How to get out of working the holidays when you have low seniority

Fall while playing with your kid and break your elbow.

Yep, A was outside doing dad things with Kidzilla when he fell and broke his elbow. He saw the specialist today and was given a 4 week reprieve from work. It could have been much worse, this break didn't require pins or an actual cast- just a splint and a sling.

It's a heck of a length to go to to get the holidays off, but it seems to have worked.

What I give thanks for

Happy Thanksgiving!

For those of us who, like me, who are spending it away from our partners, I feel for you. Hopefully you've found some replacement family or friends to keep you occupied on one of the biggest family holidays. I'll be spending the day with friends, while A spends it on a long overnight in Tucson, AZ.

This year, I'm thankful for a lot of things:

• My son and his omnipresent love for life and his Mama.
• My husband and his ever tolerant love of me depsite some of my more charming flaws, my compulsion to air our dirty laundry online, and for humoring me about my crush on "the landscaper dad" at Kidzilla's school (affectionally known as "Someday's back-up plan").
• That I was the one who was able to help my husband attain his dream job. Seeing the light in his eyes when he talks about flying and knowing the gratitude he feels to me for all of the encouragement and sacrifice makes it all worth it.
• That my parents are alive, healthy and live on the other side of the U.S. from us.
• That we have shelter and food, b/c there have been times that I felt like we were on the verge of losing one or the other.
• For all my friends (virtual and real life) who have helped me through the last few years of my life by giving me encouragement and/or advice, lending an ear and sometimes just saying "I hear ya Sister".

All about time

been meaning to write this for a while, but have been super busy at work, my prime writing time, and compulsively watching Sex and the City series DVD's at home

Sometimes I feel like our life is ruled by time. It's an all encompassing master. And sometimes the master orders me and A to be on different times. Which can be hard to reconcile.

We live in different time zones. 4 hours apart. When I want to call him, I have to stop and think about how early it is there (b/c hey, despite what crew scheduling thinks, no one appreciates a 4am call). When he gets in from his last flight, he has to stop and think what time it is here before he calls to tell me he's done and safe. He spends most of his time in the Pacific and Mountain time zones here, which makes it easy for him to adjust when he's flying on trips and is in a different place every night. It makes it hard though, when he comes home to the east coast. He wants me to stay up with him, but I'm tired and have to work in the morning. I want him to wake up and go to breakfast on Saturday, but it's 3 hours earlier than he is used to. It has caused a lot of arguments for us, but once I stopped taking his tiredness personally, it's getting better.

I have no idea what A does with his time. Sometimes he doesn't know either. I know what I would LIKE him to be doing with his time (mostly paying bills, looking for a new crashpad or base trade, doing his prm's and finding new routes home), but I can only make suggestions. It frustrates me when I hear that he and the CA went out and did XYZ, but that he hasn't had time to do what I asked him to take care of. From here, it SEEMS like he has plenty of time to be taking care of small thing while he's on the road. I can't say that time management has ever been his strong point though, that's always been relegated to me. But we're working on it.

A gets a lot more days off than I do. It's hard not to be jealous. When he's home from a trip, he wants to be off duty, with no responsibilities. BUT when he's home, I want help with MY responsibilities. It's a fine line to walk. Is it fair for him to not have to do anything because he's "off"? I don't ever get a chance to be off, especially not for a few days weekly. I consider his time away from us as his time off from having childcare and housekeeping responsibilities. So when he comes home, he's on again. Because that's when I MIGHT get my time off. It is frustrating to no end to have things that I need/want him to take care of on his days off and have him not do it. Some girlfriend long ago must have told him that his helplessness was cute, but it just doesn't fly with me.

Spending time apart doesn't faze us much. Today A is starting another 4 day trip. He didn't have enough time to come home after his last one (damn CAL employees hogging all the seats on their own flights!) so he's in the middle of a 11 day stretch gone. I'm looking forward to having him home again next week, but all the same, it's not that big of a deal to me. I was commended this morning (by A) for the feigned enthusiasm in my voice telling him how much I missed him. "Why of course I miss you baby, I'm counting the minutes until you are home again!". It's disappointing to have 4 days off work and not be able to spend them with him, but missing the actually holiday isn't that big of a deal.

In less than 2 weeks is our anniversary- 3 years together and 1 year married. The time is flying and I can't believe everything we've been through. It's hard to say which was harder, year #2- when we moved to FL and tackled school and instructing or year #3 when we took on getting hired, training and early life with a regional. Both have had their challenges but also their sweet moments as well. Hopefully the next year will being many more good times.

Happy 100th post!

Wow, I never thought I'd manage to keep going long enough to make 100 posts. It's all the great friends and readers I have who keep me going. We're all in this together!

In order to keep it celebratory, here's a little something I found on another site (original thread here).

I Wanna Be a RJ Driver
**To the tune of Rockstar by Nickelback**

I'm through with waiting in line to take off runway ten
Sitting next to a student that stinks like gin
This job hasn't turned out quite the way I want it to be

I want a brand new jet that I can learn in the sim
And a crashpad I can play Tetris in
And a king size case that'll carry all my charts for me

I'll need a Sallie Mae loan that's got no limit
And a nine leg day with no lunch break in it
Gonna raid the galley cart so I can just get some food in me

I want a dark crew bus with no suspension
Ride with a dozen other pilots who don't have pensions
To some cheap hotel where the mattress smells like pee

I'm gonna trade this life for flying a plane
Might even wear sunglasses and frost my mane

Cuz we all just wanna be airline stars
Live in slum flop houses driving old junk cars
The girls run screaming but my callsign's sweet
We'll all stay skinny cuz we just can't eat

