(Round one from a year ago: On clouds and bladders)
I had no say in the matter this time.
Qantas only allows you to state whether you prefer clouds or bladders. (That is, window or aisle for those who just visited confusion.)
I'm all about the clouds. Ahem, I prefer clouds. Er, window. But, it was bladder that was assigned.
A disappointment at first, to be sure, especially when the gal who scored clouds promptly chose sleep in lieu of sprawling LA lights.
But as the flight progressed, the bladder did protest once... twice... thrice... But only mildly before the aisle seat proved it's worth and prevented mild protests from growing into full-scale rebellions.
I'm beginning to grow fond of this bladder seat. But to willingly choose bladder over clouds?
It feels like the day I started pairing my socks rather than wearing them gloriously mismatched. It feels like the day I stopped using goofy voicemail messages.
Oh wait, my name is currently recorded as "Fern, like a plant."
Fine. It feels like the gradual decrease in the goofiness of my voicemail messages.
In other words, a slow loss of a playful, impractical spirit. In other words, growing up.
That's depressing.
Where's Peter Pan when you need him? He doesn't have to choose between clouds and bladders. He can fly!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
On Socks
I'm sitting in LAX, waiting for my flight to Auckland, and all I can think about is a pair of socks. A pair of fluffy, warm socks.
Flights can be chilly. And since my feet have mimicked my personality in liking freedom and wiggle room, I kindly outfitted them with a pair of flip flops. A nice pair of cool, breezy flip flops.
And now my toes are chilly and have nowhere to hide.
I feel a bit like Arthur Dent without a towel. Samwise Gamgee without his rope. Maybe we'll visit Lothlorien (whose river scenes were filmed in Fernside, New Zealand) and Galadriel will give me a pair of socks. Magic elven socks!
Come to think of it, I don't even have real rope or a real towel. My towel is a tiny speck of quick dry REI goodness. Not a fluffy wrap yourself like a burrito towel. My rope- well, I have a twisted clothesline, sewing thread and floss.
And my socks? Stuck with my speck of a towel and rope excuses in my check-in luggage.
Oh, how I miss thee fluffy warm socks! How it won't be the same when we are reunited 13 whole hours from now! For I will have closed toed shoes then and your warming properties will no longer be needed. In fact, my feet will scorn you for the extra layer of confinement you will then provide.
But for now, and for the next thirteen hours, I and my feet will miss you.
Flights can be chilly. And since my feet have mimicked my personality in liking freedom and wiggle room, I kindly outfitted them with a pair of flip flops. A nice pair of cool, breezy flip flops.
And now my toes are chilly and have nowhere to hide.
I feel a bit like Arthur Dent without a towel. Samwise Gamgee without his rope. Maybe we'll visit Lothlorien (whose river scenes were filmed in Fernside, New Zealand) and Galadriel will give me a pair of socks. Magic elven socks!
Come to think of it, I don't even have real rope or a real towel. My towel is a tiny speck of quick dry REI goodness. Not a fluffy wrap yourself like a burrito towel. My rope- well, I have a twisted clothesline, sewing thread and floss.
And my socks? Stuck with my speck of a towel and rope excuses in my check-in luggage.
Oh, how I miss thee fluffy warm socks! How it won't be the same when we are reunited 13 whole hours from now! For I will have closed toed shoes then and your warming properties will no longer be needed. In fact, my feet will scorn you for the extra layer of confinement you will then provide.
But for now, and for the next thirteen hours, I and my feet will miss you.
Friday, September 25, 2009
On Customer Service Calls
Traveling.
It requires money.
Nowadays, that involves the use of debit and credit cards. And calling Customer Service for each card to alert them to the traveling that is about to occur.
ING Direct. They pick up immediately. They make you feel like you're chatting to an old friend on the phone. No scripts as far as I can tell. Just nice people who will sometimes ask you to take them with you in your suitcase. I'd fall over with you in my backpacking backpack, I tell them.
