Thursday, February 28, 2008

Spring Break in the Hospital?

No joke, I'm in the hospital right now. Somewhere in Chicago. I won't get more specific because I'm not sure how legit this is, but basically an old friend is on call tonight and rather than send me back to her heatless apartment alone she suggested I stay in the student dorm room with her. So here I sit, dressed in scrubs to "blend in" hanging out while she's off responding to a Code Yellow page in the emergency room.

Sorry if that's not very exciting, but that's sorta what my spring break has been like this year. No beaches, no snowy mountains, no lazy mornings sleeping in. And if you know me, you know how much I love not waking up before noon. But don't get me wrong, I've been having a lot of fun. My Aunt in Minnesota drove down to Nashville for the week, so I flew to Chicago where she picked me up so we could make the journey together. Every five seconds she'd point out another hawk perched on a fence or tree next to the highway just waiting for a little field mouse to come out to play. I was also forced to consume multiple raspberry "concrete mixers" from Culver's, a more extensive fast food restaurant I had never heard of before, as well as several pounds of bacon, pork chops, and the best steaks ever once we arrived in Nashville. If my Aunt wasn't so against flying she'd cure world hunger using the combination of bacon and peer pressure alone.

Coming to Nashville is always a bit of a homecoming. Remarkably almost all of my high school friends are still in the area. Plus with amazing family friends that let my Aunt and me invade their house everytime we're there, it's starting to feel ironically a bit more like home now that we finally sold our home. Which has been torn down. People always apologize when I say that like there's been a death in the family. For us, it was a bit more like finally purging a bad disease. But like most of my recent trips to Nashville, this one still included logging the requisite hours sorting through boxes of old stuff. Starting at 7am. Did I mention my Aunt was a morning person?

Now I'm back in Chicago for the weekend before returning to Ann Arbor. Hopefully I'll finally get a few chances to sleep in. Assuming of course the pager doesn't go off...

Sunday, February 24, 2008

DC in a Day

I woke up in my room, and I fell asleep that same night in my room. Just like any other day, right? Only difference was I spent the entire time in Washington, DC. If you’re a seasoned business traveler this won’t seem that exciting or strange to you. But this was the first time I’d ever taken an entire round trip flight in one day.

Do I recommend it? Nope. If airlines were reliably on time, and if the Detroit airport wasn’t a high risk for bad weather, then maybe it would be fine. But they aren’t and it is. I wanted a ticket that would give me plenty of buffer time before my 2pm interview. That meant waking up at 4am to arrive in DC by 8. Dressed in a suit (with an extra pair of panty hose), I felt naked going to the airport with just my purse.

Other than the fact that I was exhausted from only having four hours of sleep and my stomach was in knots from drinking too much coffee without enough food, I actually had a great morning. I was able to get some work done and catch up with an old friend from college who lent me his fancy leather portfolio. I still can’t bring myself to buy one. I fully admit that I wanted one for this interview, but all it does is say, “I’m willing to spend big bucks to make me look professional.” Since when was a leather portfolio the standard by which we judge somebody’s professionalism? Kind of like when people insist that fancy resume paper really makes a difference. If I were on a hiring committee, those applicants would have a straight track to the garbage can.

DC is an incredible city. The metro takes you to and from the airport in ten minutes. And there’s no long shuttle from the airport to the metro either, you cross the street and there it is. It really does make business travel a snap. And if I had more confidence that there’d be no delays, I easily could have arrived at noon and made it to the firm in plenty of time. And the firm, well it was incredible. But I don’t want to jinx things because I still haven’t heard back. With any luck though this summer I’ll be posting about a return trip.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Topeka, Twelve Years Later

"I haven't been to Kansas in twelve years," I remarked to the woman next to me on the plane as we landed.

"You're in Missouri," she smiled politely back.

Yes, I know Kansas City is in Missouri. But just because Topeka's airport stopped serving commercial airlines a while ago doesn't change the final destination of my trip. Markell met me at the airport, we picked up our rental car, and off we went.

On my desk rests a family photo we took from our last trip to Kansas. We're out standing by the duck ponds on a cold fall day, our dad in a jacket three times heavier than necessary because his little toes were always cold, our mother and her insanely large owl glasses, Markell in a shade of purple they stopped making during Prince's heyday, I'm rocking my favorite green suede jacket, and Pauline still looks like an imp. Which of course means its around 1996 give or take a fashion season or two, not like it would have changed anything for us anyways.

This time around, it was just me and Markell. She's now old enough to rent a car, and I'm finally taller than she is. Like many last minute trips, our reason fell on the sad side of the coin and not the happy. Let's just say it has not been a good year for uncles. But at the same time, our trip was long over due and I was very excited to finally see our aunt after a several year gap. We passed the time cracking jokes and sharing old family stories. Our Aunt had a stash of old family photos we dusted off from the basement and got good practice with the family tree. Ethel? No, Doris. Is that Joe's first wife? Nope, his sister Ida.

Deep in the pile was a letter from my father two weeks after I was born announcing my arrival to his sister, along with two photos of a red-faced baby not too keen on opening her eyes just yet. Jean reads it out loud, after pointing out that he had to correct the spelling of my name because he too thought it should be Francis. He describes me as a "quiet, placid, and serene baby--" at which point Markell bursts out laughing. "That's the first and last time you've ever been called that!" Thanks Markell. But Jean chuckles and says to let her finish the sentence, "--no doubt she is up to something."

And I suppose I still am.

We forget sometimes to call or write. We forget birthdays and anniversaries and other important dates. We forget to visit while we still can. And to top it all off, what finally gets us to buy the plane ticket is news that what we forgot to do can't be done anymore. Only then do we drop everything and remember.

Here's to remembering more often.