Keeping occupied

To keep busy and entertained this weekend, I've been watching the DVD (thanks Netflix!) of the A&E channel show Airplane. If you haven't seen it, it's a reality show based on the customer service supervisors for the Southwest Airline counters in Chicago and L.A. Basically a "what not to do when you are a passenger" or a "why working in customer service sucks". I applaud the patience of these people. A&E could have gone a lot farther with the show, to document the low pay and stresses of working in the airline industry, but Southwest probably had a hand in nipping that in the bud... Definetly a show worth watching.

Kidzilla drew a picture of us waiting for A's plane to come in at the airport. He even included the marshaller helping to guide the plane in. He's no Picasso (well, judging from the perspective of the plane, he might be...) but it's cute.

o.m.f.g.

Last week was probably one of the most difficult we have been though in quite a while. Our lives will be changed forever. And to top it off, I'm in the throes of pms.

Our cat of 7 years disappeared. This is totally unlike him. Usually he goes outside, cowers under a bush until the next time we open the front door and then runs in again. He doesn't really like other people. We let him outside on Thursday afternoon and he has since vanished. I'm crushed. He's microchipped, but so far we haven't heard anything about him. We did post a sign at our common mailbox area, but I'm not holding my breath. I just wish I knew what happened to him. And how to keep Kidzilla (who is the one who let him outside) to keep from feeling at fault.

A has been diagnosed with *something*. Dr's aren't sure that it's cancer (good chance it is though), but even if it isn't, it's a problem. Right now we are waiting for blood tests to come back. Any treatment will mean he'll have to stop flying and give up his medical for a while. Right now I'm wading through our Loss of License and Disability insurances to get a handle on things. This is obviously not a turn we were expecting our lives to take.

Right now I'm swimming against the tide and trying to keep my head above water. A left on a trip yesterday, leaving me alone to deal with a lot of emotions and practicalities. Such is my life- people don't want to stop flying just because my cat ran away and my husband may be facing a terrible diagnosis. Keeping up normal routines is taking just enough of me to keep from obsessing though, so maybe it's not all a bad thing that life goes on.

Catching up

It's been a long, busy two weeks for us all.

• Kidzilla- lost his first two teeth, the first was swallowed while eating corn on the cob at a KFC.
• A- seamlessly went back to work, leaving me alone to fend off such ponderable questions as "Mom, when you die can I have your room?" (Where did that come from? Does Kidzilla know something I don't?)
• Someday- Took herself to court and won, mortifying and wrangling a bunch of money out of her babydaddy.

Overall, the trip to CA was good. We opted to fly on our bread and butter airline even though it meant a longer trip and more stops. But we were pretty much guaranteed seats so we took it. We accumulated nearly 8 hours of wait time in the Austin, TX airport, which was just short of a pleasure. All of our flight crews were friendly (especially after I brought some boxes of cookies on the way out). I did end up reporting one FA who was wearing Crocs with her uniform though. Aside from being a safety hazard (hmm, evacuating a flaming plane while wearing plastic shoes???), they just looked unprofessional. Am I a bitch? Maybe, but proper footwear didn't seem to be a problem for any of the other 5 FA's we had.

We came home to a mailbox stuffed with mail and to find A's new $500 headset having been left on our doorstep for 4 days by UPS. Bless my neighbors for not stealing it. Why it was not sent signature required, we'll never know.

A was able to commute up and meet us in CA for his 3 days off in between trips. The ease of commuting to the Bay Area, where we were staying brought up some discussion b/t us. My parents are moving out of their house there for 2 years and would probably be more than happy to rent it cheaply to us for the duration. The commute would be tons easier for A. Should we approach it? We decided to pass. Neither of us feels a great pull back to CA yet. We'd have to live in my parents house, unable to paint or decorate b/c they plan to move back in in 2 years. Us living there would give them less incentive to move their masses of furniture and stuff out. Plus, we run the risk of creating ongoing issues with babydaddy that we don't have living far away. And the kicker, we'd know that we would have to move again in 2 years and probably couldn't afford to stay in the area.

We are sticking with our plan to move to Houston in the spring. We've had to face that we won't be able to buy a house right away; partially due to said babydaddy being on a partially successful quest to ruin my credit. But we'll be content to rent for a year while we really take a chance to look around and see what's on the market.

We are settling back into the aviation life and having A come and go again. He just came home for a 5 day block. His holding a line was short-lived, due to line reductions and he's back to holding a relief line for February. It's a line, with designated trips still, but he won't find out when they are until very near Feb, which is a hassle. But we'll make it work. He's no longer in the bottom 10% of FO's in the company or at the base, which is good news for him. Thought to ponder for the day- why are trips usually 4 days long? Who decided that? Why can't they all be 2 day trips?

My 32nd birthday is coming up in just over a week. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad. Or how we'll be celebrating yet.