Brunette and Jet-Set

2008-12-25T16:09:00.001-05:00

The inevitable has become tangible--brunetteandjetset.com

CRAMPED..

2008-12-13T03:02:00.003-05:00

..LIKE a middle seat in row 33 of a 737. What would any self-respecting jet-setter do but to UPRADE??

That's right. I'm shedding my Blogger garbs as of Spring 2009 and headed to the www.brunetteandjetset.com. After all, isn't a .COM the ultimate upgrade? Web-wise that is.

More info coming soon. Just thought i'd give you the 411.

Peace.

-Your Brunette.

To be or not to be... grounded.

2008-12-02T02:56:00.008-05:00

Grounded. That's a verb.

To be gounded. To be prevented from flying or confined to the ground (i.e. snow, sleet, tardy flight crew, bad weather in Boston). THE (now official) RECESSION? Just sayin'.

But what's that phrase...you're a well "gounded" person? What does that mean? Does it involve snow? Obviously not, but it portrays sensibility, having one's "feet on the ground" or "sound arguements" if you will. But let's run with "feet on the ground"... (laugh laugh. okay lets move on).

If nothing else ladies and gents, these last few months of land-locked-ness has kept me literally and figuatively grounded. Reflecting without a birds-eye, cloud-latent sky that is borderline devine, inspirational-like sunrise view has not only been feasible but might have actually been fruitful. Sans fruit.

I've talked to a lot of people, and i've listened to even more. I don't have iDevice compatible head phones in my ears or luggage on my mind. I dont buy discounted SkyMiles points. (Maybe because they are quite literally worth nothing). I dont peruse travel sites. (Well, as frequently as I once did). And i've learned a little bit.

Today in my class, Phil Boas, a life-long journalist and current editor of the editorial page at theArizona Republic said to my ethics class, "I love journalism. I love journlists."

"But," said Boas, "I don't know if I will have a job tomorrow with the layoffs happening at the Arizona Republic."

Boas' speech continued, adopting inspirational as its apparent theme.

"I talked to an economist in his 60's this week and he told me that we are going to witness the worst recession over the next 6 months that we have seen in our lives," Boas said.

No newspapers in airport newstands? No "Hudson News," littered in every airport and terminal across the country?

What about the handsome CEO's with coffee that hide behind the expansive pages of The Wall Street Journal? (They can barely hide as is nowadays as papers have been reduced to smaller font and are now tabloid-style in width.)

Maybe the world we live in is changing. Gas is $1.59, Delta sends me phenomenal fares and I still wouldnt want to hop on a plane in the carpe-diem sort of way I did last year--I dont know why. Perhaps as a nation we are sobering up. Ironic, we sober up when I just turn 21.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be on a flight more than once or twice this Christmas holiday season, this is just the confessions of a grounded brunette once jet-set at 1:37 a.m.

PS Happy Belated Turkey Day. I rode horseback in my neveaux gounded style along the Suhauro Lake in northeast Arizona and the attached picture is of my brother crossing the lake in city slicker style-- courtesy of moi.

I stay fresh. Like I'm wrapped in plastic. (Continued)

2008-11-17T05:27:00.004-05:00

Okay so HERE WE GO. Your inklings were true. Instead of being jet-set or set and a jetter.. i've been neither. For the last three months i've travelled a whopping ONCE.. well, roundtrip. Heck, i'm not even a brunette anymore. Red head and jet set isn't the least bit catchy.

So what happens when the economy is in the tank, the 2008 Presidential election consumes every aspect of ones life and then there is that thing called undergraduate studies, 21st birthday and lsat prep? Spending hours on kayak.com and opening emails from Delta JUST DOESNT HAPPEN. You have to give me some credit, far more legitimate blogs took an unexplained vaca. from blogging without giving any heads-up about a lack of posts pre-Nov. 4th (i.e. --cough.cough-- potomacflacks.com).

And what, might you ask, do the jet-setters of the world do when they take a vaca.. from vacas? They marvel in the consumption of hand-made spinach & cheese ravioli, hide their gym membership card in order to pretend it's lost and say HEY, you don't need to pack a bikini in your Tumi for a Colorado trip for the encroaching (slash already present) ski season. Erroneous. I should have been filling 3-oz. bottle full of shampoo and stocking up on ziploc bags, nevermind saying to h#ll with the gym regiment.

..To Be Continued..

