Early morning, when I'm nursing my darling stillwakesupfourtimesanight angel at o'dark thirty, is prime time for my mind to wander and compose blog posts...
This morning I was thinking about pilots and coworkers and how different their relationships are from mine. I've always worked in cubicle towns, the kind where you can prairie-dog your head up and know everyone's business in your area. And you are able to develop relationships with your coworkers whom you see nearly every day. In the mornings you can check in with Melanie about her hot date last night, chat with Mylene about her upcoming wedding, run over to Sandy to get some invaluable parenting advice, complain with Linda about our husband's foibles, or announce to the whole department "OH. MY. GOD. You won't believe what Kidzilla did yesterday." Friendships develop naturally over time and the people you don't mesh with so well, you can somewhat avoid.
A, on the other hand, has no choice about whom he is thrown into a small space with for three or four consecutive days. Could be someone great whom he gets along well with or it could be someone its a trial to work with. Usually it's someone he's never met before. With somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pilots from his airline alone based where he is, it could be months or ever years before he flies with the same guy twice. Or it could be again on the next trip. But the options to avoid the people you don't like and hang out with the people you do are limited. And when you do climb into the cockpit, its a crash course in relationship building- "we've never met, but we've got 25 hours alone together with nothing to do but yap at each other. Who's going to start?" Occasionally the together time is puctuated by the presence of the flight attendant, but for the most part its just the two of them. And its only if they happen to be in the crew room at the same time that he gets to follow up with someone he flew with previously and ask "hey, how did that thing we talked about work out?"
I'm not sure if I have the personality to put myself in that situation. Usually I'm shy, slow to warm up and private- traits not really conductive to quick relationship building. Luckily A is not- he's outgoing, the life of the party and can talk to anyone about anything. He could give a one hour discourse on flat paint vs eggshell vs gloss when painting a dresser. Or one on obscure pop hits of the 80's. Or evaluate your cell phone plan and recommend a new one. Or anything else that might come up. Sometimes I have to remind him to engage the "see it, think it, say it" filter when I need a bit of peace from his can't-stand-the-silence chatter. But these traits probably work to his favor in the relationship building area and as a pilot in particular. It's nice to think of something that A does that occasionally annoys the the heck out of me can also make his work life easier for him.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
FIVE years of blogging happiness!
There are years that ask questions and there are years that answer.
Today marks five years of blogging. I am amazed that I have managed to find enough to stay to keep going for this long. I am the girl who cringes at any sort of journaling task in school. I never anticipated it, but this blog has seen me through so many ups and downs- my first post was when A was still instructing at a local flight school. Eventually he got hired (!) by a regional and just when we thought we were settling into life he was diagnosed with cancerr. We made it through treatment and settled into the waiting period. A was contracting back at the flight school and I was trying not to wallow in misery. It was about this time that I wrote some of my most raw and bitter posts. But we made it through. A stood by my side when I announced that I was going to relocate our family to attend graduate school. I started looking into research on pilot wives and wrote my most popular post ever. I approached our Critical Incident Response Program Committee about putting together a resource for wives about their roles in an emergency situation which they were very excited about but eventually dropped the ball on. Things finally turned around for us and after three years of infertility, I finally got pregnant. A was finally able to return to work after two and a half years off. I graduated with a Master's degree. Today, we've settled into the routine of him working again, my managing two children and our life seems pretty stable for now. The initial quote was given to me by another pilot wife friend when I was in a time of need. It's always been a hopeful reminder to me when times are rough and I hope that now we are in a year of answers.
You have to keep going within yourself to find your own truth. If you don't keep discovering new truth, you'll just be rehashing and no one will want to listen to you.
When I first started this blog, I couldn't find any other blogs about being a pilot wife and it was difficult to find a network of friends. Through the past years, I seen some friends come and go as they took up with blogging and eventually found life leading them down other roads and blogging less- Emma, Nicole, FH and Global Gal are a few. I gradually changed my focus from all about aviation to more general things about my life. I guess I came to a point when I finally got out everything I needed to say about the lifestyle that had been bottled up. Joanna has taken up the reigns on that topic. But I still do try to write about things that come up, because they are frequent. And now there are tons of other pilot wife bloggers out there- some I follow and others I just know about. Most of the people who read my blog are people I DON'T know, which is an interesting feeling for me. If I can help one person make it through a rough patch, then it's been worth it.
Just as I didn't know what lay in store for us five years ago, I don't know what might come up in the next five years for us. I hope that the journey is good, with more ups than downs and that I can handle it all gracefully. That's all I can really ask for in life.
Along with some recognition for a job well done- so leave me a congratulations on putting it all out there for the last five years comment and provide me with the inspiration to keep on keeping on.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Hurricane effects
Friday morning the hurricane past us off the coast of northern Florida. When I went outside in the morning, it was bright blue out with some high clouds. It was neat to see the clouds because if you followed them for their length, you could see that they were in a swirly, rotational pattern due to the hurricane action. 10 miles away the clouds over the beach were dark and nasty. By the time I got back from dropping the boys at their schools, it had cleared and during the day, we got nothing more than some overcast weather- no rain and very little wind.
