April Fools

I’ve been planning an April Fool’s joke for over a year now for my staff.  If you recall, last year I was trying to have new name tags made up.  But it fell through because the facility guy was just not really on top of things.  But now with the new furniture, it’s much easier - instead of carved metal name tags, it’s just paper.

So I got the template, two months ago.  I decided to name everyone Charlie + their last name.  For the few Charlie’s already in the department I gave them famous Charlie names.  As a back story, a third of the staff are named Charles and we joke about it all the time.  I gave myself the name “Charlie Horse”.  And the most senior Charlie is “Charles the Great”.  We have a Chuck Berry and a Charlie Rose.  I wanted to use Charlie Card - the card used for the Boston subway system, but thought it might not be that PC.    

And then I noticed the month is almost up.  I can’t stay late tonight because I have a committee meeting.  And tomorrow morning, I can’t come in extra early, because I have an 8 am meeting.  So I’m hoping people leave early today.   Otherwise I’ll have to covertly change out the name tags.

 

I did work on cutting up the name tags at lunch, away from my desk, while in a meeting with some other staff (not in my department).  And I have some folks coming by tomorrow to start calling people Charlie.  Otherwise, I don’t think anyone would notice.

It’s really hard coming up with a good joke to play on your staff.  Really really hard.  So hopefully folks will enjoy it.  Wish me well!

Also - got my hair cut this weekend. A little shorter than I intended but I really like the shorter hair these days.

Philly and US Airway

I find I write a lot about my travel but I realize it's usually the only downtime I have for posting. This week I was on the road for work visiting our different offices. NYC on Tuesday, Prinecton Wednesday, and Philly today. And I'm wiped out. I had brought one of my staff for trainings. And by this afternoon we were done for the day and figured we'd head to the airport and catch an earlier flight. I checked online and there are shuttles Avery hour and only our 5:15 was sold out, all the earlier flights had seats available.

Well, you can tell where this is going. Get to the airport and all flights are booked. Do stand by for the 3:15 - nothing. Get rolled to the 4:15 for standby. Flights start backing up and both the 4:15 and 5:15 flights are delayed until 6, and then 6:30. Just as we are about to board a crew member comes up and says all flights are grounded and we won't take off until 8. We book it over to the gate for the 5:15 flight and see that it's almost boarded. Great!  Nope, we only have one ticket and it's for the super delayed flight. Ugh. We wait and they say boarding will start at 7:30, then  it gets pushed to 8. In the meantime, we learn that the flight we just missed didn't really go anywhere, it's sitting on the Tarmac all this time. Actually it took off at 8:30, so it would have been better to just stick with our original 5:15 flight and not try to get a earlier flight. But now we're stuck. We Finally start boarding at 8:30. And here I am at 8:45, waiting. Nothing's happening so I'm going to be happy if I'm in bed by midnight. 

We joked that if we had just taken the train we would have been home an hour ago. One funny thing was that as we were at the gate waiting, there would be this round of music from phones. The airline would call with alerts for every delay. It was really funny hearing all the phones go off at the same time. Of course, the messages were grossly behind. So you'd get a call saying the flight has changed and would be leaving at 7:30 and you'd look at your watch and it was past 7:30 and nothing was happening. 

Every time I fly out of Philly, I'm stuck for hours. Apparently it's because of the rain and fog in Boston, but I think Philly and US Airways had something to do with how miserable everything is. I wish I was on delta. I have a feeling I would have gotten out before all the backup due to weather. At least now I know for the future. 

It's almost 9 now as I sign off. If only today was Friday. At least there is only one more day. I'm really hoping it's smooth sailing getting to my car in economy and that it will start. I'm just so tired. Fingers crossed. 

Where Am I?

Strangest thing happened to me this week, I was traveling for work and when I got off the plane I had no idea where I was. Long ago are the days when I would prepare for travel, do my homework and have everything figured out. 

I was heading down to DC to do a training in our Alexandria office, accompanied with one of my staff. Due to the nature of schedules and deadlines, my colleague had made the travel arrangements with our company travel agent.

It was very strange that morning heading to the airport knowing only that my flight was Jetblue and departing around 6:30. This week had been so busy I hadn't had time to hunt up the travel confirmation paperwork from a few weeks back. 

I vaguely remember hearing Jetblue had switched terminals at National, but still, this didn't look right. And of course there are no signs telling you the name of the airport on the inside. Turned out it was Dulles. We ended up taking a 45 minute cab to the office instead of the regular 5 minute ride. 

Luckily it was all straightened out by the time we were leaving at the end of the day and we flew out of National on our way home. 

Still a strange experience wondering if you are even in the right city. 

Birthday Dinner

This was supposed to post yesterday. 

