Moving Toward Something

Airborn!

Only going to be about an hour late. Not bad! My mood has significantly improved after the purchase and consumption of a snack box which contained, among other delights, "pasteurized process cheese food, Swiss-type flavor," and a second packet of the same, but "Parmesan & asiago-type flavor." Whatever, it's protein.

The lessons of Michael Pollan's books were further driven home by the "cream" that came with my coffee; its main ingredient was corn syrup solids. I'm envisioning a near-future niche market for flights stocked with local farm-fresh food.

The waiting game.

I'm en route from Madison to Portland for the holiday, and while it's not a complete madhouse in the airports, it's a little nutty. We were delayed by 20 minutes getting out of Madison because of the snowstorm there. (Gotta love the Upper Midwest, where snow doesn't just shut down the whole airport.). Then I had to RUN to my connecting flight in Minneapolis. They boarded that one on time, meaning I didn't have time to grab coffee and something for breakfast...and now the flight to Portland is delayed by 30 to 45 minutes and I'm stuck on the plane. There's a coffee stand within 50 feet of me, but I can't leave the plane to avail myself of its delicious foods and beverages.

As a result, I present to you this picture of the view from my seat on the plane.

Hopefully our delay here will give Portland a little more time to thaw out so that we can land.

Brrr!

It's cold and snowy.  I don't know why it surprises me every year, but it does.  I have this little initial reaction of outrage when the first decent snow hits.  Then I become resigned.  Then I start wondering how fast we can get to April.

Speaking of snow, my flight was delayed getting into Philadelphia (where I was attending a family wedding) last Friday and I was momentarily shocked:  What do you MEAN "delayed because of snow?"  Well duh, we aren't in the Upper Midwest anymore, Toto.  Unlike MSP, MSN, etc., most airports don't have the equipment or staff to deal with snow well enough that it won't affect flight schedules.

The wedding was nice.  Churches make me squirm, but the ceremony on Saturday was brief and the reception was fun.  It was good to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a long time. 

The next day, I made the error in judgment of trying to make a trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art while a marathon was running right in front of it.  Oops.  Police barricades, thousands of dazed marathoners, and a guy with an amazingly piercing loudspeaker hollering the names of each runner as they crossed the finish line.  Good grief.  We did finally get in to the museum and see the Gee's Bend quilt exhibit, which I thought was fantastic.  Then we had a quick lunch and Dad walked me across town to find a cab to the airport for my flight back to Wisconsin.

I arrived back in WI on Sunday night and didn't bother unpacking; on Monday I worked, then took off by car toward Minnesota, where a) I was going to close the sale of my house and b) I was going to spend Thanksgiving with friends.  The house sale did not close, because the buyer's lender made a booboo and couldn't actually get her the loan she needed.  That was a bit of a disappointment, but I'm taking it in stride.  I'll go into more detail when the situation isn't in flux.  I did, however, get to spend the week with Jen and Anders.  We all went over to Reb and Dave's house for Thanksgiving and there ended up being 22 of us there. 

We had nine pies.  Nine pies.  That picture to the left shows the nine pies we had.  There were nine of them.  That's almost one for each finger.  There was a chocolate pie, a blood orange tart, a raspberry pie, two pumpkin pies, a pear chiffon tart, a cherry pie, a chocolate pecan tart, and an apple pie.  Reb makes good pies.  This was a ridiculous amount of good pie.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Jen and Anders and I loafed around (well, and did some work), went up to the Minneapolis Central Library to see the PostSecret exhibit there, and then had dinner at the Red Stag Supperclub.  If you get a chance to go to the Red Stag, GO.  I miss having easy access to it.

Saturday, I drove back to WI.  I had been scheduled to go back on Sunday, but as luck would have it, it was going to snow on Sunday (today), so I left early. 

Tomorrow I return to some semblance of a normal daily routine for a few weeks.  Wish me luck.