I stay fresh. Like I'm wrapped in plastic.

2008-11-17T04:07:00.004-05:00

Unfortunately, my blog has been anything but fresh. My sincerest, Phoenix-based apologies from both my MAC and myself.

Cronicles of Narnia.. NOT for the jet-set.

2008-08-25T03:25:00.004-04:00

Cronicles of Narnia is not for the jet-set. I know this because I watched it twice flying to the southwest and southeast and luckily for me, Delta showed it on both flights.

Brunette and Jet-Set’s Guide to Dating (as written on a layover in Hartsfield-Jackson):

There are several things to pick-apart in the airline industy. One of the most obvious: seat assignments

This is no guide to love but it’s my two-cents about how something readily available to every traveler, seating assignments, may lead you to love if not compatibility… the non-superficial kind that is.

Let’s start with a quick run-through. There are three types of traveler: the bum who picks the middle seat and then those who stake claim to the window or the aisle seats. Bum aka flying novice.. that’s the first kind of traveler. And then the rest of us savy jet-setters.. we are two. But who are these people? Are aislers more attractive than windowers? Oops… with that very statement I am guilty of perpetrating my own rule of non-superficiality. Let us refocus.
If there’s been a study that has linked personality (not looks) to seat selection, I’d like to see it.
If whether we carry a blackberry or iPhone categorizes us as a certain type of individual (and it most certainly does), why wouldn’t’ what seat we sit in tell us something about who we are as well?

It took me a few minutes on my flight from PHX to ATL (final destination: PVD) to hypothesis the aforementioned, but I think I have it. And here it is:

The window-seat-sitter.

You like your privacy or have a strong bladder. You’re a dreamer, or you’re an observer of scenery.. and in this case, clouds and tiny cars that look like they belong on the boardgame LIFE. Maybe you like that two inches of extra space you have between the window and your armrest. You might even just use the window as a stand-in shoulder on which to sleep… a hard, plastic, germ-ridden, fingerprint-laden shoulder at that. Perhaps, a little bit of all of the aforementioned. Or maybe it was between the middle seat and the window… and you chose the window. Good call.

The aisle-seat-enthusiast.

You don’t mind getting up to let the window seat sitter in because you think you have claim to the best seat in the entire row. How arrogant. But you probably are. And you probably feel like you’ll get off the plane faster than window-seat picker in your aisle. By 2 seconds, but still. You’re are a social butterfly who doesn’t mind having a neighbor to their left, one foot to thier right, and several neighbors at their diaganols. Maybe you fidget, maybe, you drink a half a can of soda and you have the guts to use the airplane restroom (and that’s gutsy). If it’s not one of the above than you are a window-seat-sitter who doesn’t want to sit in the middle. Good call.

The Bum. AKA the man or woman in the middle seat.

There is a reason first and business classes have eliminated the middle seat. It’s for the un-travelled. In my opinion: the bums. There are few "bums" in business class and in my opinion, it would practically be a financially liabilitiy to offer a middle seat in anything but coach because what flying veteran would pick a middle-seat? And what CEO or “miles by the million rewards program whore” wouldn’t be a flying veteran? I have a point.. and you know it.

Maybe you want to de-plane quicker and brave a middle seat. I hope you enjoy those 10 minutes of being off the plane quicker because you just spent 4+ hours sandwiched between two people who overlap on the armrests to your left and right. Faulty logic.

I’ll cut you some slack. Maybe you are married. Maybe you want to sit next to your husband or wife and decide to brave the middle seat. Well, good for you.. but I would say adieu to my spouse past the gate and sit in a different row over choosing the middle seat… honeymoon flight to Europe or not.

Last but not least, maybe you were too lazy to check-in for your flight in the first 22 hrs Delta gave you to, or look at your pre-assigned seatting assignment. And for that, you are a bum.

As you can tell, the type of character that a middle-seat sitter exhibits is not that of a worldy travel (perhaps the very opposite) and hence, not for the jet-set. All middle seat sitters are henceforth eliminated as this brunette’s future husbands.

CONCLUSION: Seat assignments may be a portal to compatability, or at the very least, narrow down a plane of 100 bachelors down to 50.

Until next time,

A window seat sitter.

An Off-Day at the Airport

2008-08-04T16:23:00.003-04:00

I've gone from glam to ham. Label-buying madam(oiselle) to a traveler sans harpers bazarr or a fully-charged cam. And frankly my dear, I don't give a da#n. Thank you Clark Gable.. because that felt good.

