Unexpectedly Expecting

Things I will miss while zipping about the country for 10 days

The end of fall in Michigan. Maybe. I hope not, but I'm expecting most of the leaves will be gone by the time I get back.

Knowing I am being carefully watched as I shower by a little kitty who wants to make sure the evil water doesn't hurt me.

Sitting and reading in my big brown chair.

Even better, sitting there with a little kitty who wants to make sure none of the evil leaves outside dare to come near our house.

And last, the pitifully cute sounds my boy makes when I sabotage the last few moments of his sleep with the clickity-click of my camera. Actually, I miss him already.

Making it

Four things that made flying home at 7:15 a little better.

1. The woman who took my boarding pass and ID at security called me, "Miss Krista." I likey,

2. On the plane, I dozed off and had a dream that I was late for my flight. I woke up and took a second to register everything and then thought, "Oh, cool. I'm already on the flight."

3. When I lost my drivers license, it really just fell into my carry-on bag.

4. When I dropped my boarding pass on the moving walkway, the guy behind me picked it up and flagged me down.

Home now for 24 hours. Leaving tomorrow for nine days. Feel like I have about 4,000 things to do before them, one of which is to watch my little brother play coach for a high school water polo team in the state playoffs. Wish Jimmy had the day off.

Thoughts rattling around in my brain

-- They already have Christmas decorations up at Midway airport. Eeegads!

-- I actually heard Christmas music as well at a store Wednesday. Time flies!

-- Somehow, whenever I tell myself that it would be best to just check into my hotel and stay in, rest, read, get good sleep, I wind up splitting a bottle of wine at some fine restaurant. Last night it was Tuscany in Chicago's Little Italy. Had never been to that part of town before, but it was quite cute, and the food was divine. They started by mashing up roasted garlic, cheese and olive oil at the table, and then we slathered that onto yummy crusty bread. Seriously, don't come near me today. I must still stink.

-- I have a lot of work to do when it comes to not being a grumpy traveler. That was something I decided to work on this year after a few small group discussions. It's not going so well. All the little annoyances add up and I turn into a stress monster. Yesterday the sequence went like this -- the main parking lot was full so I had to go to the Green Lot, which is fine except that the shuttle took a really long time to show up and it was legitimately cold out. Finally I make it to the terminal, get through security and decide to find somewhere to work. But Metro just doesn't have many power outlets; I wander all over, precious time ticking away, and finally wind up sitting on the floor outside of a bathroom. It's there, as I start to frantically do my work, I realize I left my cord for my Blackberry at home, meaning I have to connect to the Internet through wireless and pay $7.95. By the time I got on the plane, my back hurt, my mood was shot because I'd had to rush in my work, and I was probably not exactly a joy to be around.

I realize in the grand scheme of things those annoyances are pathetically trivial. I don't want to let them affect my mood so much. So yeah, I'm working on it.   

Rainy, muggy Miami. But at least I'm here.

.Here is the first in an occasional series of travel tips.

We'll start with something obvious. Obvious but oh-so-important.

When catching a flight any time before 9, when your alarm must be set for some dark hour like 5 or 6, test your alarm clock. Then test it again. Is the volume on loud? Is your AM/PM set correctly? Is the station set to something grating, like an Oldies or a Top 40 channel? Is it situated close enough to your head to scare the wits out of you but -- and this is important -- not close enough that you can mindlessly slap your hand at it and hit snooze without really waking up? OK. Good.

That is a start. Next, I recommend repeating out loud the time you want to wake up over and over a few times. Six a.m. Six a.m. You might feel insane, but trust me. You may sleep a bit lighter, but that's what you're going for, really. Because in the rare case that you do not in fact follow the above checklist for making sure your alarm is good to go, you can fall back on nature. Your internal clock. And that baby can be quite intuitive. I mean, sometimes it wakes you up at 6:50, when really you wanted to get up at 6:10. But it's trying. Internally, it new that you were going to jet at 7 a.m., and it knew that giving you 10 minutes was just enough to allow you to gather your things, throw on your clothes and get out the door, smelly and hungry and unsightly after going sans shower or breakfast or make-up application.

Method two can work. But method one -- rigorous alarm-clock testing -- is really, I'd say, the way to go.

Now I have to take a nap. And then a shower.

My mother would be really sick and tired at this point

Wow. A lot can happen in one week back on the job.

Right away, I knew things would be interesting when I found this guy hanging out on my porch as I left for my first day back.
This was some spider. His web stretched from the front of my porch to the back, maybe six feet in all. It seemed to connect to everything -- two beams, the bench, the brick walls. This guy must have been up all night long, but he hadn't caught a measly fly. Creepy, eh?

When I finally stopped snapping photos of his massive web and hairy butt, I left and promptly got a flat-tire on the highway. It's always fun to be stopped a few feet from traffic buzzing by at 75 miles per hour. Especially when you're trying to stick to your newly adopted time table. It also does wonders for your drying hair to be tussled around in the semi-truck-created breeze.

