Monthly Archives: September 2011

Going to the Woods

Posted by dkrashb on

Having decided to spend Labor Day weekend in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, we first have to make it there.  As we head out of Chattanooga with our entire plan being:

  1. Drive to South Entrance
  2. Find an available front-country campsite
  3. Hike,

I am somewhat nervous that our trip will implode.  But as we head off of highway 75 and into Cherokee National Forest, I have to relax.  The woods surround the roadway and we drive along a river that appears to be a popular white water rafting destination.  I give up counting rafts after about 50–the river is swarming with them.  I’m glad we’re not rafting today–it’s a bit too crowded for my tastes.  But the people in rafts all smile and look happy, which is the point.  As we twist and turn along the river’s edge, watching rafters, kayakers, and fishermen, we realize we haven’t had lunch.  Just about that time, we see a large lodge-like building on the edge of the river just ahead.  We pull in and discover a visitors center at the 1996 Olympics Kayaking course.  The river has been altered here to create an olympic shoot of rapids that probably all have special names, but I’m afraid I didn’t take the time to read all of the signs explaining the course.  We watch both kayakers and rafters take the course one-by-one.  One man in a kayak rolls over in the middle of a big rapid, but bounces right back up again, looking like he meant to do that.  I like kayaking in sea kayaks–the kind that you couldn’t roll if you stood on one edge and jumped up and down.  The notion of being tied into a boat and hanging upside down in rapids just doesn’t appeal to me, although I suppose it’s something I may end up learning how to do someday just out of shear curiosity.  (What’s that about cats?)

After watching for a while and even getting a few shots, we walk into the downstairs of the visitors’ center and find a cafe.  The man and teenaged boy working there appear to be father and son.  The son pitches their curried macaroni salad and baked potato salad enthusiastically as well as their “vintage” sodas.  We get one of each along with a ham sandwich, a grape Nihi and some specialty root beer.  I ask the teenager what year it was made.  He looks puzzled and I remind him that it’s supposed to be vintage.  He cracks up, revealing a mouth full of gums.  It’s nice to make a teenager laugh, especially when he might be self-conscious about his smile.

Selecting a table with a view of the kayak course, we discover an interesting large insect parked on our table.  I’m not sure what s/he is–but it’s large and green with the longest antenna I’ve ever seen.  I get out my macro lens and do my best to shoot it without making it move.  I didn’t have much to worry about–I don’t think an earthquake would have gotten that guy hopping.

The teenager brings our food to us and we settle down to eat.  The curried macaroni salad is more interesting than most macaroni salads, but it’s still macaroni salad.  The baked potato salad tastes just like a baked potato with sour cream and chives.  It’s really nice.  We finish our food quickly and sip on our sodas (we can’t call them “pop” anymore now that we’ve moved out of Ohio) that taste like they were definitely made recently.  I have a craving for ice cream and the cafe has a freezer full of frozen treats including Ben and Jerry’s ice cream bars.  However, we decide to use the restrooms before getting ice cream and when we return, about a dozen people appeared from no where and lined up to get food.  Deciding it’s not worth it to wait in line, we head back towards the car.

As we come up the steps to the parking lot, there are several people coming towards us.  Two of them are shirtless young men who look like they spend all of their spare time in the gym.  I really barely noticed, but I catch my sandal on a step and trip going up the stairs, which, of course, makes Pat think I’m so distracted by these shirtless wonders that I can’t walk straight.  Pat has known me for over 15 years and he’s seen me trip going up stairs about 90% of the time, so we both know that the fact that this time there happened to be a couple of shirtless men on the stairs at the same time is completely unrelated, but both of us laugh hard at the sheer silliness of it.

We return to the car and head on up the road.  When we get a stretch that is traffic free, Pat opens it up a little and enjoys the enhancements he’s made to the car over the years.  It’s a fun car to drive.  Pat is the master of making cars last forever and this BMW is no exception.  Plus, we’ve invested a little money into making it more fun, so Pat gets his money’s worth as we lean into the turns on sticky tires and a sport suspension, accelerating out of each turn with verve.  Unfortunately, the break in traffic doesn’t last long, plus, it’s getting hot enough to require air conditioning for comfortable driving and air conditioning just ruins the whole driving experience.  Pat settles back down and I get comfortable in my seat, finding my eyes closing with a full stomach and the sunshine coming through the glass.  Sometimes I think that if I could put a bed in a car, I would sleep a sound 8 hours every night.  I lean the seat back and give in to the need for an afternoon nap.

Weekend Road Trip

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Saturday morning and I manage to sleep until 6AM–woo hoo!  We are leaving for Great Smoky Mountain National Park today and we have no plan and haven’t started to pack.  First, we decide we will camp, but not backpack.  This tells us what we will need.  Next, we decide we will enter the park from the South side, which tells us how we will get there.  Next, we head for the storage room and start digging out our gear.  Most of our camping gear is neatly packed into our two backpacks, but my sleeping bag and the camp stove are missing.  Back in the storage room, we dig up my sleeping bag, stored full and puffy in it’s large storage bag so that it doesn’t lose loft.  I love my sleeping bag.  It’s a Western Mountaineering down, water resistant bag that weighs next to nothing but manages to keep me warm in sub-freezing temperatures.  I toss the big bag in the air a few times just to appreciate how light it is.  We find the camp stove (well, it’s really a super-light single burner that screws directly onto a small propane tank) in a plastic storage container that also has bug spray, an extra flashlight, wet wipes (a must for camping), and two super-absorbent, fast-drying camp towels.  We collect our booty and return down the hall to our apartment.

