Fly me to the moon

The thought of flight always makes me a little uneasy. I am one of those people who has a whole lot working against them when it comes to flying. I truly envy people who can nonchalantly get on a plane and travel without all sorts of worries, fears and maladies that I am inflicted with.

I have been flying for most of my life. Piloting sort of runs in my family. I have several uncles who are pilots and my grandfather was a pilot. In fact my grandfather used to say that if he ever got a terminal disease, he would rent a little twin engine plane and fly it into the side of a mountain so he could die doing what he loved. Ironically he was killed in a car crash, but they had to take him on a medichopper to the hospital, and we all like to think he died during the flight.

Still with all this piloting in my blood, and probably 50 flights under my belt, I still do not fly easily. I fly very poorly. In fact flying for me is a rather unpleasant adventure any way you look at it.

First off I am terrified of heights. This is actually one of the more minor problems. If I can sit on the aisle it doesn't bother me as much, and once we hit a certain altitude I am alright with looking out the window. In fact as long as the plane isn't tilting to the side while I am looking, I am mostly alright with it. I have never had any sort of debilitating panic attack while flying. Thankfully.

My next issue is an issue of comfort. I am not a small woman. For starters I am 5'10" and am mostly made of leg. Long legs + airplane seats = cramped up. No tall person is ever comfortable on a plane. I think I was ten the last times my legs fit comfortably in that space. Of course I am also on the chunky side. Now granted I am significantly smaller than I was the last time I flew, but I am still not going to be comfortable.

Also the husbeast is huge. No seriously, he is huge. He stands 6'6" and is so broad at the shoulders that on a smaller plane, if he stands to his full height, he has to bend his head down to where his neck touches the ceiling, and his shoulders press in against the overhead compartments enough to make them bow in. I mean the man has a gut on him (because I am a good cook) but he is a power lifter people. His doctor even said that for him to hit his BMI he would have to amputate a leg. He has really big legs.

So needless to say that he does not quite fit in an airplane seat and never will. Typically we solve this issue by having him sit on the aisle and me next to him so I am the only person being crushed. Still riding for any length of time in whatever contortionist position we come up with, is super uncomfortable.

Thankfully flight attendants love the husbeast because he is so incredibly charismatic, and he makes them feel incredibly safe. Because of this we always get treated incredibly well while flying. It takes some of the stress off of the event.

Unfortunately there is one more thing that makes flying a nightmare for me. I suffer from vertigo. I can literally make myself motion sick in my desk chair. I am not even joking. I eat Dramamine like it is candy, and it does not always work. No one likes a sick person on a plane, but let me tell you, the sick person likes it even less.

Most of the time Dramamine, the air vents all on full blast on my face, and some water will keep me from losing my complimentary peanuts on someone. Most of the time is not all of the time sadly. Also, even if I don't yak up my guts, the general feeling of being motion sick is miserable. Feeling that bad, in a tiny medal tube, being crushed by the husbeast, and in general terrified of being so far from the ground makes for a not pleasant experience.

Thankfully this flight is a little less than an hour. I will have just enough time to get queasy and start to panic as my legs spasm before we land.

Adventure!

I started dating the husbeast in late October of 2000. We had known each other for a year, and after a very interesting party, we were a couple. So as of a few weeks ago we have been together for 11 years (married 7). This is a long time to be together. It is 1/3 of my life. In the last 11 years we have done a lot of things together. We have traveled some but not much.

One thing we have always wanted to do was go to New Orleans. You see the husbeast is from New Orleans and it has been a long time since he got to go home. He has been telling me stories about it since we started dating. Honestly the man has a passion for the city, and from what I understand, that is how all natives of the Big Easy are.

We have always talked about going, but things never worked out. Vacations are expensive and time off is precious. I once tried to plan a trip at Christmas to New Orleans. It was going to be a surprise. We were going to drive because gas was still more reasonable then and we would have had to drive to a city with an airport anyways if we wanted to fly. I was having some friends help me secretly plan it. I even started at the end of the summer so I would have plenty of time to save the money for it. I made the decision and set plans into motion and one week later Katrina hit.

Since then we have sort of put off the idea of a New Orleans vacation. For years now we have had our calendars full of weddings and family events that used all our PTO and vacation time. We have also been pretty broke.

Then this past summer Southwest was having a sale on tickets and I checked it out on a whim. To my surprise for the two of us to fly round trip from Dallas was going to be $200 with taxes and everything. That is cheap! I couldn't resist. We were going to have to go during the week, but we both had enough PTO to swing that. So we booked the plane tickets then and there. We were waiting to book hotel rooms until closer to the trip, mostly because we didn't have the money at that exact moment.

About three weeks later is when his work started to make noises like they were going to fire him, and he understandably freaked out. It was looking like this trip was cursed. First hurricanes, now unemployment. We decided to hold off on booking the hotel a little longer to see what happened. When the first 'fire' date came and went we decided we had to make the decision. After looking at finances we decided it was still feasible for us to go. I found a crazy sale on some travel sight and got us a really nice hotel right off Bourbon street for a song.