I haven't exactly traded Manolo's for Crocs, nor will I ever, but I wonder.. is it possible that an unperfect vaca. can be.. more perfect?

If you grab the middle seat to sit in row 9 rather than 24, waste 1200+ calories on a dissapointing bag of generic pretzels only to find the "Hudson News" store near year gate sells Shneiders.. does your trip's ranking suffer? Does "sh*t hit the fan" when you wear an outfit twice, wander around in a parking lot looking for your car after a flight.. in the WRONG terminal, or go watch a stream instead in the Colorado Rockies instead of white water raft? If the air conditioning in your hotel room doesn't get to an even 63 degrees or even below 90 should you vow to never again travel between june and august? Does it matter if a couple of drunktards are sitting next to you at a sports bar if your baseball team pulls off the come from behind win after the 7th inning stretch (all hail quickly approaching October postseason)?? My verdict: NO.

Experiences are just that. Vaca's wouldnt be memorable if everything went according to plan or if you are left with a clean pair of socks on the last day of your trip. By no means am I suggesting having luggage dissapear or flight delayed* (see note below) is enjoyable. I am merely suggesting that spontinuity may infact breed creativity and increased memorability. It certainly makes for good story-telling.

So are you really looking for R&R if you fly? No--don't kid yourself. You my friend, as well as I, know that out of everyone on that 200+ passenger airline you will be seated next to the one person who drools or invades your armrest. It's not pesimism, it's the truth. You will step onto an airport shuttle and be left in a parking lot because the driver is done with his shift at midnight... awesome. The aforementioned hypothetical situation is infact personal experience.

If you havent already guessed, I love flying. I have a deep love for the finer things in life like... rating the skill of pilots of landing aircraft, text message AFTER the cabin door has been secured and the plane has pulling away from the gate, and feeling a sense of risk when I stuff my New York Times in the seat-back-pocket infront of me instead of hand it to the stewardess. Along with tuna steaks at nice restauraunts, grey goose "a la rocks," and size 0 BlackWatch plaid dresses for Fall '08 and Brooks Brothers pencil skirts ---- of course.

Question: Is eye cream a liquid, aresol or gel? How about eye serum? I frequently feel insecure thanks to homeland secutity about my inability to determin the state of, or classification of, my carrying items.

Fact: SkyHarbor airport, along with having ownership of the most poorly planned inter-terminal system, now asks: "May I ask why you are going to [insert destination]" at the security checkpoint. Next time my response will be "to party like a rockstar" or various other song lyrics. Creativity to ensue.

*Is it just me or are flights arriving not late or on-time, but early??? I blame airlines need for increased efficiency in a unkind economy and the cut back of routes, but then again that is just not a sufficient explanation for nearly all of my flights in the last year having been premature to the printed time of "deplaning". I am hereby sentencing myself to karma by saying this but.. I find it almost equally annoying, especially when trying to coordinate with ground transportation.

2008-07-08T23:40:00.002-04:00

As if we haven't heard it before, Swiss travel company Kuoni Reisen Holding AG reiterated to Bloomberg's Geneva bureau reporter, Thomas Mulier, that with the airline industry predictably having losses greater than $6.1 billion by the end of the 2008 year, incentives to travel and "fly-for-free opportunities" will become a thing of the past. Read the whole article here.

Looks like I can add another reason as to why i'd like to live in the 1960s, just below marrying Wally Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver.

Coveted companion pass that I, and many young travelers my age were not lucky enough to reach... Restez en Paix.

Verdict: Pale WAS the New Tan.

2008-06-24T20:06:00.022-04:00

Comrades..I'm a little upset. Disappointed, baffled.. call it what you will. And no this post doesn't pertain to check-luggage fees or minimum stay requirements newly imposed by United. I wholeheartedly despise United (and US Airways for that matter), why make them the topic of a post? Good.. let's move on.

I don't profess to be a health expert, infact, my ideal diet consists of a limited assemblage of food including Starbucks drinks, one variety of seafood (dear tuna I love thee--please never become extinct errrr over-fished), mass quantities of granola and Luna bars (180 calories of... amazing).

