Abbie's Real Life Blog

I am doing okay right now, but I am going to be a barrel full of nerves tomorrow.  Sorry for mixing my metaphors there.  I can’t think of what the real one is.  Barrel full of nerves, it’s not.  Mess of nerves?  Something like that?

Anyway, we’re flying again tomorrow, this time to Massachusetts.  Actually, we’re landing at Bradley International Airport, which is in Connecticut, and I’ve never been to Connecticut before.  I’ve added two new states to my “States I’ve Been To” list this month.  Florida was the other one.  I have been to Massachusetts twice, if you count a layover at Logan Airport, which I wouldn’t count but I also drove through a tiny corner of northwestern Massachusetts on a leaf-peeping drive through Vermont a few years ago.  This should be a much broader tour of the state.  I intend to see a good part of the Connecticut River Pioneer Valley while Tracy is on her interview, and then I intend to make her see parts of rural Connecticut on Saturday before we catch our flight.  Or maybe I’ll do the opposite of that if she’d rather spend Saturday driving by all of the Five Colleges.  I don’t know, whatever.

The flight is out around 4:40pm, and it’s out of the little terminal in St. Louis rather than the big one, so we can get there later than I usually like to get there, but Tracy can’t leave until 1pm, so I’ll be on the edge of my seat the whole drive.  I don’t know why I get so stressed about missing flights.  I’ve only ever missed one flight (not including missed connections), but my travel anxiety is upped exponentially when airplanes are involved.  I don’t envy Tracy for having to put up with me during these times.

I have been much less stressed about actually flying these days.  I do have an irrational fear of it, but I have been much less scared throughout the flights.  Maybe it’s just because we’ve been flying so often?  I don’t know.

Meanwhile, I decided to get a smartphone this week.  I even went and got one, but then I returned it because I decided that if I was going there, I might as well get what I want: an iPhone.  But they only sell that at one specific store in the area, so I have to go there after work and hope that I can pick one up.  It’s a big move, folks!  But I’m glad I decided to go for it instead of just making do with the Windows Mobile based one that I had for a couple of days this week.  Ugh, I found it so frustrating.

I decided to follow through and get a couple of books about mountaineering while I’m still fascinated by the subject, so I’m reading Touching the Void right now.  I watched the documentary a few months ago, and since then I’ve often thought about the story.  It’s probably one of the most inspirational stories I have ever heard.  But I don’t agree with the descriptive used in the book’s subtitle, miraculous.  I’m not a fan of the terms ‘miracle’ and ‘luck’ used when it comes to subjects of human heroics like this.  It takes all the credit away from the actual hero.  I know luck when I see it (I’m often a very lucky person, and I give much credit to luck for most of the great things that have happened to me in my life), but climbing down an actual mountain with a broken leg is not a matter of luck or a ‘miracle’.  I’m not saying there wasn’t luck involved, but to chalk it up entirely to luck is just wrong.

I think that words like ‘luck’ and ‘miracle’ are overused in our world, while words like ‘courage’ and ‘bravery’ are underused.  The story of Joe Simpson is nothing if not a tale of bravery rather than miracles.

Okay, I’m putting the soapbox away.

It’s going to be cold in Massachusetts.  I definitely have to bring my heavy coat. 

We fly back in the evening on Saturday.  I am hoping we land and get through baggage claim and pick up our car with enough time to swing by Trader Joe’s before they close.  I will try to pick up a Tofurky here in town, but I do love the sparkling fruit juice that they sell at Trader Joe’s.  It’s very festive.  I want a bottle or two for Thanksgiving.  Tracy is going to DC for Thanksgiving, but I’m staying in town and plan to make the Tofurky for myself to bring to my parents’ house for the big feast.  Well, maybe.  It’s an expensive item and an awful lot of work just to let non-vegetarians pick at it in the serving line.  On the other hand, it’s easier than trying to put together another vegan meatloaf, although those do tend to scare the meat-eaters away.  Maybe I could get two Tofurkys.  Tracy would certainly not argue with having one later in the holiday season.  They are so good.  (I prefer the orange juice glaze, personally.  And I never buy the ‘feast’ with the weird cranberry potato dumplings.  Not that good.  Neither is the fake gravy.  Might as well just eat the potatoes plain.)

Yay, Thanksgiving!  Then it will be my birthday.  Boo!  Boo!  Ugh, I’ve got just over a week to psych myself up for being thirty-one.  Thirtysomething.  Ugh.  Not ready for that.  Not ready.