All of our gear is spread out on the floor, looking much like an explosion.  We sort through what we need for camping in the front-country from what we only need for back-country.  Having decided not to backpack, we need less stuff but don’t have to worry so much about how much space it occupies.  We thought we were going to take our mini-van so that we’d have the option to sleep in the van if the weather turned nasty, but the front brakes were making some nasty noises when we drove the day before (making Pat extremely angry since he’d just had the brakes done a month ago and the dealership had ensured him the front brakes were fine) and we decide we’d better take the BMW.  It’s a small car and we don’t want to have to leave anything valuable sitting in the seats, so we debate whether we should roll the sleeping bags into their impossibly small stuff sacks or leave them in their storage bags.  Deciding they will fit in their storage bags, we move on to packing clothing.  I grab two pairs of hiking pants, a couple of high-tech T-Shirts that will dry fast when wet.  Then I choose some bra tops that are comfortable for hiking, my five-fingers trekking shoes, a pair of socks for night time, and the world’s most comfortable underwear, Ex Officio boy-cut briefs.  Normally, I would not mention my unmentionables, but these are just so awesome for the active woman that I can’t help but share.  I slip on a pair of cropped hiking pants and tank top along with my Chaco Z sandals.  I grab my 1-quart zip lock bag of toiletries from my trip to New York and remove the items I won’t need while camping.  I stuff it all into a reversible stuff sack that has a nice fuzzy interior that can be turned inside out and stuffed with the perfect aount of clothes to make a nice pillow.  Since we’re not worried about weight this trip, I throw in my neck pillow.

Now that my gear and garments are ready to roll, I focus on water.  Unfortunately, our faucet is one of those sprayer types that you can’t attach a water filter to.  I filter 2 gallons of water through our filter pitcher and fill two large water bladders for our day packs and a gallon jug to take with us.  We drink a lot of water when we hike.  Since we can’t carry the gallon of water with us, I also prep our backpacking water filter that will allow us to safely refill our bladders from any stream should we run out.  I’m a little paranoid about hiking.  Maybe not paranoid given my proclivity for hurting myself, but I like to make sure I always have a first aid kit, emergency blankets, and plenty of water.  I figure that ensures we can survive any accident for at least 3 days.  Even when we are taking short, easy hikes, I like to know that we’re prepared for disaster.  Maybe I’ve read too many stories about hikers who died from hypothermia after a minor injury laid them up on the trail, but I want to know that I will be able to stay warm, dry, and hydrated even if we’re only a couple miles from help.

Having gathered together all the necessities save food, we load up the car.  Pat decides to take two trips.  I wait for him outside, keeping an eye on the car now that I’ve put my backpack containing my camera gear in the front seat.  He returns with the last load and we pile in and head out.  I am practically bouncing in my seat as we head out of town.  While part of me is so tired I want to lay around all weekend, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to spend a long weekend in the Smokies.  We talk about what we will do when we get there, since we still have no real plan beyond getting there.  Our first goal will be to find a campsite.  I’m somewhat worried that with it being a holiday weekend, there won’t be any available.  We also stop for gas and stock up on snack food so we can go straight from getting a campsite to going on a hike.  It’s taken us so long to get out the door that we won’t get there before 3PM.  I don’t want to miss out on a hike just because we don’t have any snacks to take with us (another little paranoid thing I have–unless I’m hiking in a metro park, I want to make sure we have some food on us).

It strikes me as funny that we spent so much time rushing around to get ready, yet we don’t know what we got ready for.  I pull out my iPad and start digging through old emails, trying to find the name of a trail a friend recommended to me.  Unfortunately, I’m not able to locate it.  I figure I’ll have to ask again and we’ll catch it next time.  I download an app that is supposed to help with planning a trip to the park, but it has little information about hiking trails.  I do searches and try to figure out where we should go when we get there, but in the end, I have to sit back and relax and assume that it will all work out.

The Art of Waiting

Posted by dkrashb on

One of the things we have to take care of soon is getting a Tennessee driver’s license. We think that in a small town, this is likely to be easier than in Columbus, so we plan to walk down to the closest Driver Services Center at lunch. Lunch comes and I have an hour before my next conference call. We head out, but I make the mistake of letting Pat navigate and we discover a half mile later that we went the wrong direction. As we walk what has become a mile to the center, the trees disappear and the neighborhood deteriorates. It’s amazing the difference a mile can make.

We are hot and sweaty by the time we arrive at the center. There is a small woman standing in the entrance between two sets of doors and it appears that the line is backed out the door. I ask the woman if she is waiting and she replies with something unintelligible like, “it shor ’nuff is, uh-huh,” which I take to mean yes. But then I look more closely at her, standing away from the inner door, swaying slightly on her feet and wearing enormous sunglasses that cover 2/3 of her face. I decide to ask again as someone comes out the door, but she doesn’t move. This time, she says, “uh, no, uh-uh” along with a bunch of other mutterings that seem unrelated. We decide to step inside, discovering a line that wraps the wall of a 20×20 room. There are no cattle ropes to create switchbacks in the line and people lean wearily against the wall fanning themselves, although it feels cooler than in the entry way by at least 20 degrees.

Following the line around the room leads to a window to our immediate right with one woman working with one person, moving as slowly as if she has all day to wait on each person. I look at the line, my watch, and then Pat and say, “We’re not going to make it.” We walk on home and I return to work early for my call, but we decide to try later in the afternoon when my calls are done for the day and I can come back to work on my own schedule.

We decide to drive on our second attempt. It’s only gotten hotter and the neighborhood wasn’t really conducive to walking. When we arrive, at first we think the line hasn’t moved but we don’t recognize the people in the room from earlier. Many are teenagers. Most have books–never a good sign when you’re getting in line. A woman arrives after us and suggests that the long line is due to kids wanting to get their driver’s license before the holiday weekend. I ponder this and think about the increased death toll on the highways over Labor Day each year–coincidence?

We wait outside the door in the terrarium-like entry way until people shuffle forward enough for us to fit inside the air-conditioned room. No one has actually left, but they condensed somehow. We stand there watching the same, slow-moving woman waiting on a man that could have been the same guy who was at the counter three hours earlier. We are there 20 minutes and the line hasn’t moved. I experience a flash-back to picking up an overnight package at the Rome airport nearly 15 years ago.

