Moving On

So are you tired of the Grammy story yet? I thought so. It was a week ago now, after all. (Wow, has it really been a week already?!) If you want to skip the rest, some photos are here, and you can skim to the bottom here.

Otherwise, the quick tie-up is that we got a great back-stage tour on the Saturday (the logistics that goes into such a show is something you really have to see to even begin to comprehend!), that was pretty cool. We went through the “swag room” too, where all the free junk that celebs get to take is on display. Wow! (Guitars, tables piled high with jewelry, purses…you name it, they get it.) Saturday night we girls went to dinner at the restaurant where my sis worked over 10 years ago on Sunset Blvd and had a great time, as I always do with my sisters (and cousin, when I’m lucky enough to see her).

Sunday was the 2nd day of eating at the never-closed-since-1924 café, along with a dear friend from home who now lives in LA. (Where she moved because her very funny husband was a writer for Conan O’Brian. I’ll let you know if I get any inside scoop on that one!) Then we had to start getting ready, as our limo (My sis scored one 4 hours before the Grammys! How does she do it?)  was coming at 1:00! Off to a tiny cocktail party (no celebs, just music execs, who were all shockingly nice, genuine and seemingly unaffected. I was so pleasantly surprised.) We were slated to walk the red carpet, but we got there too late, missing it by about 5 minutes. (Grrr! Though I also didn’t mind, as I would have surely tripped and called attention my Nobody self.)

The show…well, according to the ratings, you saw the show. Even better than I did perhaps. Our seats were quite good, but you still can’t see what you do on TV, with the cameras right in front of the performers. I do nominate Pink for most impressive performance, no matter where you saw it from.

The post-show party was a Circus themed extravaganza, with food, fire-dancers, acrobats and the whole lot. Bed welcomed me at about 01:00 (not too bad, save for the time change!) and poor sis had to be up at 4. Ouch.

My flight wasn’t so early, but it was sleepless (there were certainly no open Business Seats from LA to NY the day after the Grammys!). Which was fine, except Del and i were meeting in NYC to fly directly on to England. Then that flight’s Business and First classes filled up due to a prior flight cancellation and, while I am not so spoiled by my travel privileges that I can’t fly in coach, I just couldn’t do it that night. I had barely slept in almost 4 days and was just at the end of my ability to “power through”. But Del had also checked a bag and my company was telling us that they wouldn’t take it off.  “You have to go on this plane,” they told us, probably cackling with evil glee on the inside. I begged some, argued some and quietly confessed to Del I would burst into tears if they made us get on. And then -

And then I’m going to have a little fun tonight and leave you hanging. Just for the drama of it. SO what do you think? Did I blubber? Did I curse someone out? Or did we melt the cold hearts of the gate agent?

MusiCares

So because of my BIL’s absence, “Grammy night” turned into “Grammy weekend” for me, starting with this charity event. Apparently, every year they nominate a person of the year, and that musician is honored by other musicians performing covers of his or her songs. (Last year was Neil Diamond. I was dying to go to that one, but my clever husband pointed out that I would have just cried through the whole thing, as ND was my mom’s favorite thing in the world. That and Sound of Music/Julie Andrews.) All the while, this is also an auction for the charity.

Jack Black was the MC. He helped out by auctioning off his shoes, then tie, then pants. (Click here for Rolling Stone’s coverage and USA Today’s. And may I add that the RS article is the first mention I’ve seen of how much sister’s company paid for me to be there. Wow! I always wanted to go to one of those fancy-pants charity dinners. Didn’t realize I HAD been!) I have never cared much about Neil Young, but I assumed that was because he is a bit before my time and that if I were to be properly educated about him, I would be more impressed. I am happy to say, I came away from MusiCares with exactly this. I never realized what a huge influence Neil Young has been, just how many great songs he’s written, just how long he’s been around putting out unique music.

I also enjoyed that the show was relatively intimate. From this I got a sense of musicians as a “family”. Instead of seeing them as celebrities, with the gloss of tv or other production between myself and them, I was struck by how talented the performers were. How much they really know about music. (Something about the casual manner in which Dave Matthews just walked out on stage, chatted a bit – perfectly comfortable – picked up a guitar and struck up his song…it was impressive.)  And I saw them as people making a living off of music as a complicated and technical craft, not images of people produced by hair stylists, studio synthesizers and Photoshop. That’s what I enjoyed most about MusiCares – totally new respect for many of the musicians out there.

