the travel gods hate me

regular readers of JMWT (kinda like WWJD, but very, very different) know that i heart travel. travel! yay! if i could make travel my boyfriend i kinda might. what with the broadening of horizons, the experience of different cultures, the tasting of different foods, the fumbling over exotic languages, the fascinating grocery stores of other countries, the frequent flyer miles, the experincing of life in a different city/country, etc etc etc... travel and i are totally BFF.

but i think it's fair to say that during this week's business trip to germany, travel got the last laugh. it punched me in the gut, knocked me down, stomped on my face, did a tarantella on my smushed body, [insert hyperbole here]. part of me thinks i i had it coming, when you consider that the fact that i was going to fly for about 24 total hours for a meeting that would last about 6-7 hours at most (yes, "a" meeting, as in ONE SINGULAR MEETING for which i would be flying halfway around the world. the craziness, o how it boggles the mind).

it all started off so normally. roll to my beloved austin airport (beloved because of the ease of travel there), get some breakfast tacos, settle down with a newspaper while i waited for my flight. and then i found out that our flight to newark was delayed because of weather. and that said delay would cause me to miss my connection to munich. fun! much scrambling ensued, many telephone calls were made, many pleas were made with the (very lovely) continental desk staff (who could only do so much because my connection was on a different carrier). i ended up touching down in newark, bolting out the front door to a waiting car service, gunning it to JFK in a very comfy mercedes (whilst talking up the very nice polish driver -- we talked about pets, i think, and casual drug usage amongst his passengers, and the merits of a mercedes benz versus those of a BMW), and making it to JFK in time to board my re-routed flight. this is fun! except not really!

we landed around 10:15 am munich time on wednesday (aka middle-of-the-night austin time... so much for a tuesday night's sleep), and i headed to my hotel to freshen up before the meeting.
meeting went well, yadda yadda yadda, and i finally got to head back to my hotel room to collapse for the night.

thursday morning dawned gray and chilly and i once again headed back to the munchen flughafen (or munich airport for us amurricans). go through one million security checks, etc, and eventually board the MOST UNIQUE PLANE i've ever ridden. it was an old 737, so that wasn't what was weird (although that is probably the smallest plane i've ever taken for transatlantic travel). what was interesting was that the ENTIRE PLANE was first/business class. there were only 11 rows in the entire plane, and we were all first class. i guess lufthansa/united code-share with a company called privat air (first i'd ever heard of them), and this is kind of their shtick. since it was an older 737 they didn't have private entertainment systems, so they passed out personal DVD players instead, and the headphones came with plastic-wrapped ear covers so you didn't have to inherit the mysterious ear diseases of the previous headphone user. i was sufficiently amused. i've flown international business/first before but i've never seen the efforts an airline will go to to make an older airplane feel more premium.

once i got over that part, though, i settled back into my seat for what turned out to be one of the bumpiest flights i've experienced in a long, long time. it felt like the plane was not so much a solid boeing 737 cruising through the air to shuttle its passengers back and forth between countries but actually a paper airplane that had been left to the mercy of the elements. we shuddered, we bolted, we dropped, we jerked, we did everything but fly smoothly. i'm an experienced flier and a little turbulence doesn't really faze me too much (i mean, i don't really like but what can you do) but this was more than just some average transatlantic shakes. my palms were sweating the whole time and i had to focus on breathing normally. again, fun! but not at all! my saving grace was the fact that a) they kept the wine coming and b) there were only two severly rough patches, in the first and last half of the flight. landing was interesting, it almost felt like the plane was drunkenly trying to find its way to the runway (it had good drunken aim though).

i knew i had a long layover in newark, so i ventured into the city to meet the lovely di for some pan-fried dumplings in korea town and some browsing at border's before heading back to newark to make my austin connection. but what a silly idea! why fly home when you've been awake for nearly 24 hours if you can sit in newark airport with a delay instead?! silly me. i didn't end up getting home until nearly 3 a.m. last night and am surprised that i managed to drive myself home in one piece.

and thus ends the LONGEST STORY EVER about a topic that, let's face it, isn't really all that exciting. sorry, people. it was all i had. now i'm going to disappear again to host the lovely erica and show her a rollickin' good time, austin-style.

have a good wknd!

does it count as an update if you don't write it?

if you said no, well that's just too bad, because this is all I've got:

I'm famous! on another blog!

off to Deutschland for biz tmw -- more when I'm back!

be good.

focus on the positive

as you probably guessed by the lack of updates, I have been locked away in a scary, scary place known as "work hell OMG stress stress kill self now." yesterday was one of the most infuriatingly frustrating days I've had since I started at this company nearly one year ago, and I went home feeling angry and annoyed and altogether rather dejected.

but! today is another day! and despite the fact that I still have a million changes to make to this presentation before I can send it to my client tonight, I am going to take a moment and try to improve my attitude by sharing two fantastically positive things that happened to me today:

THING #1:
the weather forecast for Austin, TX for Wednesday, 2/8/07 is sunny with a high of 77 degrees. I am currently wearing a knee-length skirt, short-sleeved sweater and light jean jacket, and almost regretted wearing the jean jacket when I walked outside to go pick up some lunch. HAHAHA SUCK IT east coast buddies. you so want to be here right now.