Since the flight hotel and rental car have been paid for already, him losing his job doesn't effect our plans at all. I had already put aside our spending money and budget, so we are all set to go. I think we have seen hell and high water in the 11 years it has taken to bring this trip to fruition, but we have done it.

Tomorrow at noon we take flight. We will be there four glorious days and three nights. The time has come to set off on adventure!!!

That will wake you up in the morning

I am not really a cold sort of person. I was born and raised in Texas, tolerance for oppressive heat is in my DNA. Tolerance for cold however, not so much. Now I am a rational human and I like my temperatures in the mid 70's, but I can stand the heat if I have to, which, lets face it in Texas, you have to.

Tis the season though for the cold. Our temperatures started to drop last week, and we have now woken up to frosty rooftops on more than one occasion. I suppose winter is creeping in already. I am so not prepared for this sort of weather.

This morning I lay all snuggled up under our fluffy white down comforter that we unearthed from the top of the linen closet a couple of weeks ago, and all I could think was 'Don't wanna!'. I didn't want to get out of bed because I knew it would be cold. It was less than 40 outside and we have not turned on the heater yet. Add that to the husbeasts need to have the ceiling fan on full blast, and it is really damn chilly in our room.

The only small consolation to getting up is that we have carpet in the bedroom. I don't miss the hardwood laminate floors for a multitude of reasons, but I most certainly don't miss them at all on a cold morning. Floors and cold air against my bare skin are not the only downfalls to getting out of my snuggly warm bed.

Let us look at the bathroom. First there are no carpets in the bathroom, just cold tile across my bare feet. Then there is the toilet. Someday I want to be rich enough to have a heated toilet seat in the winter. I mean really, ice cold porcelain* on the tushy before you are full awake. Yea that will open your eyes.

Then you turn on the shower. Now we replaced the water heater back in July and we haven't gotten the temperature correctly adjusted yet. The water never gets as hot as I would like it to get. In fact this morning I had it turned all the way to the extreme side of hot, and it was completely tolerable. At that spot on the knob I should be scalding my flesh.

Eventually though you have to get out of the nice steamy warm shower and back into the cold bathroom. Our bathroom has no doors on it. It just leads directly into the bedroom, so there is no warm pocket of steamy air being produced while I shower. In fact that stupid ceiling fan sucks all the hot air out of the bathroom and destroys and vestiges of warmth I had. Wet + cold air = cranky me.

So while I don't particularly miss it being so hot outside that I can't get cold water out of my tap, or that it melts the glue that holds my sneakers together while my shoes sit in my gym bag in the car, I do miss being able to wake up in the morning and not being shocked awake by frigid air and cold porcelain.


*Lots of parks use stainless steel toilets. There is nothing more agonizing than sitting on one of those when it has been below freezing for over a week.

We can't all be perfect

I have been thinking lately that I am really good at a lot of things. I don't normally say things like that. I normally fret over everything I do, convinced that it is utter rubbish, even as people tell me it is wonderful. This applies to pretty much everything I do; cooking, writing, sewing, designing, and anything else I do on a regular basis. I promise though, there are some things I just really do not excel at.

I come from a very hands on creative family. Growing up there was nothing we didn't try to do. Make homemade paper out of dryer lint? Easy. Make homemade candles? Not a problem. Build walls one afternoon? Nothing to it. Make flower arrangements that would shame Martha Stewart? Isn't that a typical Sunday for you?

Pick a craft project and my mother probably attempted to do it with me in tow. We made birdhouses, stained glass, glass etchings, decopage, paper mache, and all sorts of things that I can't even remember at this point. She was amazing at all of it. My mother is one of those crafty sort of people. It might take her a couple of tries, but eventually she always figures it out.

Me on the other hand, not so much. I have the vision, but I often times lack in the execution. For example mosaic. Yea that was an experiment that ended up with me having a lot of tiny glass tiles that went to waste. Anything that involves extensive sculpting has proven to be a particularly large downfall of mine, much to my own disappointment.  Knitting and crocheting were fairly unsuccessful as well.

It is not like I tried once, failed, and gave up. Oh no, not me. My mother didn't raise a quitter, especially in the realm of crafts. No I tried and tried. I got books, I had people show me, I made attempt after attempt, and in the end I always failed. My mosaic work looked like something a 6 year old would do with macaroni, my sculpting attempts look like misshapen replicas of the Elephant Man, and my knitting looks...well lumpy is a polite way to put it.

I am alright with my failures though. No one is perfect, including me. I will admit to my strengths; I can make beautiful clothes, I can cook you an amazing meal, and I can write you some entertaining stories. Just don't expect me to knit you a scarf to keep warm.

All roads lead to Palestine

Palestine, Tx that is.