My only performance gossip? Everyone blew me away – especially Norah Jones, Ben Harper, Keith Urban and Josh Groban (I read the USA Today’s critique of the performance, which I heartily disagree with.) – except one of the most anticipated: the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They were pretty bad.

That’s if for today. I will sort out photos tonight. (And by that I mean tonight – as I’ve promised my sister – not my common meaning of “sometime soon…ish”.)

Post-Grammys Reprimand

So….the Grammys. I got to go to the Grammys. How cool is that?

First, I was thankful throughout that I never got to go in my early 20’s. At that age, I might have thought I had to look my best. That I had to wear the perfect dress because…I guess because famous people would be there looking awesome? And I had to look like I fit in? (It’s hard to articulate the squeals of a 20 year old, even hypothetical ones.) Instead, I got to go in my 30’s, which means I am no longer under any allusions that I will ever be famous. Or that I want to be famous. Or that there is any chance in hell that, even if I wore the best dress I could ever splurge on, I would ever be mistaken for “someone”. Or (best of all) that being “someone” has anything to do with resembling/associating with rich, famous or otherwise self-important people. (My god, I love not being 20! Have I ever told you that? That’s also something I learned in my 30’s.) In fact, the fear now was not looking “right”, it was looking as if I tried too hard. Now that would be my nightmare. Thankfully, it’s a much easier image to manage.  And yes there were some girls there who appeared to think they were going to get discovered in the Grammy audience. And yes, I made fun of them with my sisters.

So, instead of shopping till I was a textbook example of Buyer’s Remorse, I packed what backups I had in my closet and hoped my sister had something that would fit. The day before the Grammys I tried something on from her suitcase and was happy to determine that it would suffice.

I got there on Friday, since my Brother-in-law was no longer attending and my sis (my ticket source) needed a date for the MusiCares charity auction concert that night, honoring Neil Young…this wasn’t going to be a one-night deal, but an entire Grammy themed weekend. How fun!

While I haven’t gotten very far in the story, for the moment I’ll pause here because, I think I’ll have to tell this story in parts. It was a long and exhausting weekend, from which I am still turned around (especially considering that I left that whirlwind of activity in LA to come straight to England, so my jetlag is of the super-saturated variety. It’s a 5 out of 5 just now.

So that is the end of this post, but I will be back with more, as during the Grammy weekend, I was chastised not once but twice for neglecting my blog. That makes three people in the last couple months. So, thank you for still reading and being so loyal and I will renew my commitment to write a bit more.

“Arabs Don’t Brush Their Teeth”

That’s what she said, this fellow F/A of mine. I’m serious.

I’m going to call this lady Helen. She is well into her 60’s I’d guess. German. She’s the kind of colleague whose name I remember because she’s terribly nice as a person, but terribly annoying as a workmate. She is simply so….(cliché) “German”. Everything must be done her way, which is “according to policy”, even if it is trivial and nonsensical for the situation. (And as any F/A can tell you, what is by-the-book is not always what works or makes sense when it comes to service.) She’s also sometimes rather, um, dense. (In case the policy obsession didn’t tell you.)

We were on our homebound flight from Europe last week. She was standing at the boarding door, directing pax to their cabin. She motioned me over emphatically. “Sarah, I need to speak to you privately.” Ok, that’s dramatic, but sure. (She was neither quiet nor subtle.) “An Arab man just went into the bathroom…,” she looks around cautiously, “and then peeked his head out, asking me for…a toothbrush.”

She nodded with wide, serious eyes as if this were some red-hand evidence. I said, “I don’t understand.”

“Sarah…Arabs don’t brush their teeth! This is wrong. Oh…this is all wrong. I have a pit in my stomach. It’s very suspicious.”

I am certainly all for being vigilant. But seriously? I scanned her face to see if she was joking, but Helen doesn’t joke. And she was seriously disconcerted. But there were so many things wrong with what she’d just said that I didn’t even know where to begin! I couldn’t make up something so ludicrous! So offensive! So dumb!