A had to head to work on Friday. He made it up there and his trips were all in the midwest so he didn't have to fly through nasty weather. But he was still effected. The insurance companies that cover the airlines don't really want to have to replace millions of dollars of equipment due to hurricane damage, so they make the airlines relocate all of the planes out of harms way. *Several times when A was an instructor and bad weather was coming, the flight instructors had to move all the company planes away from the Florida coast locations. The usual spot was Dothan, Alabama. Who knows why. Several times we heard stories from the large group of instructors stuck there with nothing to do but wait out the hurricane at a bar and the giant party it became. Having passed through the bucolic town of Dothan, which appeared to be nothing more than a giant highway truck stop full of strip malls and fast food restaurants (a friend of mine from Dothan later confirmed that yes, that really was all there is to the town...) I can see why the bar was the popular attraction. *
So anyhoo, A's company had to move it's masses of planes away from their east coast base and relocate them in Tennessee and Texas to wait out the storm. And then had to put up the flight crews who had to fly those planes in hotels. A had one overnight canceled and ended up staying in Texas with hundreds of other company pilots who were stranded. Every time I talked to him, it sounded like a party- We're going to the pool, we're going to a restaurant, oh hey, so and so showed up here too. Sounded (insert sarcasm here) like they were all trying to make the best of the situation. I hope he was able to enjoy it though because the payback is going to be a bitch.
The trade off is that A had his day off rolled and now has to ferry a plane back to Newark before he can come home. And he's due in 3 minutes AFTER a flight for home leaves. If it's not completely oversold with stranded passengers and other jumpseaters. The airport is going to be a mess today with all of the different airlines trying to get their planes back into position and getting all the passengers from the 18,000 canceled flights to their eventual destinations. I don't think I envy either A or the airlines trying to get this all straightened out.
A had to head to work on Friday. He made it up there and his trips were all in the midwest so he didn't have to fly through nasty weather. But he was still effected. The insurance companies that cover the airlines don't really want to have to replace millions of dollars of equipment due to hurricane damage, so they make the airlines relocate all of the planes out of harms way. *Several times when A was an instructor and bad weather was coming, the flight instructors had to move all the company planes away from the Florida coast locations. The usual spot was Dothan, Alabama. Who knows why. Several times we heard stories from the large group of instructors stuck there with nothing to do but wait out the hurricane at a bar and the giant party it became. Having passed through the bucolic town of Dothan, which appeared to be nothing more than a giant highway truck stop full of strip malls and fast food restaurants (a friend of mine from Dothan later confirmed that yes, that really was all there is to the town...) I can see why the bar was the popular attraction. *
So anyhoo, A's company had to move it's masses of planes away from their east coast base and relocate them in Tennessee and Texas to wait out the storm. And then had to put up the flight crews who had to fly those planes in hotels. A had one overnight canceled and ended up staying in Texas with hundreds of other company pilots who were stranded. Every time I talked to him, it sounded like a party- We're going to the pool, we're going to a restaurant, oh hey, so and so showed up here too. Sounded (insert sarcasm here) like they were all trying to make the best of the situation. I hope he was able to enjoy it though because the payback is going to be a bitch.
The trade off is that A had his day off rolled and now has to ferry a plane back to Newark before he can come home. And he's due in 3 minutes AFTER a flight for home leaves. If it's not completely oversold with stranded passengers and other jumpseaters. The airport is going to be a mess today with all of the different airlines trying to get their planes back into position and getting all the passengers from the 18,000 canceled flights to their eventual destinations. I don't think I envy either A or the airlines trying to get this all straightened out.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Jack of all trades, Master of one...
to this
I did it! I completed my Masters degree. The whole family traveled this journey with me and we've all not only learned new things but each has graduated to a new phase while I was in school. I could not have done it if we hadn't worked together as a family. While I was standing amid the 1200 other graduates during the processional, I got teary eyed as I thought about how for eight years I thought I wasn't smart enough for graduate school, how I thought I couldn't do it because A might not be there to help me and what would I do if I got pregnant during school and yet there I was- graduating.
Let my achievement be an inspiration and a catalyst for your own. You CAN take huge steps and follow your own dreams even if your spouse isn't there full time to help. The emotional support that they can provide is just as important as the physical help they might not be able to.
I did it! I completed my Masters degree. The whole family traveled this journey with me and we've all not only learned new things but each has graduated to a new phase while I was in school. I could not have done it if we hadn't worked together as a family. While I was standing amid the 1200 other graduates during the processional, I got teary eyed as I thought about how for eight years I thought I wasn't smart enough for graduate school, how I thought I couldn't do it because A might not be there to help me and what would I do if I got pregnant during school and yet there I was- graduating.
Let my achievement be an inspiration and a catalyst for your own. You CAN take huge steps and follow your own dreams even if your spouse isn't there full time to help. The emotional support that they can provide is just as important as the physical help they might not be able to.
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