Christmas with the "Clucks"

Christmas rocked this year. It was great to go home, I got to see all the family and spend time with my Dad since he had his knee replacement. Mom kept the clucking to a minimum this year. She actually got all the groceries prior to me arriving, the sheets washed and the Christams tree was decorated before I got home.
Ok...enough of the sappy emotional stuff. I got LOOT this year. Dad went all out and I love my watch. He did good and Terri can live to see another day since she helped him pick it out. Thanks Terri!!!! I knew you'd come through for me.

This was our Christmas tree and I swear every year we say we aren't going overboard and this is what the tree looks like each year. And its just us! Eight adults and no little children.

And my brother and his girlfriend did absolutely awesome getting me my present as well. Check this neat little item out. Perfect for those of us who travel all the time. :) It's a travel pillow that folds out and becomes a feather cover for the hotel pillow. This is too cool and I'm totally loving it. I got other stuff as well. Mom has been buying this crystal for me and I can't remember the pattern name, but every time she goes antiquing and finds another piece she buys it for me. Of course I have no where to put it because I live in a 700 sq ft condo with my other half and my cat. There is no room at the inn. Tee hee, a little Christmas humor for everyone.

All in all, Christmas with the Clucks was a roaring success and I'm sorry its over now and I'm back home. But then again after four days with my family I'm ready for a break. Hope everyone had a happy holiday and here's to a great New Year's!

Calling all elves

I get woken up on Saturday morning before Christams with a phone call from my father singing "Calling all elves, calling all elves, Santa is calling all elves".
Me: "Dad this elf isn't driving home until tomorrow."
Dad: "Oh...Ok. I guess I'm getting a DVD player for Christmas."
Me: still waking up pre coffee "Huh?!? What are you talking about?" (and yes he was getting a DVD player for Christmas b/c his POS is dying)
Dad: "UPS delivered a DVD player from Circuit City guess that's mine."
Me: cursing the stupidity of Circuit City NOT placing the DVD box in another box before shipping "Dad, I'll be home tomorrow, go take a pain pill and put Mom on the phone".

Mom, keep him out of the closet and go count boxes so I know if I'm missing any. There should be at least 9 but 2 may be showing up Christmas eve. Call me back if any are missing. I'm going to go run all the errands I need to before packing up tonight and leaving tomorrow.

I proceed to hang up with my family and go run the nine thousand errands that haven't been taken care of because I've been in NY for the last month. This includes getting my hair done, picking up and dropping off dry cleaning, buying duplicates of all my toiletries so I can leave a set in NY so I can whiz through airport screening every week, buying last minute Christmas presents and organizing everything so I can fit it in my car before heading back to South Carolina for Christmas.

I love the f'ing holidays.

This is your brain on drugs (part deux)

I love my father. I really really do, but sometimes I wonder what planet he is on.

So Christmas is quickly approaching and for once, my family actually put lists together of things they might want for Christmas. Mind you, no one on the Christmas list is under 25 so the requests tend to get a little larger as we get older. My BIG wish gift was a new watch. I put some other items on the list that were way less expensive as well b/c I wanted everyone to have options and not feel obligated to spend lots of $$$ on presents.

Ok...now that we've set the stage (and keeping in mind my father is on drugs right now) this is what I've found out about Christmas so far this year.
Mom - used Yukon Denali ~ 25K
Bro - new rifle ~ no clue but it can't be cheap
Me - new watch ~ according to Terri they are spending some cash

So my mother and I are convinced that when the painkillers wear off he's going to look in the garage and say Where the F*$K did that Yukon come from and why is it in our garage?. And once he's done freaking out about that he's going to wonder where the hell all the $$$ in the bank account went.

Mom and I have agreed we aren't giving our presents back. She's been trying to reign in the spending and getting nowhere. Because Dad "Can do what he wants"

No way, no how am I giving that watch back.

Unless its ugly. At which point I'll blame Terri b/c he enlisted her help in picking it out.

This is your brain on drugs

Some of you have actually had the pleasure of meeting my father. He's a big teddy bear whose bark is MUCH worse than his bite. Except for that occasional shot gun farting thing he does...which is absolutely deadly. He's usually laughing his ass off as he does it too...but I digress.