“Well, I’m not really concerned. I mean, if he asked you for a toothbrush, that means he was hoping for one from you. Which means it would be a perfectly normal toothbrush. No missiles inside, no ninja stars.” She didn’t smile.

“But Arabs do not brush their teeth. It’s not right. Somethings fishy. This man is completely suspicious. Now he’s staring at me. I told you!”

“Helen, you do realize that you just claimed that people with a certain color of skin around the world do not brush their teeth? I mean…maybe he’s Hispanic. Maybe he’s American of Arab descent. Maybe he is from an Arab country but is a foreign diplomat. Even if what you say were true – which it’s not – there are still so many reasons why it might not apply to him.”

Helen left me there while she went into the airport to double check his name. Ok fine. I will admit that while she was gone, the dude looked at me hard, like he were a dog and I was dangling a treat in front of him. It was uncomfortable, but I watched him only peripherally, suspecting it was because Helen was so obvious. Sure enough, after about 3 minutes of not looking at him, he completely relaxed. (And he turned out to be a noticeably nice guy on top of it. I wished I could apologize for what he obviously knew was going on.)

Helen came back, said he checked out to her satisfaction and I posited that it was her suspicion that caused the staring. And – sweet Helen – she was all, “Oh my goodness. I bet you’re right. Such a thing never occurred to me. Sarah, I’m so glad I talked to you.”

See? She’s really a sincere person. She’s just a little…howdoyousayit? I’m glad she’s being vigilant, but I’m also glad that I’m not depending on her judgement to keep us safe! Or whomever taught her that about Arabs. We’d all be doomed.

The Benny Hill Christmas

That’s what I’ve dubbed it this year. I think we can all identify with the feeling that Christmas (and time in general) seems to go faster each year, but this year was really insane.

It started with me planning to go meet my family in Atlanta to help my middle sis move house. I tried to get out on Friday, thwarted by everyone and their brother trying to get out of DC before the storm. I sat through 4 departures without getting a seat, was so tired (having received an awful phone call at 2:30 am with the news that a dear friend’s mother has been diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer) that I went home for a nap, then went BACK to the airport at 4pm to try again. And failed.

Then the snow came, and Saturday was spent snowed in (albeit with a lovely little fire). Sunday all luck was on my side. (With cars snowed in, metro and buses mostly shut down, getting a  cab to the airport was literally like winning the lottery. I should have bought a ticket, come to mention it.) I finally made it to Atlanta via Chicago at about 9:30 pm. Whoopee! Just in time for the last boxes to be unloaded at the house.

The next day we were supposed to all drive to NC, but when it was 4pm and we were nowhere near ready to leave as a group, we decided to go on Tuesday. And as traveling with a baby doubles to amount of time anything takes, there went Tuesday. Wednesday I was supposed to fly back up to DC to help hubby drive down, but with all this – plus a head cold that had me plugged up from head to toe – that just wasn’t happening. His rental car was snowed in and when he finally got one, he moved 36 miles in the first 4 hours. Poor thing. He arrived at 12:30 am; brother-in-law arrived Christmas Eve afternoon. Then came Christmas, then Boxing Day was a tour around the state from family friend home to family friend home. Return at 11 pm. Sunday was the drive home.

Cue Benny Hill theme.

The upside of me getting ill was that it’s preferrable to having to work over Christmas, and the upside of all the madness is that the family was all together. Despite the cliché of tense family Christmases, I love these gatherings. Our family is small and when we’re together, it’s 90% just sitting around, cutting up and giggling. I can’t think of anything better than a family that makes me laugh. So the Benny Hill theme is appropriate after all.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

It finally happened

It is not uncommon for us Flight Attendants to chat about wishing that some of the older ladies would retire. We’re all for anti-discrimination laws, but seriously, when you’re 300 pounds or 100 years old, maybe this job isn’t for you anymore. It IS a job with heavy physical requirements. But those ladies don’t ask me what I think. We joke about how old some of them are…but then it happened. Last week one of ours passed away on a trip to Japan. Wow. We weren’t kidding.