But enough about my diet. This post is more specifically about vitamins.. those annoying things dietitians, health professionals and boxes of General Mills cereal make sure you know about. First of all, I don't like that I can't see them. It's like Splenda.. I know there are cancerous particles floating around in it's chloro-carbon composition.. BUT I CANT SEE IT.. and it still tastes great in tea, scratch that, on everything. Or Smart water... you can pay an extra 20 cents for electrolyte-spiked H20 and yet YOU CANT SEE ELECTROLYTES. What the heck does an electrolyte look like? Perhaps I'll Google that one later, but as a side note I do hope scientists are not avid travelers in the regard that they are not reading this blog, or post, and thinking to themselves.. "Retard on wheels, you can't touch an ion like an electrolyte." Regardless, I want to see them. I want to know my extra 20 cents is as meaningful as an extra hundred dollars to upgrade from coach to business class. I can see an extra foot of legroom, I want to (by golly) see electrolytes. It is almost enough to make one switch to some bland bottled beverage like Dasani before saying wait... where the HAY does that water come from? Myself, I have an ingrained image in my head of a couple of guys filling bottles of Dasani from a stream.. a stream that people urinate it. It's disturbing; I buy Fiji.

Vitamins.. ahh yes. Well, like many of you comrades, I have over the last few months built an impressive collection of sunscreens. SPF's ranging from 15 to 45, everything from sprays to lotions, brands like Aveeno to Banana Boat. I was a specimen of pale skin. My father remarked.. what are you Irish? The truck driver who hauled my car cross-country pulled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo-latent arm to say, "Hey, I'm in a truck all day and I'm more tan than you." Perfect.

I was made to believe by health reports, magazines, anti-aging serums and Vogue itself that sun-exposure would lead to melanoma, skin cancer and premature aging. Comrades... I was tricked. Perhaps not but I felt like an aristocrat whose pale skin was equal to success, something that (in a few years) would be coveted by those tan colleagues of mine who didn't care enough to listen. Now.. I am a serf. I am pale and most recently, I have a lot of catching-up to do. In a study (and subsequent press releases) published by the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) their conclusive research determined that deficiencies in Vitamin D (most commonly acquired from sun exposure) lead to an increased risk of death. Read the full release here: click me :) or else.

Not only am I NOT tan, but I am on my death bed. Well.. not quite. What I do know is that it looks like I'll be at the pool ten-times as much as before. Floating, soaking in sun, getting tan and hey, living longer!

Say adieu to your SPF 45 and hit the pool (unless you live somewhere cold, at which case, I suggest you move).

Lots of love,

your soon to be bronze blogger.

Do it for Todd English

2008-02-26T20:01:00.005-05:00

Appalling, I know. My readers I apologize for the long gap between posts in which I wet your taste buds for JUICY details of my last-minute jet-set from Atlanta to Phoenix. Forgive me, but as I sit here, my teal diane von furstenberg luggage beckons to be unpacked (which it has not been for over 2 weeks). So bare with me.. I will spill the details my lavish travels, share some insight, and rant on the spring break which has so tempted me and yet sits a conservative two weeks away.

Yes. It's all true. I danced alongside Hugh Hefner. Toasted my sprite and vodka (appalling and I know but it later went downhill with two shots of cirac) with Hugh's girlfriend (1 of 3) Kendra, snapped shots of Audrina and Lauren Conrad, while taking a fabulous picture with the adorable Kevin Connolley on Entourage (I'll admit Ive never watched the show- I can here you gasp), was close enough to D-list celebrities (and confident enough) to turn down their advances AND superbowl box seats I may add. I must have had four or five older men tug on my shoulder or whisper asides in my ear.. it felt like walking in a jungle, one stocked with Playboy bunnies and.. free alcohol. Oh well, at least each of the eligible (or married haha) bachelors coughed up three-grand a ticket to be in my (alright, playmates) presence. At least they had errrr large incomes right? My justification exactly.

Thats not all. I was asked if I was famous (should I have mentioned my blog?!), offered vip tickets to clubs, shauffered around in a sleek limo and in and out of starbucks, and meanwhile bumped into Michael Pittman at Scottsdale Fashion square. Conclusion: the desert is great, scottsdale = even better.

I heard a news broadcast on E! that said.. there are a new breed of people, those who are on the runway preparing for takeoff before the first kickoff. I fastened my seatbelt and looked out my window out at the beautifully sun-bleached runway in Phoenix. Right so far I thought. The broadcast continued.. "they fiddle with their blackberries and say to each other.. see you in Tampa! (for those of my readers who are unaware.. the next super bowl will be held in Tampa.. so overdone in my opinion but regardless)" I laughed to myself.. sounds like someone I know.

