she showed me the spots that she intended to touch. Her grin made it clear that she knew exactly what I am and thought it was amusing. This is fine with me, as I would much rather have people react with a grin and humor, rather than with irritation and suspicion.
"No problem. That damned machine of yours doesn't like me much, so I've done this more than a few times before." I laughed.
"That is such a cute dress!" She told me as she patted me down.
"Thank you! I've been looking for the perfect red dress for a while, and this is as close as I've found yet."

Yeah I know, the photos make it look orange, but trust me – it’s red.

Soon, I found myself sitting in the gate area, and a woman with a small dog sat down next to me. Within seconds of her taking the dog out of its little carrier, she was surrounded with happy and squealing children, all crowding in to get their faces licked and to pet the puppy. It was so adorable that I just had to snap a pic of the happy little puppy party!

On the flight to Philly where I was to catch a connecting flight, I started writing my blog on my IPad. When we landed, I was caught off guard when a young woman walked up alongside of me and spoke.
"So are you writing a book or something? I've never seen someone type so much on an IPad before!"
"No," I told her with a laugh, "I just travel a lot and write a blog about it."
"Oh! I write a blog sometimes too!" She replied.
"It's kind like a diary huh?" I asked her with a smile, and she quickly agreed with a laugh.

I had another gratifying moment at the Avis counter when the clerk looked at my contract, my driver’s license, and then at me.
“I’m sorry, but this reservation is for ‘Matthew’. I will need to see your license please”. He said. I was just opening my mouth to clue him in when the light went off in his head, and with a smile he handed the contract and keys over.

On my two hour drive from Albany to Fishkill, you have to stop at a couple of toll booths – one for the highway, and one for a huge bridge into the Poughkeepsie area. I had to shake my head when I pulled up to the bridge, rolled down the window, and found myself facing the same guy that was rude to me the last time that I had made this trip. The last time, he had stared at me for about 30 seconds before saying something along the lines of “That will be $2.00 just because . . . “

“That will be $2.00” he said as I pulled up to his window.

“OK, and can I please have a receipt?” I replied as I handed him a $5 bill. He handed me back my change but no receipt.

“Excuse me, can I have a receipt please?” I repeated. This time he didn’t say anything, he just stared at me again for about 20 seconds. Finally, I guess he had decided that he had been a prick long enough, and he handed me the receipt without saying anything. Ah, what a joy . . .

Most of the rest of my time there was all based around work, and so not much to write about, but I did get to meet another TG for dinner one night – Marian Johnson. You read about people who “have a laugh in their eyes”, but you rarely actually come across someone like that. Marian is definitely one of those people, and her eyes just glittered and shone when she laughed. We blew about two hours talking about nothing in particular – life, marriage, and this interesting lifestyle that we have.

So when it came time to head for home, I did it with more than a little trepidation. It was the day before thanksgiving – the day widely considered to be one of the very worst times to fly due to the crowds all trying to get somewhere for the holidays. That morning I was listening to the news as they described heavy fog causing problems and delays at multiple major airports across the North East, a pending strike at LAX that was supposed to take place today, and all of this while heavy crowds were all trying to fly the not-so-friendly skies. It looked like it was NOT going to be a good day to travel . . .

I seriously considered flying as Matthew, just in case there were serious delays or in case I got stranded, because I have come to learn over the years that a delay anywhere in the USA can cascade into delays everywhere. The thing is, we had made a big production out of my daughter helping me to pick out my outfit for today, and I just hated the idea of telling her that I had not worn “her” outfit. I decided that I would suck it up and go as Kimberly, and just deal with anything that happened. I had to giggle as I was getting ready, because they had all of these “talking heads” on the news, giving all of their hints and suggestions on how to get through the airport system quickly, and one of them was saying how you should dress simply and not wear shoes and clothes with buckles and straps.

“Yeah, we’re gonna ignore that advice today!” I was thinking.

Going the other way across that assholes bridge, you don’t have to pay any tolls, so I didn’t have to deal with him. The highway however, charged you no matter which way you went. As I stopped there, the lady in the booth handed me a ticket that I would have to present when I exited the toll road, but then she very quickly looked back at me again.

“I LOVE your hair!” she practically gushed at me.

