Loving the Snow - SORRY

When I arrived back from church today in MASSACHUSETTS, it was snowing. Rarely when the white stuff falls from the sky do I have an "OH NO" feeling. Good thing we are going to retire to Vermont, huh?

Sure, people do not drive as well in the snow and you have the clear the stuff in order to get to work but I am just not sure I could live somewhere that it does not snow.

Granted, I have a wonderful husband who snow blows when it gets really deep. I am out there clearing off the cars as he snow blows making it a team effort.

I guess, as long as I can get out in the stuff and we can get it cleared, I am going to always LOVE the snow.

I am sure a part of this is growing up in CO and VT. Snow was just part of the climate and we would always race to get out into it. I have said this before, but I took both my kids out in snow storms, so they could learn to drive in it.

So, yes it is October 18th and this is the second bit of snow we have had so far, but even with all of that I just love the snow.

The cold comes along with the snow and my feeling is you can always put on another layer in the cold. In a hot climate on the other hand you cannot always take off another layer. I suspect that I will visit warm climates but I am not sure I will ever live in them. I could surprise myself.

The Airline Industry - my observations only

So, for a variety of reasons this year has been really busy with airline travel for me, the most recent trip this week to Orem Utah for work. Since I have traveled with a few airlines here are my observations.

Southwest has an excellent boarding process. You know exactly where you stand in the order, people are very civil as they wait and then board and it is fun, if boarding can be fun. They also have bright cheery airplanes.

American Airlines has a wonderful flight attendant on the Boston to London during the day route. Apparently this route is coveted among flight attendants, because it is international and your body clock does not get as disrupted. She has worked for American for 37 years and was cheery, and happy and helpful and it was so clear that she really loves her job. It made such a difference for me to spend 7 hours with her over a grouchy one.

Delta has a variety of temperments among their flight attendants. The flight to SLC on Tuesday night, most of the attendants were pretty happy and pleasant. The flight returing last night they were very grouchy and pretty condescending. Two of them stood right outside the door to the cockpit, and talked in a not so nice way about passengers, and this was the conversation:

Flight Attendant # 1 "Yup, some of these bags will not fit"
Flight Attendant # 2 "Yes, the grey one, that one will never fit"
Flight Attendant # 3 "Yes and the black one on the right, what are they thinking?"

Clearly these were not carry on bags, but would you really just stand and do nothing, and talk about passengers that way?

I heard today that Jet Blue flight attendants actually help passengers put their bags in the overhead. Now, that make lots of sense to me. The Delta attendants clearly had a sense of urgency to get those bags overhead and get us in our seats, as evidenced by the 6 announcements to that effect in 5 minutes. One passenger remarked that if they did not charge $25 per bag to check, maybe there would not be so many carry ons. Tell me honestly, would you help people load the bags rather than make incessant announcements. I would, but that is me.

It got me thinking about what is important in a flight for me. Safety is the obvious one, which is why I always thank all of the crew on my way out of the plane, even if they were grouchy.

I always ask for an aisle seat. I hate to be trapped and not be able to visit the rest rooms. I always hydrate a lot when flying. Only once this year have I been trapped in the middle seat. On my flight this week the Boston Delta agent found me an aisle seat and I profusely thanked him multiple times. I like to reinforce positive behavior, so it reoccurs.

The best time for me to read is on planes. I pop in my ear buds, play some classical music and read a book for most of the flight. I have not done that on some flights recently, since I had work to do, but that is my favorite time to read a book cover to cover.

This is a silly one, but I hate to pay the Airlines for food. I may pay more for food from the terminal, but I remember the days when a meal was included and pretty near refuse to buy food on a plane, EXCEPT LAST NIGHT, when the groucy Delta attendants were selling Pink Lemonade for $2 glass in honor of breast cancer research. They give all of the money to breast cancer research.

No layovers are important to me. If the cost is pretty similar I would rather not take off and land twice and the layover always makes me nervous. Especially if I am flying to the west coast for work, I try to get a non-stop.

So, if there is a choice of domestic airlines and the cost and route is very similar this is the order that I will fly them: TIED FOR FIRST PLACE - Jet Blue and Southwest, Second place - American, Third place - United and dead last unless I am flying to SLC (non-stop) - Delta.

Oh, and did I say that I don't really like small planes unless they are flying from South Hero to Hampton NH to get us to Star Island.

Recharging at Coniston

This past month has been jam packed of lots of good stuff. When we scheduled all of this we were looking at the calendar but did we know that there would be no down time in between all these events. Probably not! Just the highlights which don't include are day to day life events are: 1) San Francisco trip with Bee to see 2 sets of old friends and then sent her off to Taipei for the start of her 9 month comparative religions and cultures class 2) "Quick" trip over the pond to celebrate a sister-in-law's 70th birthday. Those are the major events, and with our normal crazy full lives, I realized on the trip up last night how much I need "Coniston" to recharge. I put quotes around Coniston, because I am not sure it is the place I need but the activity, or lack of activity that I need. Because we have a lot less things up here, there are less chores staring at me, or maybe it is the ever present big front window panes looking out at our affectionately named Channel 1 that allow me to ignore the cob webs and mouse turds that need to be cleaned up. YES, I SAID MOUSE TURDS! OK, these do not make me happy at all, but I guess they are a given when a house is in the middle of all of this wild life. I announced to them that I was coming down the hall last night and made sure they knew that I knew they were more afraid of me, then I am of them. This is was Murg always says, so I said this out loud to reassure myself. Funny story about this concept and Liam the snake. Ask me to tell you this one next time we are together.