I am not making light of her death – it is indeed devastating. I did not know this particular lady, but she was clearly loved by many and I cannot imagine her shocked and sad family. But it is just so…well, shocking. She was older (I don’t know exactly but she was a super-senior mamma, as we call them) and apparently she had a stroke on the flight over. I wonder if it will make anyone take a new look at the requirements for passing requals each year. Then again, she didn’t look that old.

In brighter news of “what’s happened”, hubby and I also bought our first piece of married furniture. Real furniture! A gorgeous chest from Crate & Barrel that we’ve been waiting for just the right time to buy – having been assured it is a top seller and wasn’t going anywhere – only to go to buy it and get told that it is discontinued and no longer available anywhere.

Blah blah blah, long story of a determined husband calling high and low and placing ads on Craigslist, ending with a nice stranger here in DC seeing his ad and emialing us when he one day stumbled across an imperfect, but local one. I thought Del was crazy to be so insistent about it, but viola – I now have a truely loved first piece of furniture and a very happy hubby. Exciting! (Isn’t it cool/gorgeous?)

I know I’m not posting much these days. I’ll try to be a bit better, but if I don’t get back here again before Christmas, let me wish you a happy one!

Another Wedding! (and stuff)

Not me. My sister!

After more than three years of engagement, the family is going to be 3 for 3 (3 weddings in 3 years) when my oldest sister takes the plunge. It’s funny because “she started it”, getting engaged before any of us. I remember clearly because it happened after they visited me in Belgium for one of my chemo treatments in Fall 2006. Then the middle sis got engaged and married. Then I got engaged and married….I swear this one was just wanting us to deal with the planning drama first, so she could take strategy notes. (It would fit her profile!)

There was one close call actually. When we were all in Britain for my and Del’s wedding a romantic spur of the moment flared – the family was there, our ministers were there, why not?! – and they looked into tying their own knot during that trip. But a requirement for how long the couple has had to be in the country couldn’t be met. But it’s just as well because I’m really excited about a New Mexico wedding!

In other “news”, I pulled a Betty Crocker last week and cooked my second roast chicken ever, having some friends over. I was so proud…I made roast garlic spread for appetizer, pumpkin soup for first course, the chicken and veggies for main…if my old Belgian roommates (all boys who kicked my butt in the kitchen and often ribbed my cooking) could see me now! Except, when the bird came out and I went to carve it, there were odd bones in the way. What the…? we all asked. “You’ve got a mutated chicken,” they joked. “It’s upside down!” I joked. Er…until we realized it was upside down! (No wonder I couldn’t find the popper.)

I did discover that people do that sometimes to make the meat extra moist. Well, it was extra moist! But I don’t think I’ll do it again. I like the beautiful crispy skin on the breast, and while the bottom skin crisps nicely, the chicken looks a little wet and creepy when you turn it over to carve. So, let’s pretend I did it to test out the method for you, dear readers.

And lastly for news items, I got my December schedule for work. Not only will I be working Christmas, but also Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and New Years. The first time I’ve ever had such crappy luck, which just goes to show how relative the power of “seniority” is. (We’ve laid off so many that our most Jr. Flight Attendants now have 10 years, and most all French speakers below me got pushed to Domestic.). Double boo. I guess I better make Thanksgiving count!

Elizabeth Edwards

My goodness, people like to judge other people, don’t they?

The Edwards were in the news again today, briefly, because Elizabeth has said that she is not going to divorce John. And I just had to vent somewhere about all the dirtbags judging her like they know crap about crap.

John’s actions were as smarmy and disgusting as they can get. But that’s that. His political career is beyond over, so I don’t much care any further about what their personal relationship decisions are. But you would not believe the people calling Elizabeth horrible names, accusing her of terrible things, because she’s staying with him. Ugliness aside, I could understand the opinions if she were in a normal situation. (“She’s just being power-hungry.” Um, power-hungry for what? His public career is buried. And running for office is not in her future, so…) But she’s not, and clearly none of these people have terminal cancer, nor the class, brains or empathy to understand or respect how that might affect EE’s decision here.