“Awe thanks!” I replied, as I took the proffered ticket and then continued on my way.

In anticipation of heavy traffic and large crowds at the airport, I left quite a bit earlier than I normally would have, and so I arrived at the airport more than three hours before my flight. I grabbed my luggage and things out of the rental car as the Avis rep was checking it in. Given how many things I have forgotten and left behind lately, I found myself chanting over and over in my head “Coat, backpack, purse, suitcase, toolbox, coat, backpack, purse, suitcase, toolbox, coat . . .”

“Excuse me miss, what was the last name on the contract?” The Avis rep interrupted my internal litany of things not to be forgotten.

“Huddle” I replied, peaking around the trunk lid at him.

“OK!” he said with look of relief in his eyes. Clearly the first name of “Matthew” conflicted with my appearance and so he wanted to be certain.

“I just wanted to be sure! You have a great day a happy thanksgiving!” He said with an honestly friendly voice and a genuine smile. I thanked him and wished him the same, and after placing my receipt in my purse, I returned to my internal chant.

“Purse, backpack, toolbox, suitcase. . . “

Stepping out into the crosswalk between the parking garage and the airport, a woman tried to kill me. I kid you not, she was doing at least 40 MPH in the 20 MPH area, and blew right through the crosswalk right in front of me, even though I was mid-way through it. I never even had the time to yell, but I did catch a glimpse of the woman’s face through the windshield and she was clearly terrified. How she had failed to see a tall woman wearing a long red skirt, and pulling two huge bags behind her, I will never know, but the look of fright on her face made it clear that she had not noticed me until it was far too late. With my heart pounding so hard that I could swear I felt my wig bobbing up and down with each beat, I stood there in the center of the street for a few seconds in shock. Eventually my survival instinct kicked back in and reminded me to get the hell outta the middle of the street before I was run down.

When I entered the airport, I was surprised to see the crowd that wasn’t there. Despite all the hype on the TV news, the airport had far fewer people than I normally encountered in Albany. The airline check in counter was not crowded, and the TSA inspection point was also virtually empty, and so very quickly I was speaking to a female TSA agent.

“So what happened to the nightmare crowds that were supposed to be here today?” I asked her with a grin.

“I don’t know! I guess they all decided to drive instead!” she said with a laugh as she checked me back my documents. When she waved me in, I found that they had all of the X-ray machines running, despite the fact that there were clearly not enough passengers to really justify it. Once again, I sailed right through, and was collecting all of my things at the outlet of the X-ray machine. At the outlet of the machine was a drop dead gorgeous TSA inspector, and she was watching my things exit the machine.
“Cute shoes!” she said as my red heels came rolling out.

“Thank you! Hard to believe it, but they are considerably more comfortable to wear than you might expect too!” I replied. She was still watching me as I grabbed all of my odds and ends – my shoes, coat, backpack, laptop . . .

“Clearly I travel with too much shit!” I said with a laugh, while looking up at her.

“Hey, it is what it is, and we need it all, so what can you do?” she answered.

I had yet another good laugh when I boarded my connection in Philly. The US Airways rep at the jet bridge scanned my ticket and I got about half way down the jet bridge toward the plane when I hear someone calling out behind me.

“Miss? Miss?!” To be honest, it took me a moment to realize that the “miss” being hollered at was me. Once that clicked, I stopped and turned to see what he wanted.

“I’m sorry, but I think that there has been a mistake with your ticket.” He said, gasping a little because he was a bit short of breath after chasing me down the jet bridge. When he got to me, I handed him my ticket.

“I think that you have the wrong ticket.” He told me apologetically after a moment, and then showed me my own name on the ticket. I started to laugh.

“No sir, that’s me all right!”

He looked confused for just a second, and then his face lit up.

“Oh, I see!” he said with a huge grin, and then reached out and touched my shoulder. “I’m so sorry! You have a wonderful flight!”

When the plane landed, I was repeating my litany of items not to be forgotten as I was gathering my things together.

“Purse, backpack, coat, purse, backpack, coat . . .”

This time, I didn’t forget or leave anything behind, but the universe still got the last laugh: I went to the wrong parking lot with my purse, backpack, toolbox, suitcase . . .