Luckily for me, this nice paramedic crew pulled over about two minutes into my lovely stay on the shoulder. They hopped out and took over immediately, switching out my totally shredded tired to my doughnut within 10 minutes.
I was especially thankful that crew stopped -- interrupting a Starbucks run -- when a man came walking down the shoulder toward us. He was wearing a puffy winter jacket, sort of like the Starters jackets my brothers wore in the early 90s. With his jacket, he wore khaki shorts. Naturally. He acted as if he knew who we were and asked which way we were headed. Then he kept walking down the shoulder, as if it was a sidewalk in suburbia and not a speeding highway. He walked backward and stared at us for about 100 yards and then ducked into the trees. So yeah, I was glad not to be alone.

My week back to work continued to go along swimmingly when I caught a lovely cold on Wednesday. In a matter of four and a half days, I had every general illness symptom, even throwing up once. I never throw up. This of course led everyone I work with to think I'm pregnant, and now every time I so much as go pee, they stare at me and want a progress report when I return. The lingering sickness was not really serious enough to stop working, but it did keep me from running, which in lazier days wouldn't be such a problem. But as I'm slated to run a half-marathon in 14 days, it was not exactly convenient timing.

Also last week, I found out that somehow, without wanting to, we switched from our normal dental insurance to an HMO. I found this out when Tina, our dentist's nice secretary, called to tell me that our insurance had been denied for the cleanings we both had in September. Five phone calls later, I find out that thanks to three or four bumbles (only one of which is maybe partially our fault), we now have to pay $368. For two regular teeth cleanings. This is of course just what you hope for.

It wasn't all bad. The work part itself was fine, if not a little boring. I'm still feeling pretty inspired and upbeat, despite the run up of minor inconveniences -- sore throat, inability to sleep due to snot drippage, an unwanted tire bill, an unwanted insurance change, unfounded attention to my bodily functions at work. I find it all kind of funny.

The funniest part of all? The spider web up and disappeared before Jimmy could go out and destroy it. We think the mail lady walked right through it. Maybe my week was filled with potholes, but it's nice knowing there was at least one I managed to avoid.

Travel Survival with Sta

For the last two years, my job has required me to trot to and fro across the country so much so that I've become what I'd consider a travel expert. Like most business travelers, I know just how to pack my suitcase so that no matter how long my trip -- two days, five, a week or more -- I never, ever, ever check a bag. Ever. I know just how to prepare my one quart-sized Ziplock bag with three ounce containers of liquids and gels. I know that my laptop must go in its own crate on the security belt. I know to always print my boarding pass at home or the hotel. And I always get the seat of my choosing, too.

Because of my newfound expertise, I going to start a few semi-regular blog posts called Traveling Tips, On the Road and Overheard in Idaho. The first part, the Tips, is pretty obvious. It will be a random hodge-podge of my advice to make your travel more efficient, worry-free and relaxing. The second part, On the Road, will feature fun spots I come across, well, on the road, whether it's a great restaurant in Miami or a nice place for a manicure in Milwaukee. And Overheard in Idaho will feature some of the crazy snippets of conversation I routinely am subject to hear along the way, not just in Idaho, but anywhere. Idaho just has that special ring to it.

So to start. Let's say you've been in Las Vegas for a few days, and not for fun, oh no. You're there to work. You must navigate your way around the boisterous, drunk, debaucherous and distracting people, nightlife and entertainment options socking you in the face everywhere you turn. There will be no Mamma Mia, no gondola ride at the Venetian, no rollercoastering at New York, New York, no shopping at Caesar's Palace for you. You will sit in your nicely appointed hotel room and file away at your laptop to the sounds of jackhammers working on the floor right above you. You will show up on time -- or early! -- to meetings and work obligations. You will go to sleep at a reasonable hour (after watching a few episodes of Man vs. Wild, naturally). That's as wild as it's going to get for you. What happens in Vegas...well, for you, nothing happens in Vegas.

So let's say you've spent five days living that kind of existence. Trying and failing to tune out the giggling girls in the next hotel room who come home squealing at 5 a.m. after a night of gambling and carousing. Trying to concentrate on work despite the lavish pool, where they bring you cucumbers for your eyes and cold towels for your forehead and tiny little fruit smoothies to sample. That's hard work right there. So you're beat. You're ready to go home.

Let's say then that as you leave for your red-eye, the cab driver, instead of taking the simple 10-minute route to the airport that you have by now come to know well, decides you are a moron. He jumps on a highway. Then another. Then another. Taking you on a much longer ride, just so he can turn an $11 cab ride into a $20 monstrosity. You have been had, but what can you do now? The meter has tallied your $20 fate. So you are pissy and tired and lugging your carry on and laptop bag and, after five minutes of waiting in the security line, you're wondering, "Why are so many people taking red-eyes home from Las Vegas with children? Why? Why? Why?"

If this ever happens to you, I can help you. if you are in the Northwest Terminal, anyway. Just go up the escalator after the tram ride and look to your left. The glowing orange awning of Juice Express, that's your oasis. Order the Forbidden Fruit smoothy. Sounds innocuous, sure. In the city of sin, how forbidden can a smoothy be? Well. Let me just say. All of the jackhammers, the drunk Midwesterners, the overpriced food, the dinging and blinging sounds of the casinos, the touristy vibes, the crappy children, all of it will melt away when that combination of passion fruit, guava, orange and vanilla hits your taste buds. You will suck that thing down, perhaps while feeding a $5 bill into a video poker machine, because what the hell, you came to Vegas to work, not to have fun, but with heavenly smoothy in hand, no one's gonna stop you now.