Back when I was doing software acceptance testing and Telecom Italia was my customer, I was once on site when we needed a patch and we needed it quickly so that I could wrap up and go home on time. The team in Columbus decided it would be faster to ship the patch to me (back when software was shipped physically on tape) through airline cargo service instead of DHL since I could pick it up at the airport the next day whereas it would take two days to have DHL deliver it to the site. When I told one of my Italian colleagues this, he rolled his eyes and did the Italian shrug thing indicating he thought it was a very bad idea, but smiled when I told him I would pick it up myself. He asked me twice before he believed that I was really going to pick it up myself. Had I been older, wiser, or a little more experienced, I might have known better than to volunteer. I arrived at the airport cargo area just before 9am the next morning. My first problem was reading signs in Italian. I followed a sign around a fence and paused, confused as to whether I was in the right place. As I started moving forward again, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw two uniformed men carrying automatic weapons, running towards me frantically waving their arms. Things got worse from there.

Fortunately for me, it was pre-9/11, so they didn’t shoot me. But I was apparently headed out onto the run-way when they stopped me. They gestured me back to the other side of the fence showing some small amount of patience for a lost American who didn’t speak Italian, but not much. After that, I spent the day moving from one desk to the next, changing buildings 6 times, paying fees and getting papers with special stamps. I literally had to get approvals from 10 different people, only one of whom spoke English.

Had it not been for a kind English-speaking man who guided me through about five of the steps and humbly asked each Italian bureaucrat to take care of me quickly since I didn’t understand, I’m fairly certain I would still be standing in one of those lines. I brought my American expectation of customer service with me to the airport that day and was wholly unprepared for the Italian bureaucrat who wields power by withholding a stamp.

At the end of the process, I stood outside a warehouse in my spring dress next to a group of truck drivers there to pick up their daily load. A man driving a forklift would disappear for 20 minutes at a time and reappear with one load associated with one number regardless of how empty the forklift was. A security guard came over and started chatting me up while I waited. He spoke enough English to take pity on me. He spoke to the forklift driver and my package was the next to be delivered. I was extremely grateful, but not grateful enough to accept the security guard’s offer to take me out for pizza. The funniest part was seeing the forklift driver arrive with my package. He drove this huge forklift that could haul a good-sized truck load, but he made a single trip for my one box that was about 2″x3″x4″. I imagined him trying to lift it with the fork.

When I arrived at the office just after 3PM, my colleague looked up with shock on his face, “What?! You are back already?? That was fast! We will have to send you every time!” Not on your life, I thought. I made sure to tell all my American colleagues never to ship that way again.

But now, here I am in the good old US of A being held hostage by another bureaucrat. Once again I look at my watch and think of the work I need to finish before the holiday weekend. Pat suggests we try another office that’s bigger, although across town. We head out and drive 20 minutes to get there (partly because we took the long way by accident). The office is bigger, but the line is longer. They use numbers here and we’re told that they’ve already announced that they aren’t giving out any more numbers today. It’s 45 minutes before close and they aren’t sure they’ll be able to serve all the people already in line. We give up and decide to block out several hours on my calendar the following week since we will be at the 30-day limit for getting our licenses changed. I do not look forward to our return.

These tasks are never fun, but I find myself frustrated by agencies who make them worse.  I’m not sure why Chattanooga is so behind the times on making this easier.  Maybe they haven’t outsourced the task to private business owners?  Maybe they don’t collect enough taxes?  Who knows, but I wish I could order my drivers license online!

Returning to Chattanooga

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Having completed three days of corporate training, it’s time to go home. I’m not sure if it’s the intensity of the class or the late hours trying to keep up on work, or the early morning wake up time I can’t seem to get past, but I am exhausted by the end of the class. Four of us are going to the White Plains airport together, but we have over an hour to kill before we leave. We agree a drink is in order, but by the time we all get served and settled, it’s almost time to leave. We drink our drinks quickly and head to the lobby to order a cab. Then, we have to wait 15 minutes for the cab to come. It occurs to me that we did things in the wrong order.

Another group waits for a cab in front of the building. They are dressed in suits with ties and we wonder if they were here for executive training. A regular blue cab and a black town car pull up at the same time. The men in suits approach the black town car, but it turns out it’s ours. We get a slight chuckle out of that. We don’t have to squeeze to get three in the back and all of our luggage fits into the trunk along with a soccer ball that I assume belongs to the driver.

The airport is crowded when we arrive, but the line moves quickly. We sit and chat some more waiting for our flight to be called. Perhaps I drank my wine too quickly, but I find myself exhibiting a less-than-professional sense of humor. I seem to be in “one of the guys” mode. This is an old habit I’ve developed really starting in my teen years. Perhaps I discovered at a young age that men have certain advantages and think being perceived as one of them will make those advantages rub off on me, but I have learned that men are as different individually as everyone else and sometimes I am more “guy-like” than they are comfortable with. Unfortunately, this lesson is lost on me today. After making a few comments that were not office-appropriate, I head to the ladies room. When I return, my colleagues are swapping stories about colleagues who say inappropriate things outside the office. I try not to think that there is a direct relationship between this topic and my earlier comments, but I make a mental note to behave better in the future.

Thankfully, my flight boards and I get seated. I flip through the airline magazine, impatient for electronics to be allowed so I can get back to the novel I’m reading. As much as I love my iPad, this is the one time when I lament not buying a paperback. I can’t pull my iPad out fast enough when the announcement finally comes. Unfortunately, no matter how much I want to read, my eyes keep closing and I find myself re-reading the same pages over and over again.

In Atlanta, I board my plane early. We are parked at the gate and seemingly ready for push back, but they don’t close the door. We sit for 15 minutes and finally, at our scheduled departure time, several more passengers arrive. One of them sits next to me and two more sit across the aisle from me. They talk across me in my aisle seat. They were on the same connection from Texas and had to run for this flight. They are sweaty and disheveled from running with bags. The woman sitting in the window seat on the other side of the aisle talks loudly and continuously, first to the woman next to me and then on the phone. Apparently, she has a spider infestation back at home. I am always amazed by loud talkers. While I am not what anyone would call a private person, I cannot talk in public without feeling uncomfortable with the knowledge that others can hear me. I often find myself talking so quietly that whomever I am speaking to constantly asks me to repeat myself. When I encounter a loud talker, I cannot help but feel that they operate on the assumption that everyone must hear what they have to say. There is a certain presumptuousness about it.