Citi. I'm put on hold for a while. So I fold my laundry to the sounds of a female voice intermittently reassuring me that my call is oh so very important to them but no one is available to assist poor little me. No painful elevator music at least. Finally, I'm connected to a nice man with a hint of an Indian accent who calls me ma'am at every opportunity. "Where will you be going, ma'am?" he asks. "New Zealand and Australia," ma'am replies. "Okay ma'am," he says, "Let me enter this in.... N-e-w Z-e-l-a-n-d..." Somewhere out there there's a little 'a' relishing its freedom from the eternal confines of e and l.
Capital One. There exists a script. Overused, under appreciated, without any kind of slowing of the speech to make sure the customer can understand its carefully written words. Confused, I check to make sure I'm not stuck in an oldschool TV medication commercial where warnings are delivered by a super speed reader to make sure no one notices that nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, body aches, earaches, noseaches, etc, may occur when you ingest that little pill to get rid of a sniffle. Huh, maybe the Capital One superspeed reader actually told me that they were going to slam me with fees galore and I was just too bemused to notice.
Macy's. They aren't for travel. I just wanted a discount on jeans. I'm not using the card ever again. But I still activated it. Shouldn't that be straightforward and not people involved?
Apparently not.
After some automated number punching, I'm transferred to a human who tries convincing me that I absolutely need need need this product. At least, I think it was a live human. It was a southern-sounding female voice who was clearly reading a very mundane script but trying to make it as I'M a reAL HUman, HEar my inFLECtions! as possible, in the vein of friendly prerecorded phone messages. "If you LoSe your JoB," she lilts, "You get ProTECtion!"
Yeah! Saved when I lose the real job I've never had!
"No thank you," I tell her politely. She pauses momentarily, waylaid by the unexpected interruption only to launch full speed into another reading of even more InCREdible BENeFiTs! She stops for a breath. "Uh... I'm not interested," I repeat. Apparently, she takes that as a go ahead. "AlrigHT, let's GO aHEAD and siGN you UP!" Wait. What? It speaks but it doesn't listen. "NO THANK YOU!" I say firmly but failing to keep my laughter at bay. She finally gets it. And my incredulous self is finally free to go.
It requires money.
Nowadays, that involves the use of debit and credit cards. And calling Customer Service for each card to alert them to the traveling that is about to occur.
ING Direct. They pick up immediately. They make you feel like you're chatting to an old friend on the phone. No scripts as far as I can tell. Just nice people who will sometimes ask you to take them with you in your suitcase. I'd fall over with you in my backpacking backpack, I tell them.
Citi. I'm put on hold for a while. So I fold my laundry to the sounds of a female voice intermittently reassuring me that my call is oh so very important to them but no one is available to assist poor little me. No painful elevator music at least. Finally, I'm connected to a nice man with a hint of an Indian accent who calls me ma'am at every opportunity. "Where will you be going, ma'am?" he asks. "New Zealand and Australia," ma'am replies. "Okay ma'am," he says, "Let me enter this in.... N-e-w Z-e-l-a-n-d..." Somewhere out there there's a little 'a' relishing its freedom from the eternal confines of e and l.
Capital One. There exists a script. Overused, under appreciated, without any kind of slowing of the speech to make sure the customer can understand its carefully written words. Confused, I check to make sure I'm not stuck in an oldschool TV medication commercial where warnings are delivered by a super speed reader to make sure no one notices that nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, body aches, earaches, noseaches, etc, may occur when you ingest that little pill to get rid of a sniffle. Huh, maybe the Capital One superspeed reader actually told me that they were going to slam me with fees galore and I was just too bemused to notice.
Macy's. They aren't for travel. I just wanted a discount on jeans. I'm not using the card ever again. But I still activated it. Shouldn't that be straightforward and not people involved?
Apparently not.
After some automated number punching, I'm transferred to a human who tries convincing me that I absolutely need need need this product. At least, I think it was a live human. It was a southern-sounding female voice who was clearly reading a very mundane script but trying to make it as I'M a reAL HUman, HEar my inFLECtions! as possible, in the vein of friendly prerecorded phone messages. "If you LoSe your JoB," she lilts, "You get ProTECtion!"