Daddy had his right knee replaced a couple of weeks ago...and let the hilarity ensue. First off my father has legs like tree trunks with ZERO fat on them (yea, I hate him), he's needed a knee replacement for YEARS!!!! and he's a big guy. As in a 20 inch neck big guy. The doc doing his surgery took twice as long to do the surgery because (drumroll please) he has lots of muscle, the knee was in much worse shape than originally thought and dad's ligaments wouldn't reattach correctly because he's such a big guy. DUH!!!! Did you actually LOOK at my father before you cut his knee open?!?!?!?

So my mother proceeds to do her clucking thing she does so well while Dad's in surgery and finally recovers once he comes home. She decided to take off the first two weeks because Dad can't be on his own or drive or do any of that stuff that requires full mobility and use of the right knee. Now my parents have been married for almost 37 years, most of them pretty happily.

I think this surgery almost broke them. I was talking to my mom over the weekend finalizing the Christmas presents I was buying b/c she hasn't yet (we won't even discuss the damage I did to my Hilton CC, but at least I got hotel points for them) and she starts talking about Dad being stupid. He regressed into a four year old. Evidence:

1. He wants a puppy for Christmas and told my mom he could get one if he wanted to when she pointed out that puppies are a lot of work and we currently have two cats
   
2. He said he was going to drive to the grocery store and when my mom said he wasn't allowed to yet, he said he could if he wanted to and that his dad drove one week after knee replacement surgery Mom: Just because your father was an idiot doesn't mean you need to be one too
   
3. I talked to him while I was at Target on Sat and he said something about going to Lowe's. When I asked him if he was driving, he said he wasn't, but he could if he wanted to.
   

WTF?!?! When did my father go from being 58 to 4?!?!? If I get a picture of him sitting on Santa's knee I'm running away from home.

Construction site fun!!!

So after complaining about traveling in my last blog, I thought I'd show you some of the fun I get to have in my job. The JFK airport is building a new terminal the first designed and built since 9/11. Which is a big deal for the Port Authority of NY/NJ. Anyway, construction is getting complete and will be done in time to open in the fall of 2008 and I got to get a tour. The really cool part was seeing all the stuff that goes on "under the wing" while the passengers are herded to their destinations. I also got a bird's eye view of takeoffs and landings which was COOL!!!!! Here's the pic of us in one of the ground operations towers at JFK.



For those of you who don't know Terminal 5 used to be the TWA terminal at JFK and since they are defunct now no one was using the old terminal. Partially because the original terminal building is a historic site now and cannot be changed. It was really cool to see b/c the terminal is very new agey for when it was built and somewhat of a historic building for airlines. I know I'm geeking out about this, but since I'm currently doing work for an airline I get to see all the underbelly of how an airline really runs.

Anyway see pics of the old TWA building (built by Eero Saarinen) who also built a bunch of other stuff including Dulles, (my absolute favorite airport NOT!!!) and read some historical stuff about the building if you so desire. BTW...they can't remove the TWA sign as its part of the historically significant building.





Anyway, that concludes my foray into TWA terminal land. I hope you enjoyed the ride. Next time you want to take a trip into the wonderfully weird world of my brain, I hope you think of Strangeland air. Thanks for flying! Have a nice day!

Woohoo blog #1 in my new world

So in my last post I promised to blog at least twice a month. So here's the first one for the month of Decemeber. :)

So far I've been in NYC (Queens/Forest Hills) for two weeks and I've worked hellacious hours. I knew I'd be working a lot and I was all for that plus traveling which I like. The part I don't like is flight delays. And being winter, I'm almost guaranteed to be delayed on a regular basis. I wish there was some way to just teleport from place to place. :) I so wish Star Trek was real.

Anyway, life is good. I'm sooo ready for Christmas and some time off to spend with my family. And speaking of my family, I've come to the conclusion that my father has lost his ever loving mind. He had knee replacement surgery the Monday after Thanksgiving and has since decided to blow things out this Christmas. My Mother got a freaking Yukon Denali fully loaded. She's afraid when my father comes off the pain killers he's going to look in the garage and wonder where the hell that vehicle came from. She's told me she's not returning it no matter what. :)

Anyway, life is still crazy and will continue to be that way for quite some time. I'll blog more later, but now I have to pack for my most likely delayed flight tomorrow morning.