The woman from Texas continues chattering loudly through the safety announcements, through take off, and right up until the moment I get out my noise-canceling ear buds and crank up some music. After hearing only two songs, the announcement to turn off electronics comes on. When I pop out my ear buds, she is still jabbering. She doesn’t stop when the plane stops at the gate or when the seatbelt sign goes off or when she jumps up and pushes her husband to step out into the aisle so she can step out as well. Maybe she is too busy telling the woman next to me about her spider problem to notice that there is a certain etiquette to de-boarding a plane because she fails to wait for the passengers in the seats in front of her to step out before charging down the aisle. I hear her voice fading as she continues talking her way off the plane and I wonder who she thinks she’s talking to–her silent husband clearly stopped listening years ago.

I call Pat as I exit the airport, letting him know that we’ve arrived several minutes early. We agree that we will meet at baggage claim although I’m not entirely sure where that is. I follow the signs and walk outside only to discover I’m not more than 10 yards from passenger drop-off where Pat left me three days earlier. After all, it is a small airport.

It’s 11:30 by the time we get home and I am beat. I get myself ready for bed and take some extra vitamins when I remember the number of people coughing on my flights. Now I am awake again and don’t feel like sleeping yet. We turn on the TV and, magically, I doze off before Pat has time to pick a channel. Minutes later, Pat is waking me up to tell me to go to bed. I climb between our amazing sheets and feel like I really am home just before I fall into a deep sleep.

Getting There

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After staying in Atlanta overnight, I wake at my usual 4AM and prepare for the trip. I go through my old routine for getting ready for work including make up and hair, two tasks I’ve grown accustomed to skipping. I put on my comfortable business casual clothes. In fact, I’m wearing jeans, but they’re so dark and cut so full through the leg that most people don’t notice they’re jeans. I pack up all my belongings and head for the door. I turn back one more time to check that I have everything–it’s so easy to lose track of a bottle or a charger.

The airport shuttle waits outside the hotel lobby and I board it unassisted. On the way in the day before, my suitcase was whisked out of my hands and I was offered a bottle of water, but now, the driver isn’t in sight. I find a seat and park myself amongst the other weary travelers, all of us looking like we should have spent at least another hour in bed.

When I get to the airport, it’s busy. Atlanta cannot be mistaken for Chattanooga. It’s early and I have two hours before my flight, so I am in no hurry, but I never relax until I’m at my gate, so I make my way through security and down to the tram. A man passes me on the escalator, worming his way around those who don’t stay to the right and rushing for the tram just seconds too late to make it. For a moment I think he will try to jump between the closing doors and I close my eyes, but when I open them, he is safely standing on the platform, although he’s cursing.

Making it to my concourse with still plenty of time, I stop at the only open restaurant for breakfast. The waitress is impossibly friendly and efficient for this time in the morning. I use my meal voucher from the airlines since they didn’t get me on the plane last night, but I tip extra generously since I figure the happy waitress should benefit from my voucher, too.

As I make my way to the gate, I pass dozens of people wrapped in blankets, still sleeping from the night before. I have never spent the night in an airport and feel grateful that I’ve always been able to get a hotel room when the need arose. I cannot imagine what it would be like to wake up among strangers with no way to get cleaned up and to have to get on a plane.

At the gate, I set up my MiFi device and get my work laptop out. I manage to get several things done while I wait for my plane to board. I’m in zone three. Although it’s now been years since I flew often enough to have the kind of frequent flier status that gets you free upgrades and early boarding privileges, having been spoiled for so many years before makes the lack of those benefits sting a little. This flight is on a relatively small jet with gate check for roll-a-boards and only a “fake” first class with slightly wider seats, so I’m not sure why I care.

I remember boarding a plane for Newark when I was on my way to Italy when I was still in my twenties. It was a Sunday flight and I was dressed in jeans and a black leather biker jacket. Back then, companies still paid for business class tickets for long flights, so I was in first class on this connection. But when I got on the plane and went to put my carry-on above my seat, a flight attendant called to me, “Miss, that overhead is for first class only!” I muttered “uh-huh” at him, but he didn’t understand his mistake and said, “Are you in first class?” with a little more surprise in his voice than was polite. Having finished stowing my bag, I looked directly at him and said, “Why yes, I believe I am!” as I slid into my first class seat. To this day, I don’t know if it was my youth, my jacket, some combination thereof, or something entirely different that made him think I didn’t belong in first class, but it’s a memory that sticks.

Back to today, I board with my zone and get over myself, happy that I have a seat at all. The plane takes off and soon I am lost in my iPad, enjoying a book I’ve not had time to read nearly as fast as I would like. Recommended to me by a friend, “The Help” has me hooked and I’m dying to know what happens. Unfortunately, the flight is not long enough for me to find out, but that’s just as well–I’m always disappointed when a good book ends and find myself wondering what happens next.

As we approach the White Plains airport, I stare out the window, scouring the scene below for signs of Irene. From the air, all looks well. I find my way to the taxi counter and am put in one of those big, black Lincoln Town cars that people in NJ call a “limo.” As we make our way to the training facility, I see downed trees and ask the driver how bad the storm was. He tells me that the area was not hit too hard as we pass bands of men with chain saws trying to clear more fallen trees. He does say that some still have power outages, but all-in-all, they seem to have weathered the storm well.

Nearly a day after I left my home, I arrive at the training class. I walk into the room at roughly 11:30 in the morning and am surprised to see half a dozen colleagues from Columbus. I knew 2 would be there, but didn’t realize there would be so many others. I smile, wave, and silently greet my familiar colleagues as I’m led to a seat waiting for me with my name tag in front of it–both my first and last name are spelled correctly and fit on the tag. Now that is a good omen!

Walking and Waking

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Having survived my first day of class only to work late, I took some melatonin in the hope of getting more sleep. I succeed in sleeping until 5AM, but given that I was up until 11:30, it doesn’t feel like a break through. I get out of bed none-the-less and decide that a walk is the most important thing for me to do. I pull on walk-appropriate clothing and decide I will walk to the corporate headquarters that is supposedly right around the corner from the training center.