Yeah! Saved when I lose the real job I've never had!
"No thank you," I tell her politely. She pauses momentarily, waylaid by the unexpected interruption only to launch full speed into another reading of even more InCREdible BENeFiTs! She stops for a breath. "Uh... I'm not interested," I repeat. Apparently, she takes that as a go ahead. "AlrigHT, let's GO aHEAD and siGN you UP!" Wait. What? It speaks but it doesn't listen. "NO THANK YOU!" I say firmly but failing to keep my laughter at bay. She finally gets it. And my incredulous self is finally free to go.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
On art and traveling
I didn't realize how starved my inner art muse was until I walked into the San Diego Museum of Art today. (Resident's Free Tuesdays! Whoot!)
It's just that feeling when you look at an artwork and get flooded with excitement. (Look! Another place where Fern is like a 6 year old in a candy store!) Not to mention awe and glee and inspiration and the desire to create.
Picasso's The Frugal Repast, is one of those works. Look at those varied lines! Look at that gorgeous stylization!
(Okay, so an iPhone in low light makes for a poor image...)
Oddly, I appreciate it more because it reminds me of stylized characters in some awesome 3D animation shorts.
Dr. DeBoer talked about that in 20th Century Art once. We were looking at Matisse's The Red Studio which a lot of people in the class really liked.
But one reason for our appreciation was because it has this quirky 2D animated film vibe. It's like we're better able to appreciate past works because of a current art form that gives us vocabulary, context or something to connect with. There is so much that goes into our experience of an artwork.
Like travel. Or at least, the anticipation of travel...
Next to the exhibition of Picasso and similar artists, SDMA had a special exhibit on the art of Oceania. I'll admit, this grouping of art never grabbed my attention when we studied it in World Art. (With the exception of the slightly sacrilegious enjoyment of a Moai guy Kleenex dispenser where you pulled the Kleenex out of the Easter Island statue's nose. Teehees!)
But here's the thing. Travel makes me far more aware of everything relating to the location I'm going to. All of a sudden, my interest went into overdrive everytime I saw New Zealand or Maori on an art label. And that interest seeps into other artworks in the exhibit so that I pay closer attention to pieces I might normally breeze by.
I think traveling can be truly enriching because it helps to increase and focus my interest and curiosity in directions other than what I'm used to and constantly surrounded by.
Yay travel! Yay art!
And yay for eavesdropping in museums! As one middle aged woman said to another while passing by one piece in the Oceania exhibit: "It's a surfboard!"
Actually ma'am, it's a shield from 19th century Papua New Guinea. But I do like your humor.
Even if she was overdoing the whole bringing in our current experiences to appreciate past artwork...
It's just that feeling when you look at an artwork and get flooded with excitement. (Look! Another place where Fern is like a 6 year old in a candy store!) Not to mention awe and glee and inspiration and the desire to create.
Picasso's The Frugal Repast, is one of those works. Look at those varied lines! Look at that gorgeous stylization!
(Okay, so an iPhone in low light makes for a poor image...)
Oddly, I appreciate it more because it reminds me of stylized characters in some awesome 3D animation shorts.
Dr. DeBoer talked about that in 20th Century Art once. We were looking at Matisse's The Red Studio which a lot of people in the class really liked.
But one reason for our appreciation was because it has this quirky 2D animated film vibe. It's like we're better able to appreciate past works because of a current art form that gives us vocabulary, context or something to connect with. There is so much that goes into our experience of an artwork.
Like travel. Or at least, the anticipation of travel...
Next to the exhibition of Picasso and similar artists, SDMA had a special exhibit on the art of Oceania. I'll admit, this grouping of art never grabbed my attention when we studied it in World Art. (With the exception of the slightly sacrilegious enjoyment of a Moai guy Kleenex dispenser where you pulled the Kleenex out of the Easter Island statue's nose. Teehees!)