So back to the title of this blog. That afternoon as the sun set I ate a delish' shrimp, olive and feta salad as part of Todd English's designer-inspired meals available for purchase on all of Delta's transcontinental flights as of August 2007 (have they redeemed themselves as an airline.. maybe, but lets hold off on the praise) and sailed across the navy blue sky while the patriots lost. I also purchased a bag of peanut m&m's which tasted surprisingly like.. peanut m&m's. I recommend splurging and paying the 9 dollars for the salad.. im still working off those 3 dollar m&ms at the gym. Busting my butt for.. spring break.

Stay tuned for a new post about spring break, perhaps when I don't have two hours left before the gym closes! Until then, happy workout :)

Is the plural of Cactus..Cacti or Cactus or Cactuses?

2008-01-30T23:06:00.000-05:00

My friends, (In the overused words of John McCain--this is in absolutely NO way an endorsement of Mr. McCain, but instead quite the contrary. I am merely starting my blog with a politics appropriate introduction as we find ourselves in the trenches of a heated election). Where were we? My friends, if ever before you doubted the greatness that was travel, then undoubtubly you picked up the New York Times a few days ago and immediately bought a purchased a ticket somewhere. And just incase you DIDN'T read the article that truely resonated with me.. then here it is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/business/29flier.html?scp=1&sq=matchmaker&st=nyt

And no. Don't expect a synopsis from me. Who do you expect I am? My 20th century intellectual history of modern imperialism teacher? Certainly not. I have luggage to pack and email to check, so read the article as the intellectual you are and trust me, it will truely enlighten you to what I have always insisted were the "secondary benefits of travel." And I mean to say beyond the cost of expensive eye creams and tumi lugguge to support your travel lifestyle and dark circles under your eyes from catching early flight..

..Now my readers, speaking of early flights.. I will be jet-setting (on a 6am flight--brutal) away from unseasonably cold weather and into Sky Harbor (for my non-seasoned travelers or perhaps east coast adoring public.. thats the air hub in Phoenix, Arizona).. to relish in superbowl-mayhem. Alas, not to attend the Super Bowl, but what else but take advantage of.. the parties! Lavish.

Being around hustle and bustle is exciting, and my travel tip of the day/week/month to you is this... (prepare yourself for overwhelming dose of optomism):

We travel with not only a destination but a purpose. Whats yours?

To see the world?
Family members?
Attend a meeting?
Spend a day on the beach? With your toes in the sand? (stereotipical, I apologize but bear with me)
To feel your stomach turn with excitement at takeoff?
Maybe its to unwrap that new package of gum before your ears pop.. (mMm york mints (although not gum) are a delectable treat and only 10 calories)
Spark a conversation with the stranger in 4A next to you and find love? (If you didnt read the NYTimes article, you would understand) Or perhaps wonder if he or she in 4A has not yet discovered the potential of the modern marvel deodorant.

OR Perhaps it's just to...

Party?

Whatever it is. Travel with purpose. Be prepared. Traveling is an EVENT, not an afterthought. You may book your ticket last minute or it may hang on your fridge from a rhinestone clip on your fridge (oh, me!).. BUT ALWAYS HAVE YOUR BAG PACKED. Or as Delta use to say.. "have your wings ready." Dont lose sight of the excitement, never forget why it feels good to fly.

Here is an infamous quote:

"If man were meant to fly, he would have been born with wings."

My response to this is.. if man were not meant to fly, we would not have Delta, Frontier, the (annoying) travelocity knome.. or stand-by on AirTran :)

I apologize for the preachy-ness of the blog.. but I can assure you after my next lost piece of luggage or rough landing I will return to my usually cynical self! (Assuredly this will be as early as this Monday)

PS. (I have been know to fall in love with the man ahead of me in ariport security with--monogramed tumi luggage--or perhaps that was just lust three week ago that lasted for the15 minutes it took me to get through security).

Goodnight readers.. wish me luck for an even spray tan and fun in the Valley of the Sun! Look forward to juicy travel details and my obsessing over Zinc Bistro in Scottsdale, Arizona.. a rich brasserie with fantastic french onion soup and scrumptious steak frites, my favorite dinner spot (outside of Paris of course!).