I start down the road in the gray light of pre-dawn and try to read the signs pointing me in the right direction. The training center is like a resort set in the woods, with a campus of buildings set so carefully among the trees that it doesn’t at all feel like a campus. I follow a sign that says “Pedestrians” headed in the same direction as the headquarters figuring it will be safer since there is little light and I am dressed in all black. The path is blocked by a large tree that must have fallen during Irene’s passage, but I move a small branch out of the way and am then able to climb between the larger branches to continue on my way. As I walk down steps, I look up and see tennis courts. Even better, I see two does and a fawn munching on dew-covered grass.

The fawn nervously raises his head and flicks his tail. I stop and stand still while his mom sniffs the air and flicks her tail once, then twice. They move a few steps further from me, but then resume eating. I take a few steps forward and they both raise their heads once more. I sit down on the steps and they start eating again. Eventually, the mother and fawn work their way into the woods and the lone doe looks up at me. She has moved closer to me, looking directly at me, raising her head and snorting like she can’t decide if she wants to come closer or not. But she does. She walks straight at me, growing more nervous with each step if her flicking tail is an accurate indicator. Suddenly, she jumps straight into the air and lunges sideways upon landing as if she’s just seen a pack of wolves. I turn to look at what could possibly have startled her since I hadn’t moved and see only the mother and fawn going up the hill in the background. I chuckle to myself that she is as easily startled by her friends as I often am.

With the deer off in the woods, I have no excuse to keep sitting there, so I continue my walk. The path around the tennis courts doesn’t take me to the headquarters building. I wind my way around back to the parking lot and out to the public road that brought me to the training center. It’s a narrow lane lined with trees. On both sides, there are nothing but woods. I cannot imagine the worldwide headquarters of a huge corporation hiding in these woods and find myself thinking I’ve misunderstood somehow. My attention is drawn back to the setting when I spot a group of 5 more deer foraging in the woods across the street. I realize I am back to the main entrance to the training center and decide to turn up the drive since I clearly am not going to find headquarters this way. Two more deer pop their heads up as I walk by.

The birds are starting to sing and the light is getting steadily brighter. I almost give up on my quest, but I decide to try following the signs once more–this time I decide to stay on the road instead of taking the pedestrian path. I pass another mother and fawn on a grassy hillside as I follow the road back into what seems like only more woods. But eventually, there is a shiny structure peeping from behind a clump of trees. It is far too small to be an office building, but as I make my way through tree-lined parking lots, I realize I am approaching the building from one end. It is so inconspicuously tucked into the trees that even when I see the building from the front, I cannot believe that it’s headquarters. The building is a modern work of steel and glass, gleaming against the dark evergreens. But instead of looking plopped down in the middle of no where like so many corporate monstrosities, this building looks like it grew there. I look around at the beautiful green space that seems to go on for miles surrounding this building and discover a sense of growing pride that I work for this company.

This is not the first time I felt this. Just a couple months ago, my company encouraged all of us to spend a paid work day doing community service in honor of the company’s birthday. As a result, we collectively contributed millions of work hours to communities worldwide in a single day. I’ve never heard of a company doing that before–at least not to that scale. It’s an amazing way to celebrate a birthday.  The commitment to comunity service doesn’t end with anniversaries, either.  My company has an ongoing program to track hours and provide grant money to the causes we participate in as well as providing payroll deduction services for contributions to small, local charities as well as big ones.  It means a lot to me that the company puts its money where its mouth is rather than just asking us to all contribute to the United Way every year.

But now, I am worried that I will be late to class. I tuck away my growing pride and head back to my room to get cleaned up. Along the way, I count the deer and keep smiling to myself that this property is preserved by my company.

Flying and Irene

Posted by dkrashb on

Returning to the weekday feels like being pulled down under water slowly and gasping for breath. The problems that I managed to forget about for two days wait for me with evil grins. I quickly find myself embroiled. But, I have only half a day to tackle work before I have to get on a plane and take my first business trip out of the Chattanooga airport. The airport website boasts of direct flights to 8 cities. To complicate matters, I am trying to get into White Plains, NY via Atlanta. Atlanta is not a problem, but hurricane Irene has just passed through New York while I was busy enjoying myself over the weekend. I was supposed to fly out Sunday, but my trip was postponed a day to accommodate Irene. I mentally prepare myself for a difficult travel day.

We check the directions to the airport several times, not being familiar with the route. The GPS and google both say it will take about 18 minutes to get there. We allow plenty of time in case there is traffic or long lines, since sometimes small airports are the hardest to get through efficiently. The drive to the airport takes us on some back roads on the Southeast side of the city. The houses we pass remind us that times have been hard and not everyone has a fantastic view of the riverfront.

I am on a conference call as we drive and, of course, am mid-sentence when we get to the airport. Pat takes the drive in and, confused by the signs directing us to long-term parking but not to passenger drop-off, picks a drive that takes us right back out of the airport. I laugh out loud that we have driven less than 50 yards and managed to go right by the airport and find myself explaining my laugh to the folks on my call. Fortunately, it’s a laid-back team call.

Pat finds the drop-off on the second pass and I manage to mute myself long enough to tell him good-bye. The airport seems abandoned. There are only a handful of people in the ticketing area. I continue my conference call while I use a machine to print a boarding pass, attempting to get a seat assignment on my second leg with no luck. It never bodes well to not have a seat assignment.

I find myself with time to kill, waiting for my conference call to end before attempting to go through security. I walk around a display of photographs of Chattanooga. Listening to the call makes it hard to appreciate the photos, but it at least gives me something to look like I’m doing besides lurking. When the call ends, I get into a security line that has 3 people in it and, in spite having removed all metal, a beep goes off, I am told I’ve been randomly selected for additional screening. Seems like I am frequently the target of random forces. In this case, it just means they test my carry-on for traces of explosives. I always wonder what kinds of dust might attach itself to my suitcase that would register as explosive, but so far I’ve always passed this test and today is no exception.

When at last I am sitting on the plane, lifting into the sky, I bend down to look out the window. We curve up and back over the downtown area. I am surprised by how flat it looks. With most of the buildings being less than 10 stories, they don’t register as office buildings from above, but flatten into the landscape, looking not much taller than houses. The river bends crazily through the town and I spot the now-familiar bridges that we have so often crossed. I try to feel like this is my home town, but seeing it from the air for the first time makes it seem completely unfamiliar.

