Aah. Settling in with my nightly tea. I feel like I havent written a real entry in a while.
Its been a pretty grueling couple of days and Im glad Im back for a few days before I leave for Dallas next Monday. I still cant believe were smack in the middle of the holiday season.
Meetings this week were okay. I would just prefer not to travel with people who are so negative. My counterpart and another co-worker (Ill call her Molly) just love to complain about everything. I dont normally travel with them both together because theyre in another division, but yesterdays meeting just happened to be a mega-meeting with the two divisions giving several presentations to the big wigs of this company. The biggest bone of contention was the fact that Chelle, Molly and I had to fly commercially to Tennessee while the rest of the teams flew on the corporate jet. With the company plane, it takes about an hour and a half to get to Knoxville. Flying commercially is a lot more tricky. There are no direct flights, so it takes at least 5 hours of travel + wait time to get there. Oh good gawd, if you could have heard the moaning and complaining coming out of Mollys mouth. She was mainly pissed off about the seniority factor and the fact that some people who are not quite at her level were on the company plane and she wasnt. Well, guess what? They werent at my level either. I just got asked to go after the plane was full. As did she.
And the problem with constant complainers is that I feel like I have to at least nod my head in agreement, if for nothing else but the commiseration factor. Sure, it was a pain in the ass spending over 10 hours doing nothing but traveling yesterday. But the complaining only made it worse. I tried to lighten the mood several times. But you kinda have to be careful with that shit too, so that youre not completely annoying and doofusy.
Ill be completely honest. I get a rush out of travel. I adore airports. I love the faces. Strangers, yet familiar. I love to meet others gazes and wonder if we might have met before. Years ago. In another city. Or maybe it was last week? Coulda been.
I was in Chicago on Monday. What amazing people watching in Chicago. Especially because of all of the international travel that goes through that airport. Oh the stories just floating and floating around and around and around! It was thick in the air. I so wanted to just start talking to about fifteen hundred different people. But sometimes watching is just as fun. I could have sat there for hours and just watched. And I practically did. Plane delays for a couple of hours. But I was not alone. Most of the team was there, including my boss. Instead, I had to talk business and try to make dinner reservations for our team for one of our bonding nights in New York next month. Who knew that making reservations for this place would require a consultation with an events coordinator? Sheesh. It better be more than splendid. Especially for a bonding night. When Im in NY, I really like to have my own time at night. I realize that there are several nights when we have to entertain customers, but when we arent doing that I like to be free to do my own thing, ya know?
Anyway. I made it through all of the delays and turbulence and complaints alivethis week. Also had some fun conversations with strangers. Even took a few goofy photos that I was THISCLOSE to posting, but luckily snapfish.com is down for maintenance or somethingorother.
Oh crap. Its back up. Okay, okay, okay. I suppose Ive been feeling a bit of a comfort level on here at this point (after all these years!), heres a photo of me at the airport in Knoxville. I was amused by the fact that they had all of these carved wooden bear statues all over the airport, and theyve dressed them all in Santa Claus hats. Here I am, sitting on a bears knee, holding hands with the baby bear whos being held in the big bears arms.
Happy Holidays
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