Back to the title of this post after that little distraction and I do mean little . . . maybe

We talked almost the entire way up to Coniston last night and tried to answer some big life questions, what do we want to do when we grow up? When do we want to retire? What does it mean to be retired?

One AHA out of that and I have realized this before but not in sure a concrete way as last night, is that when we come to Coniston it is a vacation (Murg actually said this and I have thought about this before). So 2 weekends out of every month, we are on vacation. It helps with how little vacation we get as Americans compared to the rest of the world. That means we have 48 more days of vacation every year if we come up here 4 days a month and there are 12 months in the year.

I don't think in the 18 months that Coniston has been in our lives, that every day up here has been a vacation, but for me 90% of them have.

At the very least, this weekend I have taken the time to post to my blog, which is something I really like to do and have not been able to make the time to do enough in the last month. Enough said.

Back to Channel 1 . . . Here come our wild turkeys

iPhone - what else can I say?

My only real, apparent excuse for not blogging is that I got an iPhone. Yes, I coveted them for a long time and finally broke down and joined the cult. Since I can check my email account(S) on it and check my Facebook on it, I need to log into my laptop, a lot less frequently. That and I have been a bit busy crossing the US by plane, and visiting friends in CA and having a friend from HI visit.

It is also near the end of summer and I like to try to get outside in the waning light.

Red Sox games and Mad Men have been my only TV addictions, so it is not TV that has replace blogging.

I am wondering if this blog is going to become extinct? It is not as if I don't have anything to say or that my thoughts have stopped. A couple of times in the last few weeks, I have said outloud to myself, that would be a great blog topic.

I have not needed to rant about anything for a while, although if I watch Fox TV it is only a matter of minutes before a rant could erupt.

No, it is simple, it is the iPhone. Maybe shorter blog posts on the iphone will start to show up here. You mean 140 character messages, now there is a novel thought.

Now that was a Great movie!

Bee, Murg and I just got back from "Julie and Julia". Don't tell them, but I read this entire book while sitting in a over-stuffed chair at Barnes and Noble. It took me 3 sessions. I bought a latte, wandered upstairs, and sat for a few hours each time while I read.

I love anything with Meryl Streep in it, and she was particularly good in this movie. The movement between the two stories was very good and boy did it make me hungry.

There are not too many movies, where the three of us come out saying "That was a really Great movie!"

I actually want to go see over half of the movies which were previewed. A couple of them, Murg leaned over to Bee and me and said "That is not a Sally movie". Can't watch anything with suspense violence or blood or tense music which leaves out about 90% of the movies made.

This movie was perfect, for me. What a great start to the weekend!

Quilting Project log jam broken

I don't know why I get stalled with my quilting but I do. At Vermont Quilt Festival this year, I realized that I didn't have any BIG quilt projects going. In fact, I bought a quilt kit at VQF,to make another Kaffee Fassett quilt for Coniston. We need more quilts up there in the winter.

Yesterday, I went to visit C who is a fellow quilter. She has a terrific quilt store right around the corner from her house, so of course after sitting on her dock, catching up, watching Qammi swim and swim and swim, we decided to visit Quilters Stash. I forgot how many batiks they have. In a few minutes I realized the color of my next quilted jacket, and about 20 minutes later, I was ready to check out. That was Saturday. Today, Sunday, I have all the pieces cut out and am just about to start the assembly.

So WHY? Was it the camaraderie of shopping for fabric with someone else? Was it the fabrics that sparked some inspiration for my next project? Do I not prioritize my time to have time to quilt? Do I really need another quilted jacket? Wait, wait, wait, I don't think you can ever have enough quilted jackets.

So given my history, this project will be an obsession for a couple of weeks until I am at last wearing it. The colors are fall colors, so just in time I will have a new one to wear. Pictures to come soon of my new jacket.

Half Full for sure

I am pretty sure I am a half full person. Recent evidence to this is all this rain we have been getting in New England. Twice today I left my office, went down in the elevator and did not realize that there was a torrential rainstorm going on until I reached the revolving door to the building. I can see outside from my office so it is not just that I could not see the outside. I just did not expect it to be raining. My response each time was, "so I will get a bit wet!" There was a gentleman at the door as I was leaving tonight during the second torrential rainstorm. He was aghast that I was even thinking about leaving to go to my car. So my clothes are pretty wet, but that is certainly not the end of the world.

Glass half full can actually be a problem. I don't see pot holes and step in them. I trust people, sometimes when I should not trust them. I expect people to receive messages the same way I do, and they don't.

I actually think this rain is going to stop some day, maybe even today. My supply list for building an ark is not started. "There must be a pony in here somewhere" is the tag line of a card I once received as the person was standing neck deep in a pile of pony #@$)*(#.