The First Snowfall

Yes, everyone forgot how to drive.  And that guy that does the donuts in the abandoned parking lot behind my office?  Got started early.  Except it looks more like driving in circles than in performing the donut maneuver:

Where Spooky Sleeps

This is where my mother found the cat while I was out of town:

Day bed in the guest room where I started staging the gift wrap.  What is it with cats and paper?  Of course, I now have gift wrapping staged in three rooms.  I ordered so much online that it seemed easier to not take it upstairs at all. 

Representing O'Hare

I was in The Big Boss’ Office in Washington this morning. He looked at something online and told me to get gonig to the airport right that second or I might not make it home. I had put myself on the standby list when I checked in, and was thankful for the go-ahead to bail out. When the snow starts early, it can snarl air traffic all day, and I’d been hearing 3-7 inches.


Arrived at Reagan at 11:20. Security was really light, but by the time I arrived at the gate, the 11:30 have departed, and the 12:30 was cancelled so there wasn’t much chance I would make the list for the 1:30. I was booked on the 2:30.  I did some mental calculations:

If the 1:30 is delayed by half an hour and it isn’t noon yet, I can figure I will be delayed two hours on the 2:30 flight. Math..time zone change..math…I will still be home around dinner time. So I settled in with a book and a snack. Then I walked around a bit. And read some more. The 1:30 flight boards. My plane has already arrived. United guy gets on the loud speaker. He tells us that while the system shows a 3:15 departure, we should all hang around because they are trying to do better than that.

Apparently, if you are already sitting on the tarmac with a full flight, you might be able to guilt or blackmail air traffic control into letting you take off. And once you are in the air, what are they going to do?

Not two minutes later, the same guy is at the gate, telling us to get our butts in gear because this puppy is going to move. (He didn’t actually say that.)

But remember yesterday when I was rolling my eyes at the Global Alliance people? Well, this is the situation where you want to be travelling with them. Because we got to boarding and everyone was helping everyone else with the bags and the coats and the getting settled. Would you believe some of them were also on my flight to Washington yesterday? (You know you are travelling too much when you start to recognize other passengers.)

Bottom line: my plane landed exactly six minutes later than scheduled. And the snow is still coming down.

I love O’Hare. I love United Airlines. I am going to go online and tell them so.

Oh, Coward!

The second show of the season at Writers’ Theatre this season is a musical revue of Noel Coward material called “Oh, Coward!”.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I left at Intermission and didn’t come back. I didn't actually see the entire thing.  I have done this a few times before. I am not proud of it, but…

This was the one show of the year in the old space at the back of the book store. They tend to get creative with the staging in this space. Because there isn’t much of it, they go for “intimacy”. What I didn’t know going in, but can see on the website now, is that it is a General Admission show. Which means that the fact that I have been a subscriber for my entire adult life could not get me a good seat, even though I was a good 20 minutes early. They made it rather clubby with the piano on one end and the audience around the sides. The front row had the benefit of cocktail tables. Would’ve been nice. In a regular show, when I normally have a front row seat, I regularly and cheerfully risk being spit on by the actors. But when the front row would have been a boon, it is General Admission. Oh, and there were Reserved Seats. Which was a crock, because random latecomers were seated there. I know they were random, as opposed to VIPs, because the usher searched for someplace else to put them before seating them right there in front of me at the cocktail table that four dozen other people wanted.

And one last thing about the seating: every seat was taken, even though I had my second subscription ticket, unused, in my pocket.

Now, then. I love Noel Coward. Writers’ Theatre has done two of his plays before and they were both great. “Private Lives” should really be produced more often. But a musical revue? I seem to recall the Master Singers doing one in high school. Oh, Coward! reminded me of that.

Three actors and a pianist. They came right out singing. In about 45 seconds, I was thinking:

I missed the second half of the Giants/Cowboys for this…and I could be doing homework. Or packing. Or watching the Vikings/Cardinals game. If I left at Intermission, I could go home do some homework and watch the game while I’m packing. Oh! And I could stop at Starbuck’s!

OK, I'm sorry. 

The actors were fine. The pianist was charming. I just don’t like the “revue” concept. So here is a link to a real review. Just remember to get there early.

The Airport

I left the house at 0 dark-hundred to catch the earlier flight to Washington. Traffic was great, I parked in my regular area at O’Hare, the security line was short and the flights ran on time. I was flying with all of the regular DC commuting types, such that there was actual snarkiness between two Global Alliance passengers regarding the “line” to board and who would be getting on the plane first. One guy said:


“Calm down. My standing here is not going to take away your Global Alliance status.”

Real Time Interlude: I ordered a pizza for dinner. The lady that delivered it said, “I haven’t seen you in, what, a month?”


“Three weeks.”

Anyway, when I arrived, I checked in on Facebook and my friend Ingrid took a picture from her camera phone of just how bloody crowded it was at O’Hare’s Terminal 1 this morning. Five gates down. At exactly the same time.

I have often wondered, while wandering around O’Hare, how many people that I know personally are actually in the airport right at the same time. Odds are, there are several. I only ran into one once and it was a co-worker. Maybe I’d better start paying attention. This is going to make me crazy.