2008.. thou shalt be filled with.. travel!

2008-01-13T20:21:00.000-05:00

Here I am, Sunday night football (ah, January i love thee) and the sound of the dishwasher humming in the background.. cleaning pairs of sullied wine glasses for a brand new week whose trails will undoubtedly require several glasses of rose colored liquid relaxation, while I ask myself.. what is the opposite of jet-set? It is, as I have determined, desk-set.

Desk-set: the action of working (i.e. behind a desk) in order to support the lavish lifestyle which is jet-set.

If you couldn't already guess, I start a glamorous internship with Turner Broadcasting, literally tomorrow. But lets take a step back.

Before we are a month into the New Year (speaking of which, happy New Years to my readers--Colorado was unquestionably beautiful and once again I am jealous I do not live with in the suspect box-shaped state full of a very attractive older population. I can tell you for a fact my butt was kicked by a woman more fit than I, and in her 80s.. she looked marvelous. Props to her husband and that high elevation which I believe is the culprit behind such a handsome public.) Where was I, oh yes, I will share with you an informal (and ever evolving) version of my social calender too packed to have allowed me time prior to this to update my fantastic blog.

Martin Luther King weekend.. A fantastic time to travel, but I will be rewarding myself by taking a much needed day off from the gym. OR perhaps I will ride standby somewhere.. TBA.

February.. rough month, little to no travel.. an amazing opportunity to save money and oh yes work out in preparation for Spring Break.

Spring Break: Cabo? San Diego? Florida panhandle? TBD (but it WILL, unquestionably, be decided)

I leave you with this.. hit the gym now and hide a few twenties your Spring Break vaca. It is the most well-traveled time of the year and rightly so, the travel guru I am cannot wait to beat back winter blues even if it will be with practically EVERYONE else. Until then I await time on the beach and a few extra bucks for a bright new shade of OPI nail polish (in order to go barefoot on the beach- fun and exfoliation my friends!) .

Until next time fans.. when my calender frees from glute workouts and Sirius-filled rides to work :)

How to stuff a canoli and other useful things.

2007-11-24T13:05:00.000-05:00

AH.. airspace. Peace, solice, and.. an emergency landing?! Yes, its true. I, like many of us, are victims of cant-hear-the-piolet-listening-to-ipod-topia. Somewhere between track 10 and 11, fasten your seat belt and you are now free to move about the cabin, we are lulled into boredom by the repeating play list on our ipods and the monotone voice of our pilot.. satisfied by his non-sensical run-on sentences that always begin "I'm going to go ahead and turn off the fasten the seatbelt sign as we shouldn't encounter any turbulence, we have now reached our cruising speed of 10 thousand feet, weather in Providence is reporting a chilly 41, sorry about that, a cool 38 degrees." They begin so scripted, and last for a minimum of five minutes, but we have all become accustomed to tuning out the man (or woman) at the controls until their usual phrase starts with "unfortunately" and ends with "emergency landing." Truthfully, I did not even hear the catcher at the beginning, but rather took the sleek white headphones out of my ears only when I could make out the words "engine problem" and catch the tail end of his tirade that ended in "we're going to have to make an emergency landing."

SO ladies and gentleman, its true, you know you have racked up too many sky miles when you have made 1. an emergency landing and 2. have been royally mistreated and pissed off at an airline (and that includes endangering my life, and the life of my luggage -- equally as important in my personal opinion--r.i.p teal Diane von Furstanburg bag who was inexcusably bullied by Delta on several occasions). Perhaps the later of which is inevitable, as the preferential list of airlines I enjoy flying invariably shrinks.

On a positive note, all in all, I enjoyed the six plus hours spent at gate D27 at Atlanta-Hartsfield-Jackson, Santa Claus for bringing added joy to life just when the Macy's parade is over (as he always does), the dashing evening gown that was purchased for 10% off from Thayer Street in Providence (thank you black Friday), and most of all, the enormous turkey who sacrificed its life for me in order for me to maintain the high level of body fat I am carrying around.

So until I fly again.. which will be Sunday, and three weeks following that..

Happy Holidays :)

P.S. The problem with frequent flyers is the fact that frequent flying qualifies all of us as self-proclaimed experts at how close, or not close is dangerous to fly next to an parallel airplane (see attached picture).