November is National Crazy Month

Well, for me it is.  Got back from a work trip to San Francisco this week, next week I'm off to a family wedding in Philadelphia, and then less than 24 hours after getting back from that, I'm driving to the Twin Cities to attend the closing of the sale of my house.  Then there will be Thanksgiving, followed by the drive home a few days later, and then three weeks of reprieve before I fly out to Portland.  So maybe December is slightly crazy too.

San Francisco was fun as always, and productive.  Working remotely has a lot of benefits, but sometimes it's just more efficient to do business face to face.  That way I can see when something I've said gives another team member involuntary facial twitching.  We also had a party to celebrate our new site being open for business.  The cake is pictured here.  Only the top three layers are actually cake.  The bottom three layers are buttercream-frosted styrofoam.  The cake itself was chocolate orange.  I don't like to talk much about work in public, as blogging about work has been proven time and again to be bad juju, but I really wanted to show you that cake!

Also while in California, I took a trip with a group of friends down to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz.  Basically it's a shack on a very steep hill, jacked up at an even steeper angle so that your inner ear decides it's not really tipped over as far as it is, and it looks like balls roll upward, etc.  But it was really fun!  Even more amusing were the oohs and ahs from the tourists who really believed that gravity was doing strange things.  Good times.

On the topic of food items:  I made spaghetti sauce with that grass fed beef I bought a while back at the farmers' market, and wow.  I am not used to beef in my spaghetti sauce anymore, I guess.  It was so rich!  Tasty, but I prefer bison now.  Good to know.

Home Again!

I'm back home from Hawaii; I arrived yesterday afternoon to rainy, 51-degree weather.  I'll most in more detail about the trip once I'm done with work/chores/errands for the day.  The short version is that I had a wonderful, relaxing time, which was badly needed.  Hooray!  And now, back to work.

On the Way

So, by 5:33 a.m. I have already checked in for my flight, gotten reading materials, and had small mishaps with both coffee and a bagel. Sounds about right!

Currently sitting at the gate, and will board in about 20 minutes.

Such Stringent Rules

Per the Madison airport's website:  "In accordance with Wisconsin state law, alcohol sales begin at 6:00 am."

Make of it what you will.  Me, I'm going to guess they had to note that because they get enough people complaining about not being able to buy beer at 5 a.m.

A Fair and Balanced Report of the Weekend's Highlights

Saturday morning I went to the farmers' market in search of leeks.  The week prior there had been loads of beautiful leeks, and I wanted some. This week, there weren't as many and they weren't as pretty.  But I found some that would work in soup, and that's all that matters.  Then in the evening, I found my way over to the home of my coworker and his wife, and along with ~10 other people I played Mafia.  Also there, to my surprise, was the creator of The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, a webcomic I follow.  If you read webcomics and haven't yet read Wonderella, I highly recommend it.

Sunday was a bit of a wash.  I had planned to clean up the apartment a bit, since on Tuesday I'm going to get a preliminary visit from the folks who will watch my cats while I'm on vacation in Hawaii for a week.  Instead, after talking to my parents who were worried that I wouldn't find proper attire for a wedding I'm attending in late November, I went on a frenzied tour of two malls before I remembered that I have two months in which to deal with this issue.  But anyway, I suppose it was good to find the malls and get to see a bit of local mall flavor.  West Towne Mall is a regular mall with shops, and Hilldale is the "lifestyle" mall where they have boutiques (not shops--horrors!) and you should never expect to find clothing in your size.  I have yet to explore East Towne Mall.  That will be another weekend.

So, currently on my plate is:  cleaning up the apartment (still), and getting ready to go to Hawaii.  The latter involves excavating a suitcase--they're all still full of stuff from the move--and refilling it with Hawaii-appropriate clothing and items.  Do I even have any of those?  For sure I don't own a pair of shorts.  I know I have a bathing suit somewhere.  I do have sandals.  This is all very complicated!