Highs & Lows

High: The other day I received an e-mail from Jill, the wedding photographer I assisted this past weekend in South Carolina. Jill just wanted to let me know that I had some great shots and as a result some of my images were now going to be part of the couples wedding album.

Can you say "EXCITED"?? Well thats what I was when I read the message. EXCITED.

Low: Today one of my co-workers and friend, got fired. It was awful. Completely out of the blue. Totally unexpected and shocking. I still can't get my head around it. As a result, I really don't know what to say about it, other than I'll miss her and her big bellied laughs (not that she had a big belly, just that when she laughed, she laughed hard and deep), her out there sense of humor and her straight talkin. She was just my type : (

Learning, The Hard Way

Shinks learned a couple of things this past weekend.

• Sometimes its NOT best to book a hotel room before you arrive at your destination. I headed to South Carolina this past weekend to assist my new photographer friend, Jill, at a wedding she was shooting. Jill recommended I book my hotel room in advance, as S. Carolina is a hugely popular place, especially on weekends. So with the kung fu kicking William Shatner (aka, Captain Kirk) of the Priceline commercials fresh in my mind, I hit up the website to find myself a luxury room at a dirt cheap price. BIG mistake. The hotel was dodgy and scary, like bad things happen here scary. As soon as I got to my room, I turned the dead bolt, hooked the little chain lock thing and was in the process of dragging a chair in front of the door when a thought struck me. “What if the rapist is already in the room waiting for me? Like he knew I was coming.” So I immediately undid the dead bolt, the chain thing and moved the chair out of the path of the doorway until I had swept the room for hidden rapists. Under the bed, clear. In the closet, clear. Bathroom, clear. Everything, clear. Now I could engage all locks and bolts and continue with the minor furniture rearranging.

• Because I am not by nature a tall person, I like to wear heels as much as I can. The extra elevation does wonders to enhance my confidence and self esteem and since I was really, REALLY nervous about my role as assistant photographer, I figured a slight heel won’t hurt. Wrong. 8 hours in heels, even if that heel is a mere 2 inches, will hurt. It will hurt your calves, feet and back, badly.

• Shinks CAN go 8 hours without peeing. Yes, she of the tiny bladder and frequenter of the bathroom can, if the situation requires, find it within herself to go the distance without peeing.

• Lastly, 8 hours of shooting, photos that is, is tough but so much fun. I loved every second of it. Thanks so much Jill for letting me assist, I had a blast and learned a lot.
  

Me, using the mirror to test my equipment.

The Cleaner

So the trip back to Atlanta? A nightmare to say the least. The airline I flew, offered the most uncomfortable flying experience ever. The food was of Oliver Twist standard. The seats were tight and the leg room was zero. That coming from a person who is only 5’5” and not all that wide, means that the taller, more fuller figured people, must have felt tortured on this plane. Yes, this company found a way to pack as many seats possible, into the space available by cutting waaaay back on the luxuries such as leg and elbow room. Of course the company mindset is, more seats, more tickets sold, more $$$ earned per flight. The low grade food and no inflight entertainment, well that's just clever cost cutting in their opinion. 

Anyway, once in Philly I was greeted with the news that my flight to Atlanta was delayed. By how long? Just 45 minutes. Not too bad. Oh wait, another announcement, sorry, its delayed an hour and 15 minutes. Ooookay, not happy but not much I can do. Hang on, some updated information, flight delayed a FURTHER 2 hours. Grrrrr. This went on and on, in the end, final figure on delayed hours, 7 HOURS. Yes, I was stranded in Philly airport for 7 hours. I finally arrived in Atlanta close to 2am and had to be up at 5.30am to go to work. What a disaster. Throw in the fact that this week, my co-worker has been going through some sort of emotional crisis and even though she was physically present at the office, she was mentally checked out and operating at minimum effort, thus leaving it all to yours truly, a jet-legged zombie, to hold things down. And I barely held it down. Actually, I think I made a bit of a f#*k up, but won’t know officially until I get to the office on Monday. 

Anyway from there I have to approach the topic of my kitty cat, Fintan, who in my opinion is the best damn cat in the world. However, Fintan has developed into a real predator a hunter if you will, taking home anything from small bugs and butterflies, to lizards, chipmunks and snakes. Yes, Fintan has brought snakes into my home. As a non-lover of wild creatures, Fintan’s new “skill” has me living on my nerve. You never know what he’s going to show up with and most of the time, when he brings it home, its not fully dead. Luckily up to this point, a man, by way of Husband or a friend, has been on hand to deal with the carnage. However last Friday, in the absence of “a man” Shinks had to step up and take on the role of “Cleaner” herself. Fintan’s latest hunt resulted in a bird, a badly mauled bird, we are talking missing eye and bloodied wing, had somehow managed to get his injured self away from my cat and up and over the door of one of our showers.

We managed to capture my bird rescue skills on video but I have to warn you, my cameraman Mike, is even more terrified of wild creatures than me, so his camera skills are pretty bad. Also, “this movie has been rated 17 due to scenes of violence and use of language” . Sorry da, I was nervous and the bad words just slipped out.

Where's My Ruby Slippers??

Right now I am sitting at the Internet area of the departure lounge in London’s Heathrow Airport. I have begun what is a very long and scenic route back to my home in Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, today's trip will have me fly from Dublin to London at the very crack of dawn. Spend 3 hours hanging out with my London peeps, before its onwards to Philadelphia where I will get a further 4 hours to hang with my Philly peeps before lastly taking my final flight to Atlanta. 

Its a nightmare, I won’t lie and my attitude towards the whole program is very bad, very bad indeed. I know a more centered and zen like person would choose to focus on the positives of the situation, like catching up on ones reading, (which I have been bitching I don’t get enough time to do anymore), or spending some time getting all deep by reflecting and pondering ones life and the direction it is headed or not headed. 