So, yeah. Pizza. Homework. NCIS. Again.

Hand Washing and Sanitizing

Good Morning America had a piece this morning on the mega-business of hand sanitizers and the people that are using them 30+ times a day. I went online to take another look and it isn’t up yet, but I found an article they did in October that I found interesting:


They did an experiment comparing bar soap, liquid soap, (with and without out the “anti-bacterial”) and sanitizers (with and without alcohol). The results? “Technique is more important than technology”, meaning wash for at least twenty seconds with soap and water.

Also, “Experts say washing with soap and water is first choice, especially if you have visible dirt on your hands. Sanitizer can't cut through that grime. Hand sanitizer is great for when you can't get to soap and water, and it's actually more effective at eliminating germs because it kills them rather than just removing them.”

Personally, I wash my hands regularly and have a hand sanitizer around, but don’t use it very often. 30+ times a day? Do you know how drying that is? I can’t imagine how much hand cream I’d go through if I did that.

Doggie Dreams

I have talked about the Pet section of USA Today, and now I see that the Chicago Tribune has a pretty serious section going as well. There were blogs and pictures and some videos. January is National Walk Your Pet Month. 

I am posting this video because Shadow has some crazy Doggie Dreams, but this is ridiculous:

There is a second, longer video in which the dog actually stands up and starts barking, and still appears to be asleep.

What-the-Dickens, Gregory Maguire

Book 43

In 2007, “the Wicked guy” went back to his roots in children’s literature and published What-the-Dickens¬: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy. I say “published” rather than “wrote” because I am not convinced he didn’t have it sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting for a rainy day. In the author’s bio, Maguire says:

“I gave a writing assignment to some middle-school kids. I told them to write about the meeting between an impossible creature and an ordinary citizen. I did the assignment myself, and I came up with an ancient bedridden grandmother mistaking a lost tooth fairy for the Angel of Death. Eventually, the story evolved…”

This is a story within a story that has three kids stranded with a cousin in what seemed to me to be post-apocalyptic setting. I guess it was just a hurricane, but this was a seriously isolated group. Anyway.

What-the-Dickens is actually the fairy’s name. He was lost or abandoned at birth and stumbles into another fairy, who was a member of some colony or another of fairies. The two worlds – the real one and the fairy one – are only fleshed out from a very narrow perspective, which isn’t terrible, but isn’t exactly Harry Potter. And just as our world view is starting to expand, both the “real” world and the fairy world, the book is over.

It was another “what the heck happens next?” book. Sometimes, that means a writer has a series on his hands. In this case, I felt like I hung in with this until the end and there was no payoff. Beh.

Random Travel Train of Thought Post

Here's something that I hate to see:

An empty gate.  Actually, my flight wasn't late.  It was early.  It was just a later scheduled flight than I normally take.  So late, in fact, that I parked nowhere near my normal spot in remote parking.  Good thing I read that awesome article warning me about just such holiday phenomena and I got to the airport early.

And speaking of awesome, I found a new super-secret hidden security line at O'Hare where I got to the front so fast that I wasn't even ready and let someone budge.  Let me say that again.  I had to let someone budge in the security line because I wasn't ready to go through.  No, I am not going to tell you where it is.  Because the last time I told someone where my super-secret hidden security line was, it wasn't a secret anymore. 

Then I went to Auntie Anne's to have a pretzel for breakfast.  Because I just read somewhere that Auntie Anne's pretzels were on someone's list of "do not eat" airport food, which is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.  Something about it being all carbs.  So I protested by eating one with cheese sauce.  And a Diet Coke.

I stopped drinking Diet Coke in the morning several years ago.  I drink water until lunch time.  And a pint of chocolate milk.  And can I tell you?  That Diet Coke this morning was the best Diet Coke I have ever had in my life.  I have been drinking Diet Coke all day trying to re-create the greatness of that one this morning.  It isn't happening.

So now I am....wait for it....blowing off my homework and watching repeats of NCIS on the USA Network.  Is this the one with Abby's crazy ex-boyfriend?  I am like Name that Tune with this show now.  My mother would be so proud.  No, seriously. 

I Can't Make this Stuff Up, Folks

Kiwi was perched on the refrigerator. It is her favorite lookout point. I went in to the next room, the bird room to see Billy. I had left the door to his cage open, but he hadn’t come out.


Me: (reaching out a hand) Billy. Step up.

Billy: (takes a swipe at me with his beak)

Me: Ugh. Fine.

Kiwi: Are you gonna step up? You’re ok!

Me: Thank you, Kiwi.


I managed to get Billy to come out onto his door. He wouldn’t step up, but he climbed to the top of the cage. I gave him a piece of carrot. He dropped it. I left the room to check on dinner, leaving Shadow to get the carrot. When I came back, I gave Billy another carrot. As I walked away, I heard him drop that, too.


Me: Well, it seems Billy has learned Kiwi’s favorite game.

Kay: (from the family room) What’s that?

Me: Feed the Dog!

Kiwi: Ohhhhhhhhhh! (laughs) Good dog!