Cheers to.. cranberry sauce

2007-11-08T22:13:00.000-05:00

Alas, we are in the final stretch .. "the between".. where I am wholly consumed by politics (check out this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz1uQcOO0_M ), unengaged by school, in anticipation for winter break, inundated with round colored globes at shops and green and bow-strewn commercials whilst I have ONLY just begun to crave turkey or the turkey-provided sedation cognisant of Thanksgiving.

I hope cranberry sauce wont be disappointing in the fact that it does not satisfy my taste buds for the Christmas cookies that have already started to debut, dancing in my head between 1am and 7am in my dreams.

A little bit of a digression but...on the whole I was entirely disappointed that whitehouse.gov will not only NOT allow you to vote to name this years pardoned white bird of plenty.. but has yet to update its holiday page from 2006 to 2007 (get with it Bush administration). And did you know that until the Kennedy administration turkeys that received the "so-called" Presidential pardon were still eaten.. disheartening. haha..

BUT where was I.. oOo yes.. on a more serious (or less serious I'm not sure which) note I have ardently considered convincing the fam., and by fam. I mean my Dad to make the trek to NYC in order that all five of us (sorry family animals) personally be in attendance for the Turkey Day Parade. In the preliminary stages of this idea I thought.. first of all.. how magnificent would that be, and secondly.. how cold. Coldness does not suit me. I am the only cold blooded individual ever born aka i belong in the zoo with reptiles. So instead, like years past, I will marvel at the Macy's parade on our plasma and await the arrival of Santa down 77Th while taking a few siestas in my favorite chair.

P.S. It's Colorado for New Years.. at least it wont be cold.. wait.. cloudy!

I'd Rather be a Rocky.

2007-10-30T19:32:00.000-04:00

Well there I was.. once again staring out of a 1 ft.-by-1.5 ft. airplane window and looking down onto deep blue nothingness that was the barren plains which form the outskirts of Denver, Co. Snow-capped mountains barely illuminated by the creaping sunrise. 7:00am. Beautiful. "Take your time" by The Love Bite, a euphoric techno favorite of mine, started streaming into my ears via my ipod headphones curtosry of AirTran and thier much appreciated XM radio (The same satellite radio, I might note, on which I listened to the devastating blowout 1st game of the Rockies-Red sox World Series.) I might have become a little tearly eyed. The lady next to me didn't seem to care.

So there it was..relishing in the three of the things a twenty-something I am has truely come to appreciate.. 1. the great american west 2. techno 3. flying.

But lord was I tired, I curled up in a ball and passed out.. rudely awoken two hours and thirty minutes later by the piolet and the violent landing at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. Bittersweet. Especially considering I had an hour and a half drive back to Athens, GA and a $50 parking fee to pay..

I will be back with more.. preferably when my life becomes more glamorous, and if not stay tuned till Turkey day.. where I will be over-consuming carb-rich canned cranberry sauce and dry turkey in the land of the Pilgrims themselves (right?). That is.. until they wised up and moved out West.

Colorado in 1 day..

2007-10-23T11:22:00.001-04:00

I did it. Personal congrats to the journalism major who decided freelance blogging might actually help my penmanship in this ever-Internet connected society. And why not.. I do live, in the words of Kimora Lee Simmons, a life of fabulousoty.. or so I am inclined to think. You can make up your own mind..

Time check: 11:22 am. After rudely having been awaken by my incessantly loud blackberry, playing techno at (okay so it was around 10:00 am- but thank goodness for music tones right?), and to my surprise.. it wasn't my parents. Shocker. Two suitcases lie behind me on my floor, where I have learned to walk over them as they have been stationary, unpacked objects for the last week. A pile of Splenda is in front of me, too bad they are empty packets. Starbucks venti mocha venti frapp. light in a few? Yes please. Studying for my Geology quiz in a while? Who can even understand my un-fabulous teacher and her thick Spanish accent. My verdict: rocks belong on the ground, not in the univeristy classroom or in the hands of a journalism major.

OH and Air-Tran sent me a flight confirmation code this morning via email.. they are so on top of things it amazes me. Way more so then me.

Check back for another post, where I'll be writing from Colorado during my Fall vaca... (PS. Lets Go Rockies right?!) In the meantime check out my music find of the week Kenna- great new album, its already been synced onto the ipod for my flight.. oh yes, and wish me luck!