The flight to Atlanta is so short that by the time I get my iPad out and start reading, it’s time to turn off electronics again. The pilot startles me several times as we come in for a landing with sudden drops in altitude and quick turns. I don’t startle easily on planes, but I haven’t been flying often the past few years, I wonder if I’m getting rusty. We land hard and stop fast; I’m thrown forward against my seatbelt. The pilot seems to be racing and I find myself looking out the window again, fearful that he’s crossing a runway in the path of an incoming plane. But, we are safe and we arrive at the gate on time and uninjured.

Of course, the premonition evoked by my lack of a seat assignment on the next flight comes true. I am stuck in Atlanta overnight and will not arrive in White Plains until late the next morning, meaning I will miss the first several hours of my training class. After waiting in line for 45 minutes to get my ticket changed, I am grumpy and irritated. But the woman who helps me seems to take it all in stride,and in a matter of minutes, she has me laughing and feeling grateful for the opportunity to meet her. I can’t say what she did to cause this change in attitude except her best to help me, but I wish I could get a dose of whatever it is she’s got that has this calming effect on people.

I manage to get a hotel room at the near-by Marriott. When I arrive, it is swarming with people greeting each other and catching up on the disasters they’ve worked since last seeing one another. It turns out that Atlanta is FEMA headquarters for the response to Irene. I am reminded that being stuck in Atlanta overnight in a comfortable hotel is hardly a disaster. When I get to my room and my key doesn’t work, I find I am not irritated. I return to the long line in the lobby and feel nothing but patience as I listen to people swapping stories about flooded areas, lost homes, and injured people.

When I get settled in my room, I work for a couple of hours, trying to get caught up, knowing that it’s impossible, being in class for the next three days will mean I get woefully behind, but I look forward to the class anyway. I have missed the mind-bending of corporate training classes since working for a smaller company who didn’t worry so much about creating a culture. I’m interested to know what direction the mega-huge company that purchased us expects our minds to bend.

I put my work laptop away and call it a night. I feel like I will not sleep for hours, but when I pull out my iPad and start reading, I find my eyes closing almost immediately. Apparently travel (or lack there of) is exhausting.

Killing a Sunday

Posted by dkrashb on

After seeing my sister-in-law off and taking a nap, I talk Pat into walking over to the Aquarium.  We had just been there the day before, but we learned that we could buy an annual membership and they would apply the cost of our tickets if we bought a membership soon.  I also wanted to go back to shoot since I’d gone without my camera.  However, I couldn’t talk Pat into walking through again and waiting for me to take pictures.  We walked back over the Walnut St bridge around 1PM.  It’s about 95 degrees and with the sun high in the sky, not even the wind off the river feels cool.  We walk slowly in the heat, but with a focus and determination to get to our destination that precludes standing around on the bridge lolly-gagging.

At the aquarium, we are credited for all three of the tickets we bought yesterday and the annual membership costs only $10 additional.  I feel like I just won the lottery.  I try to talk Pat into taking the Tennessee River gorge boat tour or going to an IMAX movie since we now get a discount as aquarium members, but he’s not up for either.  I see him wavering on the movie and, realizing that he doesn’t like the whole 3D thing, suggest we go to the regular movie theater down the street instead.  We decide to see Crazy Stupid Love, but it isn’t playing until 4:30 and it’s now not quite 2PM.

We walk across the street to the Blue Water Grill and have brunch.  They are serving mimosas and bloody mary’s.  I opt for a mimosa and order the grand marnier brulee french toast.  In the background, a trio of jazz musicians play random assortments of sounds.  I am not a big jazz fan.  I like music I can catch, pick up, and run with.  Jazz always seems to run away from me instead.  I quickly tire of chasing it.  Fortunately, the trio takes a break about 10 minutes after we arrive.

I await my french toast with anticipation.  The first time I had creme brulee french toast was only a couple of years ago when we were out in Oregon visiting my father and his wife.  The four of us were taking a trip to the coast and I was obsessed with Urbanspoon when it came time to eat.  I found serveral amazing restaurants that way, but the breakfast place on the way to the coast was the best.  I can’t remember what town we were near, but Dad was suggesting we stop at McDonald’s for breakfast when I found a family-owned place in a tiny town along the way on my iPhone app.  We stopped and the restaurant was located in a former house old enough to be historical, but with simple decor that maximized space for patrons.  That was, hands down, the best breakfast I ever had.  The french toast was truly brulee with the sugar candied to a crunch on the outside and the egg batter still slightly soft underneath without being soggy.  This memory is dangerous.  Once you’ve had the best of something, you just can’t ever eat it again without being disappointed.  Today, I am disappointed.  The french toast is not brulee at all.  It is simply soaked in something overly sweet to the point of mushiness and fried.  Perhaps the cook here doesn’t know what brulee means.  I get down half of the toast before giving up.  I do not like soggy bread, so this seems like torture.  I don’t know why I eat it.  I suppose it’s because of the eager waitress who recommended it.  I don’t want to hurt her feelings.  About the time I feel like I will gag if I eat another bite, the jazz group comes out of remission.

We had planned to take our time and hang out at the Blue Water Grill since we had 2 1/2 hours to kill before our movie.  But we end up moving along after an hour, done with jazz and done with french toast.

It’s even hotter out when we return outdoors.  We decide to walk around the corner to check out the Ecotour place we’d passed on our way to the aquarium.  We learned that that was where we could rent paddleboards if we wanted to take on the river.  They also offer yoga classes on the paddleboards.  The owner shows us a slideshow of a yoga class.  I am not really sure I want to try yoga on a paddleboard.  I cannot imagine trying to breathe into a balancing half moon while worrying about falling into the river.  The good news is that they have just added 2 kayaks to their vehicle list.  We have been looking for opportunities to go kayaking, but had missed out on the the last kayaking tour of the year with Outdoor Chattanooga and discovered that Rock/Creek doesn’t rent kayaks although they do have a couple that can be demoed.  We’re happy to know that there is another option.  However, since we don’t have time to go kayaking now, we head back down the street to see what we can find.