And we'll get kicked out of the hotel bar
Eating ramen bricks and a candy bar
Every flight attendant's gonna think I'm square
Every Ipod wearer with the frost-tipped hair

Hey hey I wanna fly an RJ
Hey hey I wanna fly an RJ

I wanna bid each month and try to hold a line
Get stuck on reserve every single time
Commute 19 hours so I can live with my parents for free

I'm gonna dress up in the latest Sporty's fashion
I'm running low on socks so I'd better ration
Gonna work on holidays and never have a weekend free

I'm gonna trade this life for flying a plane
Might even wear sunglasses and frost my mane

Cuz we all just wanna be airline stars
Live in slum flop houses driving old junk cars
The girls run screaming but my callsign's sweet
We'll all stay skinny cuz we just can't eat

And we'll get kicked out of the hotel bar
Eating ramen bricks and a candy bar
Every flight attendant's gonna think I'm square
Every Ipod wearer with the frost-tipped hair

And we'll hide out from the FAA
With the latest regulations and a 110A
They'll take away your cert with that evil smile
Everybody's got an ALPA rep on speed dial

Hey hey I wanna fly an RJ

Gonna shoot an ILS and pray for FD capture
Gonna get bent over by some dispatcher
Get stuck in an arrival sequence 12 planes long
Let the autopilot fly so I don't get it wrong

Cuz we all just wanna be airline stars
Live in slum flop houses driving old junk cars
The girls run screaming but my callsign's sweet
We'll all stay skinny cuz we just can't eat

And we'll get kicked out of the hotel bar
Eating ramen bricks and a candy bar
Every flight attendant's gonna think I'm square
Every Ipod wearer with the frost-tipped hair

And we'll hide out from the FAA
With the latest regulations and a 110A
They'll take away your cert with that evil smile
Everybody's got an ALPA rep on speed dial

Hey hey I wanna fly an RJ
Hey hey I wanna fly an RJ
----------------------------------------

Bad things come in threes... or fours...or fives

I hate being the drama queen, I really do. but it seems like over the last 8 weeks we've had more than our fair share.

• A kid on a bike ran into A's car while he was at his crashpad. The kid got a ticket.
• I totalled not one, but two cell phones in a matter of days.
• A's plane mishap
• I got into a fender bender with Kidzilla in the car because the lady in the lane next to me (going the same direction as me) decides to make a left turn from the right lane. She got the ticket but I've got to get the car fixed.

Hopefully some good karma will kick in for the holidays.

And I did find the one bad thing about A being off reserve and holding a line- he's no longer available by phone 24/7. When he was on reserve he rarely actually flew so I could call him at any time of day. Now that he's actually flying, I have to wait for him to land and get back to me. But I guess I can live with that.

Sometimes it's easier not to know

A made it home last night and is fine. He's already past the incident, while I'm still working through it. It's been so nice to have other wives to talk to. From the moment I first heard from A, my mental Rolodex started spinning through who I could contact for support.

It's really difficult to be on the receiving end of the knowledge, knowing only what you are told and being unable to ask any follow up questions. Every time we would talk, A would give me some new piece of information (only part of which I would understand as my knowledge of aviation and jet systems is limited) or tell me what was going to happen next and I'd ask "well what about this?" or "did you ask this?" inevitably he wouldn't know. What the next step was going to be changed every time I spoke with him. For a control freak such as myself, it was torture.

It brought up something that had been in the back of my mind since we started commercial aviation- who notifies the family if something goes wrong? I know that in the case of an accident it will be splashed all over the news before I am ever notified; news crews don't give a rat's ass about compassion for the victim's families. But who's job is it to make the official notification- the company or the union? And when? And how? Would I just receive a phone call and that was it? Would I be lumped in with the victim's families when they would probably be blaming the pilot for the incident? What if it wasn't an accident, but he had to be hospitalized and couldn't contact me? Would they contact me then? What is the notification threshold? Would I be flown out to be with him or would that be my responsibility? If, say, I couldn't get in touch with my husband for several hours after he was supposed to have landed is there a number I can call to find out if something happened to him? All I know now is that they have my "emergency contact information" (ie phone number). I have visions of being off on a day trip to the beach with a terrible message waiting for me on the home answering machine, not knowing because no one bothered to call my cell phone.... It would be nice if the company could put out a brochure for families about procedures in this type of situation.

I'm still suprised that we've already had an incident but according to A, I shouldn't be. With the frequency of flying that they do, it's bound to happen sooner or later. And then he regales me with stories of what's happened to other people he knows and I kindly tell him that it's better if I don't know these things.

He's home for a few days now before he heads out to rondeveau with his metal mistress at the end of the week again.

When the unexpected happens

A called me this afternoon. They had to make an emergency landing on a flight he was crewing due to mechanical issues. He's fine, but does need to go to the hospital to get checked out due to overpressurization of the cabin. The crew had to be removed from the rest of their trips.

This is not a situation I thought I would be in after only 7 months on the job. I only know what he tells me, he doesn't have a lot of information. I wonder if he's withholding to try to keep me from worrying. It's killing me not to be there to find out first hand what's going on. It's hard to have whispered conversations with A and with my friends in the medical and aviation communities trying to keep any note of concern or upset out of my voice for the sake of our son. Trying to explain to our son why I am agitated and no, for god's sake you can not have another cookie right now so stop asking me.

I trust that everything will be all right. I have to because I don't want think about what could have been. I am in awe that he will be able to turn around and come home via airplane. If it were me, I'd opt for Amtrak. I guess he doesn't have a choice thought, the sky is his home. But for today, I'm happy his feet are on the ground.