Category: travel

I Have Clearly Angered the Business Travel Gods

My last two business trips have resulted in me being trapped in a faraway city in a semi-crappy hotel without my suitcase…shuttling out in the wee hours in the dark in a hotel van that smells like pee and Febreze to stand in line in yesterday’s clothes so TSA can scrutinize my IUD on the body scan machine while my stomach growls and the clock ticks and I pray I don’t miss another damn flight.  Awesome.

I’m not sure how I’ve angered the fickle gods of business travel, but I humbly ask their forgiveness.  I beg for elbow room on my future flights, and please oh please a seat that’s not right next to the bathroom on a cross-country flight.  Let my airplanes be well-maintained and timely that I might arrive for work on time and get home before I run out of clean socks.  Amen, namaste, yowza.

a moment of gratitude

i’m sitting in a hotel room, gazing out at the mountains that surround downtown Salt Lake City. i’m here for work, resting in the loveliest of hotels.

i am blessed, and i want to give thanks. i am doing work that i feel good about with a great organization. i have the best of friends looking out for me in the world. i have love and happiness and all the really great stuff that can’t be bought.

the road to this place in my life has been fucking hard, ya’ll. i am so pleased and happy to be in a good spot right now. my gratitude is enormous.

A few thoughts from Utah

Change is scary, but staying stuck is scarier.
I miss my bed!
In Ashevegas, I am the Snot Queen. Here in the high altitude and desert, I am the Nosebleed Queen. I am always bringing sexy back, yo.
I just did a test to affirm what I’ve learned in my first week of a five week orientation process, and I did fine, but it was surprising to realize just how much I’ve already learned.
Sometime sushi places make this stuff up. Surf and turf sushi?? (it was good)
I am so grateful for all the love and encouragement that’s been given to me for this change. I’m still scared; I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t nervous and weirded out. I chose to earn less money in order to live more richly…I hope you’ll buy me dinner sometime 😉
I miss my kiddo. Teenagers are difficult animals that test our patience, but I miss her snarky eye-rolling face.
Flying is cool, but were the seats designed for people with no arms? Where am I supposed to put my elbows? Do I really have to fold up like origami for four hours at a time?
Audio books are awesome. Close your eyes. Headphones on. Kick the seat back that one glorious inch we’re allotted on a flight and it’s wonderful.
I miss my fur children. I’m told they miss me and are acting out a little…good. Let them know The Food Lady is coming home soon.

Greetings from…Utah!

I’m on the other side of the country…might as well be the other side of the world. No hipsters, craft beer, or tattoos ’round here.
This is the beginning of a new adventure…this time of transition is weird to say the least. I switch between wildly excited to completely freaked out about every 3 minutes or so.

I Need a Vacation

I seriously, desperately need a vacation. I have a few weeks in a row of 6 day workweeks between my two, sometimes three, jobs.

My dryer quit working. The dishwasher quit working. The washer only likes to work sometimes. The kid broke her phone and her car needed $1100 in repairs. My HVAC needed replacing. All this within the last 60 days. Kind of at the end of my proverbial rope, y’know?

I am tired. I was just staring hard at the calendar trying to figure out how it got to be April. Wasn’t it just Christmas? I need a nap. In a hammock. By the sea.

Part 2 From New Orleans

A PS to my previous post today from N.O.:

Went to an occult shop in search of something interesting.  Ringing me up, the cashier was looking overly closely at my face.  It was awkward, because she was violating the “smile and look away” courtesy of most cashiers.  She says, “You were a witch once, you know, another life.  You should practice again.”

All I figure out to say in reply was, “Umm, cool. Thanks.” I am so eloquent in weird situations.

I stopped at a cafe for a late lunch/early dinner.  As I was leaving, I passed the bar, and the bartender on duty, older guy, said, “You’ve been here before, right?” I shook my head, nope.  He said, “I know you somehow.”

Mmmmk.