We walk Broad St South, with our backs to the river, hoping to discover something new.  We walk past many shops and an interesting rib place with a live music venue, but we are painfully full and sluggish in the hot sun.  We find it difficult to take enough interest to even notice what we are passing.  We quickly reach a dead part of town–no one is around.  The stark contrast to the riverfront makes us feel suddenly vulnerable.  We turn back and head back towards the busy part of town, seeking shade whenever possible.

We end up in the theatre at 4PM, tickets in hand, sitting in the lobby because they aren’t seating our movie yet.  It’s cold in the lobby, which feels good when we first stepped in, but after 20 minutes of waiting, I’m getting goose bumps.  In the theatre, the hallway feels like a refrigerator and I am alarmed that I will be so cold I won’t be able to stay through the movie.  Fortunately, once we get inside our screen room, the temperature rises to something tolerable as long as I cuddle up to Pat as much as possible.  In spite of liking the movie, being cold, and having had a nap in the morning, I still nod off during the movie.  It’s a problem.  I get so little sleep that I cannot stay awake through a movie or in a car, particularly not in the afternoon when I’ve been out in the sun.  At least I miss only a few small parts of the movie and it isn’t so disjointed that I can’t follow along.  It’s the first movie I can remember that looks at long-term relationships in both a loving and funny way.  I really enjoyed it and Steve Carell was somehow better than his stereotyped character while still being the same guy.

After the movie, we walk on home.  The sun is getting lower once again.  The intensity of the heat has abated and we walk slowly over the bridge not because we are suffering but because we are enjoying the breeze and the view.  When we get home, even though we drank a giant Coke at the theater, I am ready for another nap.  I think about all the things I should do, but then I remember that the thing I’ve done the least of lately is sleep.  I decide to give in and allow myself to doze off on the couch for the second time in one day.

Sunday Morning

Posted by dkrashb on

I wake up at 4AM feeling like I need to sleep about 2 more days, but unable to go back to sleep.  I lay in bed for another hour before I give up and tip toe out of the bedroom, trying not to wake my sister-in-law who, visiting for the weekend, sleeps on an air mattress in the living room.  My foot cracks with a sharp little “pop” with every step.  I do my best to silence it, but my bones seem determined to announce themselves.  Fortunately, my sister-in-law sleeps through the sound of my creaking feet and I manage to get a glass of water, scoop up my laptop, and go out onto the balcony without disturbing her.

The early hours on Sunday morning are quiet.  There is no traffic and even the birds are mostly still sleeping.  I appreciate this time in the morning.  I remember my mother telling me that even as a baby I was not a morning person–I like having time and space to wake up before I engage with people.  It’s as if each morning only part of me wakes up, leaving the extroverted part dozing until it begins to vibrate with the excitement of a new day and I am suddenly ready to be with others.

After sitting alone for an hour or so, I go inside to discover that Megan has awakened and started getting ready for her departure.  We decided last night that we would try to Longhorn for breakfast.  It’s a small little diner that Pat and I have walked by dozens of times, intrigued by its ’50s diner architecture.  We have been wanting to try it and they open for breakfast at 7AM on Sunday morning, so it works well for our purposes this morning–Megan wants to be on the road by 8AM.

Once we have all gotten ourselves ready, we take the short walk over to the diner, arriving just after 7.  Two women in Longhorn shirts sit at the counter.  When we try the door, it’s bolted, but one woman is already on her way over to let us in.  The restaurant consists of a row of 2-person booths lining the windows and a long, formica counter top with metal trim and short metal stools fixed to the floor in front of it with burgundy vinyl tops.  We pick 3 stools in the middle of the counter.  The coffee is made, the grill is covered in nearly done bacon, fresh biscuits are piled in a basket, and the hashbrowns sit prepped, waiting for their turn on the grill.  I wonder what time these women got started this morning.  They are both tiny, frail looking women who wear years of experience on their faces.  One could be my age or 10 years older than me; it’s impossible to tell.  The second could be old enough to be my mother.  Although they appear physically frail, there is something about both of them that makes me think they have strength that has seen them through a lot of hard times.

Pat orders decaf and is surprised that it, too, is already made.  The second woman, still sitting at the counter, asks how they get the caffeine out of coffee.  Pat smiles and says that they use chemicals that aren’t good for you and she laughs a big genuine laugh that lights up her face.  Her smile transforms her instantly and makes me smile with surprise at how beautiful she is.  She reminds me of one of my aunts who used to laugh the same way, dropping 20 years every time she showed her teeth.

The food comes quickly and hot.  There is nothing fancy here, just various combinations of eggs, meat, and potatoes, but it’s good and my eggs are done exactly as I wanted them with the whites still soft but not slimy and the yolk runny and bright yellow.  I appreciate a good over-medium egg.  We sit and talk of when we will next see Megan.  My youngest nephew is turning 18 in October; my sister-in-law assumes we will not come now that the drive is so much further, but I’ve never missed my nephews’ birthdays by more than a few days and I don’t intend to start now.  We talk about his pending graduation in May and I think all of us are struck by the impossibility of being old enough for both of my nephews to be out of high school.  Having no children of our own, Pat and I often measure the passage of time by the milestones of other people’s children.  It comes as a shock each time I realize that another child is no longer a child.

More people arrive and sit in booths as we continue to talk over our coffee, our food long gone.  I don’t want my sister-in-law to leave, but I know she must be looking forward to returning home after being gone much of the past 3 weeks.  I reflect for a moment on the friends in my life.  I am incredibly fortunate when it comes to friends.  They are an assortment of people who have come into my life through random circumstances and stuck in a way that makes me feel both honored and humbled.  Megan is one of those people.  I suppose I should thank my brother for bringing Megan into my life.  She is someone who makes me a better person even though we have always lived hundreds of miles apart.  I cannot imagine having gone through the loss of my mother without her–she also lost my mother and our shared grief got me through in ways I don’t understand and Megan probably doesn’t even know about.  As we leave the restaurant and walk her to the rented mini-van parked behind our building, I find myself missing her already.  The sense of being alone in Chattanooga without my support group rises in me and I suddenly find myself missing all of my friends in a sudden mass of self-pity.  Having just returned from Columbus a few days earlier, it’s as if the loss that I felt leaving my friends behind suddenly caught up with me.