I went to college in a small East Texas town. I was lost in the picturesque piny woods and frankly I loved it. It really was beautiful and almost serene. The one major drawback to the town was that it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We had to drive nearly two hours to get anywhere that could be considered civilized.

It sort of goes without saying that I spent a lot of time in college driving to other places. I mean honestly there is only so much drinking you can do for entertainment. If we wanted a mall, a real restaurant, or controversial movies*, it called for a road trip. Plus there is nothing quite like a college road trip.

It was during all of this driving around East Texas that I noticed there was always a sign pointing you towards Palestine. Going to Tyler or Dallas there were turns to Palestine. Driving to Houston there were turns to Palestine. Going to Shreveport, you guessed it, Palestine. It seemed like there was no escape of the roads to Palestine. It was almost as though Palestine was the Sun of the East Texas solar system.

I only actually ended up in Palestine once in all my years of driving around those pine lined roads. We were heading back from Tyler and it was well after midnight, and we got lost. It only made sense that when you get lost in East Texas that eventually you will end up in Palestine. We spent some time in a very strange truck stop before an off duty state trooper kindly led us back to the road we wanted to be on to get home.

And then we ran over a couch.
In the fog.
On the highway.
But that is a story for another time.


So now every time I am driving towards East Texas, and I see a sign for Palestine I have this strange sense of comfort. In my mind I know that all roads will eventually lead me there, and if I can find Palestine, I am never truly lost.


* True story: When Dogma came out in theaters it was banned in my colleges town. We had to drive two hours to Tyler Tx to see it. Dogma? Really? But they showed Hostel which was practically soft core porn and gore. I just don't get it.

The return of the house husband

As some of you may remember, my husbeast was in danger of losing his job. Well that fear finally manifested into reality, and as of last Friday he is unemployed. I am incredibly relieved. I know that relief is probably not the feeling I should be experiencing here, but it is. The last three or four months have been positive nightmares from the stress he was under. Now we can move on and find him a new job and get on with our lives.

In the meantime, while he searches for employment, the husbeast has dutifully taken on the role of house husband. Long ago, well before we were married, we established ground rules for our cohabitation.If we both were working (or at the time in school) we would share household responsibilities as equally as we could. I did most of the cooking and cleaning, he handles things like garbage and cat boxes. It might not seem like a fair division of labor, but I promise you it works for us.

If one of us should find ourselves unemployed though, their primary function turns to keeping the house clean. If you have nothing else productive to do with your day there is no reason that the chores should not all be done. For a while before we got married I was out of school and out of a job. During this period I made sure the house was always relatively clean and there was food on the table for him when he got home from work. It might sound like some antiquated 1950's idea, and I am sure feminists everywhere are crying out in agony at the idea, but it works for us.

Of course this is an equal expectation. When he is unemployed he takes on this responsibility. I get to make him honey-do lists, and he gets to complete them. I came home last night to some of the clutter cleaned up, a partially clean kitchen, and dinner on the stove. This morning the garbage was on the curb and he had grocery list in hand. I like not having to worry about these little things. I could use a little less stress in my life right now. I don't expect him to do everything, and in fact he is forbidden from doing some things*, but he is pulling his weight where he can.

In the end it is an arrangement that works out for all parties involved. He doesn't feel like he is a useless lump, and I don't have to stress about being the only income earner, and cleaning, and cooking, and going to the store, and keeping the books, and all my other normal day to day tasks.

Hopefully he will soon find a good paying job and things will revert back to the way they normally are. I am not going to lie though, I am enjoying having a house husband while it lasts.



*He is not allowed to really clean the kitchen because I can't stand the way he does things. In the end I always go back behind him and re-clean everything, and one of the things I hate most in this world is redoing something what wasn't done right in the first place.

Thoughts on style

I really hope everyone enjoyed reading my true ghost stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. It was nice to stretch my story telling muscles, and I always enjoy writing something I am fairly certain will be entertaining. Over the course of the last week of posts I have stopped to think about the style of my blog.

When I started this blog I didn't really have any set goals as to what I was going to write. I read a lot of blogs that have a specific style; an accounting of day to day activities, strictly political/religious/topic oriented, funny, narrative, and how to among the long list of things you can write about.

I would like to say I have some sort of consistency to the content or style to which my posts are written, but that would be a damn lie. At first I thought that I was bothered by this lack of definition to my writing. I sat there telling myself that I needed to have some set form to what I do.

Then I asked myself, Why? Why do I need a set form? Why do I need to pigeonhole myself into one style? I am not in anyway a set style sort of person. I am random and eclectic. Hell turn on my iPod to shuffle and you will quickly learn that I fit into no mold musically, why should my writing be any different?

So I am going to continue on the way I have. I will post things as I see fit and as the muse dictates. Some of it may be funny, some may be poignant and thought provoking, some may make no sense at all, but it will all be purely me. I do hope you, my small but loyal group of readers, enjoy what I am writing. My ramblings aren't just for me anymore, they are for you as well.