Would I stay? Ugh. I don’t know if I could stomach it, but should she spend the end of her life in a series of lawyer meetings and court-dates, wallowing in the insult of it all? Of course no one wants him to seem to “get off easy” by his wife’s forgiveness. But if she divorces him, what is that doing to get her at this point, where quality of life is her concern? Is she going to pull a Stella and “get her groove back”, go to Jamaica and meet a hot new younger hunk to treat her right just so they can…awkwardly bring him into the family, struggle for him to win the affection of her kids and fit in, (possibly) just in time for her to pass away?

It just goes to show you, there’s a lot about cancer that people who’ve not had it may never understand, even if they read every medical article out there. Though it sure won’t stop them from pretending.

Most Worthless Romantics Ever

A week after my high school reunion and I’m finally back to say what you can probably guess by my slothful follow-up: there is nothing much to say. Indeed, we are all blissfully, perfectly lacking those drama-inducing teenage hormones and it was nothing but nice to see everyone. Mostly, it strikes how you odd it is to see everyone looking exactly the same, but adult. Like meeting everyone’s twin brother or sister all at once. There were of course some who surprised us by not showing up (often those that live within a 20 mile radius, oddly) and vice-versa. The only shame is that I found myself dividing my time exactly the way I did in highschool – a few minutes here and a few minutes there, but mostly hanging out at my own table with those who had been my closest friends, glad that our husbands all seemed to get along smashingly, so that we ex-Trojans didn’t feel so guilty that they knew no one. There were many people I meant to spend more time with, but before we knew it, it was over.

…

Yesterday was perhaps the biggest waste of a day I’ve ever had. It poured rain outside, which gave Del and I a convenience excuse for not trying harder, but still. You know when you want to go somewhere and do something, but you don’t know what? So you do nothing but sit around and moan that you’re wasting your day? (Spoken like someone without kids, right?) Well that’s what yesterday was, and I moaned all day about wanting to call this friend or that friend or go to this or that. And did nothing. I didn’t even write. Instead I just felt guilty about wasting a precious day of my life – though I did tell hubby that I was happy to waste it with him.

Which is a good thing, because this morning Del rolled over and looked at the calendar on his clock. “Was yesterday….?” he counted off silently on his fingers. “Oh dammit. It was.” I knew exactly what he was going to say.

Six months. Our six month anniversary, and not only did we not even acknowledge it – it was the most wasted day to memory of our entire adult lives. Gah! Again, at least we wasted it together. Are we romantic or what?

High School Reunion

15 years. Yowza, that’s hard to believe.

So I’m home this weekend at my dad’s place, out sick from work due to a mysterious (and damned) headache that has lasted for 5 days. Five days! (As a side note to that, yes, I went to the Dr. here today, finally getting really worried when it spiked up again last night. She thinks it is just a “wierd presentation of a sinus” issue…so fingers crossed it goes away by Monday, or I’ll be needing to have another look at it.) And – finally – we’re having a high school reunion.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years. And also that it took us this long to get a reunion together.  (So much for Sr. Class Pres.!) Like many of you who have gone to these things, I’m ambivalent. I’m not terribly bothered either way about where people ended up, though I am happy to find that I have no particular need for anyone to know about me either.  I feel neither the pressure of an under nor over-achiever that one might expect from these things.  I am a real sucker for wanting to know how stories end though, so I’ll satisfy that cat. Mostly I fear being confronted with a bunch of people that I don’t remember. (Hopefully that’s just normal and not the sign of incredible arrogance on my part!) I’ve rounded up a couple of must-have old friends to commit to showing and though there are a number who won’t make it*, I’m hoping we’ll have so much fun that we’ll just have to do it again and next time everyone will come! I do like the idea of talking to some of these people that I knew for so long, without the dramatic blur that is teenage hormones tinting our thoughts and conversations! (Mystery: what will we see without that blindfold?!)

It’ll either be a blast or a train wreck – I’ll let you know!

*On that note, have I said recently that I hate cancer? Tonight I called one of my friends whom I had lost touch with over the years, to hear that her younger brother – who has struggled his whole life with  severe, debilitating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – is in the midst of the whirlwind that is cancer diagnosis and planned treatment. His case sounds rare, advanced, complicated and painful, with a terrifying prognosis. Talk about a kid who can’t catch a break…so if you have some spare thoughts/prayers/whatever-you-do lying around, I nominate this family as a deserving candidate for those attentions.