But right now, I am not that zen person. I am choosing to spend some time focusing on the negative. Choosing hostility, frustration, anger and my overwhelming fatigue, over anything that may help make this nightmare journey bearable. Eventually these emotions will wear me out and I’ll have to accept the situation at hand and stop wishing my friend Mary (US Airways Mary, of the magic tapping fingers) would suddenly show up, preferably with a dazzling pair of ruby slippers, that with a bit of deep thinking, heel clicking and verbal muttering will instantly beam me directly to my bed in Atlanta. That would be so nice, completely out of touch with reality, but nice nonetheless.

Mission Accomplished

I'm happy to report the flight to Ireland was a success. Not because of my mad packing skills and definitely not because of the "on-time" abilities of the folks at United Airlines. No, the reason I made it safe and sound and right on schedule is because of Mary.

Mary was the customer service rep I went to inquiring about any potential delays for my flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia. I explained to Mary that I had just 1 hour to make my connection in Philly and was concerned about my plane's ability to be on time.

After some fast action finger tapping on her keyboard, Mary informed me that my flight was delayed 20 minutes. Sh*t, now I only had 40 minutes to make my connection. Not possible. Before I could even open my mouth, Mary was already frantically tapping her fingers in an effort to come up with solutions for my problem. And what was her solution? To re-book me on the Delta flight direct from Atlanta to Dublin leaving a 8pm. Sweeeeeet. And with zero dolla in change fees. Even sweeeeter. Gotta love Mary.

So home is where I am now and of course I've been spending tons of time with my wee nephew, who is now approaching the 3 month mark. He has gotten so big and is becoming completely interactive. Tons of smiles, tons of drool, lots of kicking and swinging of legs and arms and even big efforts to talk by way of squeals and baby sound effects. 

And yes of course the poor child has had a camera lens jammed in front of him for a large part of our time together, but don't worry, I'll spare the world too many baby snaps and leave you with just this one cutesie-wootsie little photo I snapped right after a nappy (diaper) change.

He's so adorable, just like his auntie Karen ;-)

The Carry-On Challenge

It’s a long weekend here in the US, so I decided to take advantage of the extra days off work by popping back to Ireland to see my family and re-connect with my Irish peeps. I leave today after work and I’m so friggin excited.

But my trip is not without one minor challenge and that would be a 1 hour connection in Philadelphia. Yes, I fly from Atlanta to Philly, then Philly to Dublin and I have just 1 hour to disembark, locate and run like the blazes to the plane that will take me all the way to Dublin. It’s going to be tight, no doubt about that. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING needs to run absolutely on schedule, or better yet, ahead of schedule for all this to happen, especially on that Atlanta to Philly flight. Every second is going to be crucial, so packing light was an absolute must. And even though I travel a lot, packing light has never been my thing. I’m a serial over packer, always have been. Tons of “what if” shoes, dresses, tops and jeans. In my opinion, you just never know what last minute invitations may come your way, you need to be ready.

But the over packing thing, not a good idea for this trip. If I’m going to struggle to make the connection, then a checked bag, has zero chance. So my challenge last night was to get 5 days worth of clothes and shoes along with necessities like my lap-top, camera and it various pieces of equipment into 1 suitcase big enough to take all the above but small enough to fit in the overhead compartment of the plane. No easy. I do have a backpack to help with the situation, but all in all, quite the challenge.

But I’m happy to report that it did happen. I made it work. My life for the next 5 days, is now very tightly packed in a mini suitcase and backpack. How proud am I? Very. So right now I have managed to do, all that I can do, to increase my chances of making this Philly connection. All I need now is for the people of United Airlines, Atlanta and Philadelphia airports to do the same and all will be well. Wish me luck. If I had a Twitter, I could update y’all on the situation as its happening, but am still on the fence with the whole world of Twitter. So until then we'll just have to wait and see.

Foot In Mouth Disease

Today at work I did an excellent job of jamming my foot right into my mouth. It was awful. Just awful.  With every word I uttered and every question asked, my foot got bigger and inched it’s way further and further down my throat. If ever there was a “ground please open up and swallow me whole” situation, then today was it.

To be honest it wasn’t all my fault. I was introduced to the son of a co-worker today, a 21 year old young man who had come up from Florida to spend the week with his family. Having absolutely zero information on the background story to this young man, which is apparently one of drama and rebellion, I proceeded to make some small talk, asking what I thought were some harmless routine questions. Turns out each of my “routine” questions did nothing but blow the lids off multiple cans of worms. 

It was early into the conversation when I began to realize I was walking through a potential minefield and with some fancy verbal footwork, or so I thought, I started to change up my line of questioning, hoping it would take me to the safety of some neutral territory. But no, no no, no such luck. The hole I was digging got bigger

Alarm bells were going off inside my head. The temperature in the room felt like it had jumped to 150 degrees. I’m under titanic pressure and I’m starting to sweat. My brain tells me to  “Shut it down. For the love of god, why won’t you just shut this conversation down”, but my mouth believes that the next sentence, the next statement will make everything right. “Silence brain, I can still save this”. But you know what? Brain was right, the situation could not be saved and eventually I had to raise the white flag. 

Everyone involved now felt uncomfortable, awkward and exposed. Fabulous, just fabulous. My work here was now done.

 “21 year old young man, it was very nice to meet you and now that I’ve managed to throw a gallon of gas on the fiery relationship you appear to have with your family, I will bid you adue, wish you all the best for the future as I begin to sink slowly into my chair, with aspirations of eventually crawling under my desk”.