Because of my move to New York this year I was travelling for Thanksgiving no matter what. So I decided to head down to Florida to stay with my Aunt Susan and Uncle Fred to eat turkey and stuffing by the pool. They live near Fort Meyers, which means from New York my choices in flights ranged from ridiculously expensive to Bill-Gates-couldn't-afford-it pricing on most airlines... except for USA 3000. I figured, how bad could it be?
On Wednesday the 22nd Greg and I fought our way through the crowds to Newark airport. We got to the USA 3000 check-in desk where there were no lines. We walk up and the guy takes our licenses and searches through a printed document for our names. He can't seem to find them. We're wondering why he's not just looking us up on the computer. Another employee tells him where our names are (obviously not in alphabetical order, or I hope not for his sake). We ask if we are sitting together and he said that would be tough. Next thing we know he hands over the handwritten boarding pass you see below on what looks like yellow contsruction paper with the gate and seat assignments written in... and the seats are in fact, not together.
My first thought is that somewhere during the long trip to the airport we slipped into some kind of time-travel Star Trek wormhole that transported us back the the Pan Am era. Not so. For our first step through the security gates was this crazy machine you step into that blasts air at you to detect bomb stuff or too much perfume or something like that. In any event, it was brand new, so we obviously hadn't slipped back in time. And it wasn't the airport, Newark is actually quite nicely renovated. Apparently, it was just USA 3000... behind the times.
Other than leaving late (normal) and having a bumpy ride (weather) we made it to Fort Meyers unscathed. Thanksgiving was quiet and delicious. We feasted on more calories than we would require for the entire week. It was awesome. Sadly, now it's back to work for another month.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Attention Evil Dead Fans!!! You MUST come to New York now!
Last night I went to see Evil Dead: The Musical with a few friends from work. I haven't laughed so hard in the theater since Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane were in The Producers... and well, that was a whole different kind of funny. The Producers didn't have a "bloody splash zone." That's right, people sitting in the first two rows at Evil Dead get a complimentary poncho, and they needed it.
And now, a Best Of list about the musical:
Best new line not from one of the movies: "I bitch slapped her with my one good hand."
Best executed line from one of the movies: "This... is my BOOMSTICK!"
Best song: "What the Fuck Was That?"
Best Sam Raimi reference: "I was stuck watching Spiderman on the plane. God, how bad was the direction on that film?"
Absolute funniest scene: When all the stuff in the cabin starts rattling and the posessed wall-mounted moose (which looks like a child's stuffed animal) starts singing in a Disney-style voice, "You will join us!"
So basically, it was awesome. Even people who haven't seen any of the Evil Dead movies will find it a hilarious spoof on horror movies. And of course, even though you see each and every one of them coming, all the Ash one-liners are fantastic. I'll defintitely be going back with anyone who wants to see it.
Sorry I haven't been around lately, dear readers. Things have been quite hectic at work and my past two weekends were jam-packed with family fun. My aunt, Susan, came for a visit in New York and we had a great time together. I dragged her all over the city and wouldn't let her Marco Island behind touch the seat of a cab. We took the subway everywhere. Or we walked. I would imagine she was pretty tired when she got home and definitely relieved to have her car back.
This past weekend I was back home in Chicago for my mother's birthday. I will withhold her age as she doesn't look like it anyway so it doesn't matter one bit. At one point she said she was officially old, but I think Leah and I convinced her to put that thought off for another ten years or so. We had a very full weekend in which we saw a play, had a wonderful long birthday dinner, had some drinks, went bowling and shopped. Somewhere in between I also managed to have drinks with Rob and Nicole, and brunch with Melissa. I was a tired girl when I got home at 12:30am after my flight on Sunday night. Working till 3am the next day didn't help.
Don't worry, I'm back on track and well rested again as I write this post. Of course I face Friday and Sunday deadlines that threaten my relaxation/sleep level and my weekend, but that's what it's like right now with everyone pushing to get projects done before the holidays. My December should be wide open.
Between these two wonderful weekends I experienced a very unusual thing while I was at work. Last Wednesday, a little under an hour before I got in a construction worker fell from 19 stories up directly across the street from my office. He landed on the scaffolding below, and was pronounced dead on the scene. Out the windows in the office, I had a view of his body near the edge of the scaffolding wrapped in a white bag or tarp, with a puddle of blood spattered on the sidewalk below that had dripped down. Detectives and crime scene people were up there taking pictures, checking out the body and clearing the scene as office workers looked on. Below, the yellow crime tape only sections off the area with the blood, allowing people to pass right under the scaffolding, where the officers work above with his body. It first strikes me that it's kinda creepy that everyone walking under the scaffolding is walking directly under a dead man. Then I observe that almost no one takes notice of the pool of blood on the sidewalk. It's not a small pool. One lady followed her dog under the tape to let him take a sniff... oblivious to the substance he was sniffing, and ignoring the yellow tape. The cop standing nearby stopped her, I'm sure in a "what's wrong with you lady?" kind of way.
It occurred to me that I should take a picture. Not because I'm morbid or entirely obsessed with CSI, but to capture this moment about how life is. The day started for this man working side-by-side with his brother refacing a building. In short time his brother watched him fall to his death. As my office mates and I watched the police work, somewhere the family was in mourning, and the brother getting the name of a therapist. Meanwhile, New Yorkers go about their days. Walking directly underneath this poor man, and next to his blood on the sidewalk; thinking about being on-time to work, or late for a meeting, or on the way to an interview. Maybe looking forward to lunch with an old friend or buying a special present for an anniversary or birthday. Probably not thinking about death.
And this is how life is. One family is having the worst possible day, while another is prospering. It ebbs and flows. We never know when tomorrow could be a horrible day... or a wonderful day. Luckily the majority of them are going to be just plain old normal days.
So I did take a picture. Because I would have regretted not doing so; because this moment spoke to me like art should, but most doesn't. It is posted below (don't look if you don't want to). You'll see a small sliver of white above the Bank of America sign... that's the guy wrapped up. You'll see people paying no notice to the blood on the sidewalk; even with yellow tape, an orange cone and a cop surrounding it. Think about it and make your own conclusions about how you live your life, not that any of you are bad people (surely you aren't 'cause you must know me and therefore must be nice). But maybe think about taking an extra moment to notice a pretty sunset without assuming there will be another to follow. Or telling someone how much they mean to you for no reason other than that they should know. Or don't be a jerk to strangers out in the world just because everyone else is. Okay, maybe that last one was directed at my New York-specific readers, not that any of them are actual jerks.
That's just some of the stuff this picture makes me think about. I hope to be a better person everyday because of something horrible that didn't happen to me, but merely happened around me. And that's something he left behind that he will never know. He altered my perceptions a little, and maybe yours too. Not too shabby for a guy I never met.