But here's the thing. Travel makes me far more aware of everything relating to the location I'm going to. All of a sudden, my interest went into overdrive everytime I saw New Zealand or Maori on an art label. And that interest seeps into other artworks in the exhibit so that I pay closer attention to pieces I might normally breeze by.
I think traveling can be truly enriching because it helps to increase and focus my interest and curiosity in directions other than what I'm used to and constantly surrounded by.
Yay travel! Yay art!
And yay for eavesdropping in museums! As one middle aged woman said to another while passing by one piece in the Oceania exhibit: "It's a surfboard!"
Actually ma'am, it's a shield from 19th century Papua New Guinea. But I do like your humor.
Even if she was overdoing the whole bringing in our current experiences to appreciate past artwork...
Friday, September 11, 2009
On traveling before traveling
The pure excitement on my face today would make one think I had transformed into a six year old in a feast of a candy store.
But... no.
I was in the San Diego State University library on the third floor with delectable tomes of knowledge crammed into every aisle.
The next time I decide to trot off to a foreign country, remind me to devour my local library a year in advance.
Two weeks and three days until Australia and New Zealand. (Or two weeks and five days. Oh dear, this time travel- uh, time change thing confuses me sometimes.)
Two weeks and threefourfive days til Australia and New Zealand and somehow I've ended up with
The latter group of 5 (or on the left in the picture) were the books I turned into a drooling 6 year old for. Can you tell majored in physics and art and not sociology?! Hah! Apparently REJ and the KKK robe didn't burn me out on race and identity topics as much as I thought.
I must say, out of the entire library I'm amalgamating in the living room, I'm least excited to read the guidebooks. No offense to Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Frommer's and Fodor's. (I almost wrote Frodo's there. Truly, he lives!)
It's just that—as attached to guidebooks as I am—they can be awfully boring. Lists, facts, do this, do that, or this, not that. But they don't have stories in them except for tales of wacky backpackers before me whose crazy antics I'm not nearly wild nor ThrowAllHelltotheWinds enough to imitate.
The other stuff grounds me in the places I'm going to visit, reminding me that these are countries with histories, conflicts, cultures, and real people living their every day, day-to-day, daily lives that are not "exotic" in the slightest. And isn't that what's beautiful in the end?
But... no.
I was in the San Diego State University library on the third floor with delectable tomes of knowledge crammed into every aisle.
The next time I decide to trot off to a foreign country, remind me to devour my local library a year in advance.
Two weeks and three days until Australia and New Zealand. (Or two weeks and five days. Oh dear, this time travel- uh, time change thing confuses me sometimes.)
Two weeks and threefourfive days til Australia and New Zealand and somehow I've ended up with
- 2 movies
- 4 guidebooks
- 2 traveling the world guidebooks
- 1 Lord of the Rings location guide (fangirl awake and squeal!)
- 2 CultureSmart books
- 1 art book
- 1 travel narrative
- 1 compilation of New Zealand short stories
- 5 books relating to race relations, politics, and national identity
- more on the way, how I love thee San Diego Public (and private) Libraries!
(come, drool with me.)
The latter group of 5 (or on the left in the picture) were the books I turned into a drooling 6 year old for. Can you tell majored in physics and art and not sociology?! Hah! Apparently REJ and the KKK robe didn't burn me out on race and identity topics as much as I thought.
I must say, out of the entire library I'm amalgamating in the living room, I'm least excited to read the guidebooks. No offense to Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Frommer's and Fodor's. (I almost wrote Frodo's there. Truly, he lives!)
It's just that—as attached to guidebooks as I am—they can be awfully boring. Lists, facts, do this, do that, or this, not that. But they don't have stories in them except for tales of wacky backpackers before me whose crazy antics I'm not nearly wild nor ThrowAllHelltotheWinds enough to imitate.
The other stuff grounds me in the places I'm going to visit, reminding me that these are countries with histories, conflicts, cultures, and real people living their every day, day-to-day, daily lives that are not "exotic" in the slightest. And isn't that what's beautiful in the end?
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