THING #2:
as I soaked in as much sun as possible during the brief walk over to Whole Foods, I agonized over what exorbitantly-priced lunch item I was going to buy today. gourmet sandwich? salad? sushi? a hot bar selection? chowder? what? I ended up going to the Asian bar and getting some hot udon noodle soup with spinach and shiitake mushrooms. I headed to the check-out line, ready to fork over my Whole Paycheck for one measly lunch, and absently went through the motions of swiping my debit card, no thanks, I don't need cash back, etc. it wasn't until I was back at my desk and clearing away the remains of my lunch (verdict: acceptable enough to satisfy the Asian flavor craving--especially with a few healthy sprinkles of the spicy powdery stuff that came with it--but after a few back-to-back meals from WF everything unfortunately starts to taste the same) that I saw the receipt she had tucked into my bag and realized that my lunch had only cost me $1.35. huh?!?! I'm guessing the poor guy charged me for the extra $1.35 for shiitake mushrooms but forgot to include the actual udon price. I felt bad for about .3 seconds before I realized that they have somehow managed to wrangle about 68% of my annual wages from me... and subsequently relished in my victory.

it's all about the small things, people.

urbandictionary.com is my new BFF

the definition of "Jennifer" is as follows:

Stemmed from the name Guinevere; used to name a human of the female gender generally regarded by the public as an icon or example of independence and eloquence. Although this regal being may appear to have as much intelligence and imagination as the norm, if she was to be excavated one would discover that there is far more mystery and romance, (not being used in the sense of love and relationships, but an artful passion for life itself) to this woman than what could be learned in a life time.

"If I slaved to discover what lay beneath the deepest of oceans, I would have to search forever to reveal what lay hidden in the veils of Jennifer's soul."

what's yours?

maybe this is only funny b/c it's 10:43 pm and i'm still at the office...

...but the police officer who patrols our building just came by my office to tell me that if i'm looking for him (they offer a late-night escort to our cars if we want it), he's running to his car but will be right back and also, do i mind if he starts practicing his bagpipes? and that it's totally okay if i mind because he gets pretty loud.

HAHAHA dude. that is f'ing funny.

i told him to bagpipe his heart out and that it wouldn't bother me in the least, because i am busy paying the price for my ode to procrastination.

heh. a poem on procrastination. i'm funny.

heh. a police officer that practices his bagpipes at his side job. that's funnier.

he wins.

***OMG EDITED TO ADD THAT I CAN TOTALLY HEAR HIM AND HE IS TOTALLY BAGPIPING HIS LITTLE HEART OUT. I AM OFFICIALLY AMUSED.***

eat your heart out rachael ray

2007 is all about the personal goals, both big and small. on the culinary end of things (heh. isn't it funny that i can write that phrase with a sort-of straight face? it's so faux-serious), i already met one personal goal by successfully roasting a whole chicken and living to tell the (delicious) tale.

tonight brings us another culinary victory: cooking fish! i love eating fish, but cooking it at home has always intimidated me for some reason; perhaps it seemed too advanced for the likes of me, or something? i don't know. this weekend, however, i resolved that the million-dollar tab i rung up at the amazing central market grocery store would not be in vain: i would cook some fresh salmon, come hell or high water.

and cook some salmon i did, beyotch! i marinated it overnight in a fresh ginger-soy-brown sugar-lemon juice marinade (in a very fancy apparatus known as "glad-lock-us plastic bag-us." extremely high-end and difficult to find. you MAY get lucky at wal-mart or your local grocery store, but who knows!), and then took it out, blotted off the excess marinade, and covered it with tons of freshly-ground pepper and a little bit of coarse salt. i had some olive oil heating up in a ban on moderately high heat, and the rest was easy as pie... sear on each side for several minutes until the skin is crisp and the flesh has gone from raw-reddish to cooked-pinkish. i also put a lid on my pan at the end so that the heat would stay close and help finish the fish off, but i tend to like my fish slightly undercooked so i didn't leave the lid for on for too long.

et voila! serve with roasted asparagus and a huge glass of wine.

and then get back to f'ing work already, you freaking slacker you.

argh.

An ode to procrastination

O procrastination, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways:

You make the inevitable seem far, far away
You make me think it’s a sunny day

I get to blog instead of work
(Hmm, even that by itself is a lovely perk)

I get to stare at a big blank screen
And wonder, this life, just what does it mean?

And when reality comes crashing in
You help me block out that noisy din

Deadlines? Ha! Meetings? Please!
As if you would be worried about things like these!

“I am procrastination!” you say, with an important air,
“Try and get me past me, try if you dare!”

Indeed, I find that I’ve succumbed to your power
And find the day slipping past me, hour by hour

Has my deck been written? Have I gotten a clue?
No idea… I’ve been busy writing a rhyme or two.