I wandered the French Quarter, in and out of shops.  At a jewelry store, the clerk told me she knew me.  Ever graceful, I said, ” no, you don’t.”  She laughed and said something about old souls.

This is one mysteriously cool town.

New Orleans

” I got the ways and means to New Orleans.  I’m goin’ down by the river where it’s warm and green.  I’m gonna have a drink and walk around: I got a lot to think about.” (from “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)” by Concrete Blonde, go find it on YouTube or Pandora because my tablet won’t let me paste the link right this second)

I am in New Orleans for a workcation.  I have had several full days of work-related conference stuff to wade through this week, but after the conference, I’ve been a tourist. I’ve been to the voodoo shops, had my tarot cards read (I am curious to read my own when I get back to see how close my reading is to this), ghost tour, and just generally exploring.

There is something about this city that has grabbed hold of me, gotten under my skin.  I’ve had two crystal clear instances of deja vu, one so clear I was ready to finish the sentence of someone I haven’t talked to in 25 years because I knew precisely what he was going to say. In another instance, I knew what I was going to see before I rounded a corner, and when I saw what I knew would be in front of me, I cussed out loud to the dismay of several people around me.  Weird.

I want to stay up all night.  I want to prowl the streets.  The relentless heat and sticky air make me feel sultry, sexy, brazen, transforming my mindset from chubby middle-aged office employee to a vixen, a siren.  It’s impossible to roam the streets without feeling the energy, this grounding pull as old as time that makes me want to howl at the moon, roll in the grass beneath the stars.  It is nothing short of amazing.

The spirit of this place is primal, raw, real underneath the sparkle of Mardi Gras beads, beyond the lure of daquiri bars.  I hope that I can carry some of this energy home with me.

bats

i want to go to texas to see the bats.

bracken cave in san antonio is the summer home to over ten million mexican free-tailed bats.  i want to see them fly out of the cave and into the evening sky.

close to a million of the same type of bats take up a summer home under the congress avenue bridge in austin.  i want to see this, too!

i don’t know anyone that loves bats like i do, so i’m willing to make the trip alone, but golly, i really want to go.  i want to see it in person, not on a webcam or a youtube video. cmon, universe, make my bat dreams come true.

from ashevegas to las vegas

Leaving Ashevegas for a conference in Las Vegas.  Apparently, I’m supposed to be super excited to go, but I’m not.  Looking forward to the content of the conference itself, but not interested in Vegas.  Not interested in casinos or bright lights or noise or crowds…or hookers or strippers.  Las Vegas is on one of those “last place on Earth I’d ever want to go” lists for me.  Not my thing.  I like quiet.  And darkness.  And personal space.  Everyone I’ve mentioned the trip to is all “you’ll love it, what happens in Vegas…” snorty snort  snort laughter.  It just doesn’t sound fun to me, sorry.  Maybe Vegas will win me over with its charms, but I am skeptical.

chicago

no offense to all that love this city, but chicago stinks. no, seriously, it smells bad, like urine, sewer lines and traffic.
i don’t like it. i’m not good with crowds, and this is a crowded city. sidewalks are wide enough to drive on, but there’s still a crush of people. it’s noisy, too, loud at all hours with trains and car horns and sirens. i’m not cut out for big cities.
i think my favorite place i’ve lived was in willis, virginia, twenty-something miles from a taco bell or a shopping mall. i loved stopping by the library in the bigger town on my way home from work for a stack of books to read that weekend because once i got home, i wasn’t going back out anywhere until time for work again. i liked to take naps in the shade on my front porch when the weather was nice.
here, i can’t imagine having a porch large enough for napping. riding the train from the airport, i saw all kinds of neighborhoods…even the nice ones only had yards the size of doormats and the houses were so close you could butter your neighbor’s toast.
asheville is even sometimes too big and bustling for me, too noisy, too crowded in recent years, but it is home, and i can’t wait to get back there tomorrow.