We wave goodbye as she pulls out of the parking lot and return to the apartment.  I plop on the couch, deflated, much like the air mattress that now sits rolled in the corner.  I find myself wishing I were back in Columbus where I could get a hug from my best friend.  The thought of her intensifies my sadness to the point that I turn on the TV just to have a mindless distraction.  I have had many friends move to remote locations where I see them only once a year or less.  We stay in touch and when we talk, it’s like we just saw each other yesterday.  I know that this is how it will be now that I have moved.  I know that my best friend doesn’t care less about me and I hope that she knows that, if anything, I care more about her.  But for a few minutes I wallow in the sense of loss.  I ponder how I could have been looking forward to being back in my own bed when I was staying at my best friend’s house and, now that I am sleeping in my own bed, I long to be back with my best friend.  But the TV distracts me and I find my eyes drooping.  I set aside my sadness and give in to the pull of much needed sleep.

Dinner on the Bluff

Posted by dkrashb on

My sister-in-law, Megan, is staying with us only briefly–she has been traveling for the past three weeks between work and delivering my nephew to college, so we feel especially honored that she has driven out of her way to spend the weekend with us on her way back to Indianapolis from New Orleans. A special visit requires a special dinner, so we decide to try out the “most romantic restaurant in Chattanooga” (all right, so romantic may not quite be what we’re looking for, but the restaurant is up in the Bluffview Art District, which has a great view of the river). The Back Inn Cafe sits on the Chattanooga Riverwalk and caught my attention several times as a place I’d like to eat when I went by on my bike purely because I’m a sucker for a view.

After spending a busy day sight-seeing and relaxing with an afternoon nap, we decide tonight is the right occasion to give it a try. Pat, my husband, Megan and I head out on foot towards the Walnut Street Bridge. The sun is low in the sky, creating the orangey glow on the bridge that always makes everything look magical. Arriving at the bridge, we find crowds of people making their way towards their evening destinations as well as groups for whom the bridge is their destination. The former weave their way around the latter, moving at a faster pace. We have allowed an hour for our 10-minute walk, our dinner reservation not being until 8PM, so we move slowly and stop often. With the sun low and the breeze kicking up, the temperature has dropped and encourages us to linger.

A couple below is out on the river on paddle boards. We watch for a while as they stand on over-sized surf boards, paddling themselves along the river. It appears this is their first time–they move awkwardly across the river and turn suddenly away from an oncoming boat moving rapidly across the far side of the river as if they are afraid the wake will capsize them. The boat is far enough away that they rock only gently when the wake finally reaches them.

We make our way to the other side, arriving at the glass bridge. Megan takes the bridge in stride, but comments on the strangeness of walking over a highway on glass. I smile and recount my own first experience crossing this bridge, feeling proud that it’s now become a familiar experience. We linger some more around the Hunter Museum, enjoying the view from its patio, which juts precariously over the ledge. Then we walk towards the outdoor sculpture garden just outside the Back Inn Cafe. The sculpture garden surprises us with a melding of setting and sculpture. It nestles into the side of the cliff, providing a fascinating combination of scenery and art. Not being much of an art buff, I don’t know if art aficionados would appreciate the sculptures or not, but I enjoy the sense of place created by the garden. Each corner provides a new view while the sculptures elicit a sense of time standing still. A father and son are captured there, eternally caught in the intense embrace of parental passion. A school of fish are frozen in time as they struggle against a small waterfall. There is something about sculpture that makes me sad. The thought that one moment is all there ever is and all there ever will be for its subjects disturbs me. The paradox of being in one moment across all moments gives me the sense of being on to a profound realization that remains just outside my reach.

Returning to the practicality of life, we check the time and make our way to the restaurant. We sit at a large, round table for 6 out on the patio. We group together along one side so that we all have a view. The view from our table is not as good as the view from the sculpture garden, but the patio is lovely and the sun has now dropped below the buildings behind us, placing us in a cool shadow. We try things from their menu like peach caprese and fried green tomatoes served with goat cheese (I can never get enough goat cheese). The peach caprese is interesting, but I have to say I prefer tomatoes with mozzarella. We order a bottle of wine after checking to see if they will re-cork it since only Megan and I are having wine. However, since I order a stuffed filet, I find myself enjoying the complex red zin a little too much with the entree. By the end of dinner, there is only half a glass left, which hardly seems worth carrying home. I forget that 2 glasses is my limit (which I probably passed half a glass ago, but who’s counting?) and polish off the wine.

As we make our way back over the bridge after dinner, a cop on a Segway rolls up. We smile and wave and he stops to chat. We learn that this 3-wheeled contraption is not actually a Segway, which puffs up Pat a bit since we’d had an argument about this on the way over. We also learn that the cops patrolling on these funny vehicles are actually off-duty police paid to patrol Chattanooga pedestrian areas by a federal grant received due to gang activity. We are shocked to learn that even here there is violence. He assures us that the patrols have been effective and problem areas are now contained to places we make a mental note not to wonder into. He let’s me stand on his vehicle for a photo op before we move on.

Returning to our apartment, we take turns in the bathroom getting ready for bed–I realize this is the first time I’ve lived in a place with only 1 bathroom since I was in college. The extra glass of wine is hitting home and my stomach reminds me why I don’t drink more than 2 glasses. As I sit on the couch and close my eyes, the room begins to spin slowly. I open my eyes and curse myself for making myself feel sick on what was otherwise a perfect day. Next time, we will order wine by the glass.

All three of us fit on our oversized, ugly couch. We sit and doze as we watch a little TV, tired but happy. After each of us has nodded off several times, we decide it’s time for bed. Pat and I step around the air mattress in the middle of the living room, which Megan has insisted on sleeping on even though we insisted she should sleep in our bed. I am reminded that it’s been 15 years since I didn’t have a guest room with a regular bed in it to offer guests. The downside of downsizing. But Megan assures us she is perfectly comfortable as we turn off the lights and call it a night.