After work today, I headed to the South End for a friends birthday party at a nice restaurant - Gaslight. We had met through work and I only new the birthday girl. I got to the restaurant a little early - surprisingly public transportation was quick. So grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered a drink. To my left was a guy on his own but it didn't seem like he was up for talking. And it wasn't too long before two women grabbed the last seats on my right. They were quite friendly and we were chatting away when one of them made reference to a birthday dinner. What a coincidence - I was here for a birthday dinner too and as I was saying the words it dawned on me. Turns out one was the sister, the other a friend and off the night went. 

It was ten of us and I enjoyed a night of good food and good company. I sat a across from a gay couple, who interestingly found out about five dates in that not only did they both have exes who had cheated on them, but that the exes in question cheated with each other. How small of a world that the two innocent partners would later meet accidentally. 

The sister, who I sat next to, turned out to be a big fan of the Great British Bakeoff so I finally found someone to talk about the show with. She also loved how nice everyone was on the show. She hasn't seen the last two episodes so I had to watch what I said. And when I asked her she thought/wanted to win and answered the builder guy, I was proud of how emotionless I was- not giving away anything. 

It was about 10 before I finally departed. I decided to take a brisk walk to Mass Ave to catch the #1 bus home. The walk wasn't that bad and was good after a full meal. It was the waiting that did me in. My phone app kept resetting. First the bus was coming in 5 minutes and slowly would go down and then reset to 12 minutes. 

I was sitting on the bus bench but my butt was getting too cold on the metal so i walked back and forth. Finally the bus came and it didn't seem to have heating. It wasn't until my second bus that I finally started to warm up. 

It wasn't until I was tucked into bed under my warm covers that sitting on the metal bench in that weather was not a good move. My butt wouldn't warm up!  It was fine the next morning. 

It was such a marked difference from the 70+ weather I was experiencing the day before in Atlanta. I ended my meeting early Wednesday so headed to the airport and my two options were stick with my 7pm flight home or run for it and try to catch the noon flight. With only 20 minutes to get through security and make it to terminal B. 

I totally lucked out. First, I forgot I had a full bottle if water in my bag - security completely missed it and I breezed through. And secondly I even had time to grab lunch at this good fast good place - Fast Food Fresh.  So I was happy to settle into my seat a few minutes before taking off. Enjoying this view:

The only annoying thing is I chose to watch a crappy movie - I find these are the best on flights, when you're tired, watching on a small screen. The annoying part was 15 minutes before the end, it turned off for landing. And of course I'm invested enough to want to know how it ends. So now I've got to go rent it to watch the last 15 minutes. Ugh. 

Made My Day Friday

I'm heading out the door to work just now and as I'm walking to my bus stop I see my bus coming. And even though I know it's a slim chance I start "running" to try to make it to the stop in time. Knowing it's fruitless but also knowing the next bus isn't coming for 20 minutes. 

And guess what?  The bus pulls up next to me and stops a block before the stop to let me on. How sweet is that?  A great way to start the day and makes up for the bus that passed me by on Monday. 

Baking

As I wait in the cold for my bus, I'm planning out warm weekend plans. I really want to try baking a Schichttorte. Nothing like a warm kitchen on a sunny Sunday. 

Has anyone else been watching The Great British Bake Off on PBS? I'm surprisingly hooked. I knew about the show since it's a BBC production in it's fifth year. It's first year state side. But I never thought I'd be interested in it. I realize it was because of all the American cooking competition shows. They are so maliciously competitive and I'm just not in the mood for that these days. 

But the British are so civilized. All the competitors are so nice and supportive of each other - the other end of the spectrum from the cut throat approach of the American shows. The show even came up in conversation when I was in Iceland. 

I've been wanting to bake some of the items on the show but this cake is definitely on the top of the list. The contestants were not wild about it - lots of work. It's a 20 layer cake where you cook each layer. 

I do have experience with 20 layered cakes. Still to this day, I have friends comment on the 26 layer cake I made at a dinner party awhile back. For that cake you baked 26 thin cakes and then compiled it. For this Schichttorte, you bake a layer, then add more batter on top and bake it again. I'm amazed it works. I think it's because you're broiling it. I'll need to check out my broiler to even see if the logistics will work. 

I did find an American recipe - the version in the show's web page is all based on British weights. 

Well, we'll see if I have time to make it this weekend. For now it sits in my Pinterest world. 

Back in Boston Update

I’m back!  It was nice having Nick pick me up at the airport Tuesday night.  The flight was a bit delayed and customs took awhile.  They added these computers which I thought were supposed to make things faster but I don’t think that’s the intent.  It replaces the old cards you filled out by hand.  And you end up with something like this:

 

Yup - it took a picture when you’re at your lowest - long flight, end of day, not realizing what you’re doing.  All in all, didn’t get home until late Boston time and super late Paris time.  I don’t know what I was thinking going into work the next day.  I was doing well in the morning getting ready and then I just crashed.  The jet lag is still with me as I write this almost a week later.  I keep waking up at 3 am - ugh.

 

Luckily, I live in a condo, so all the major snow removal was taken care of by neighbors.  After storm 1, I had dug my car out.  But after storm 2, I figured I didn’t need my car since I was leaving a couple of days later so just shoveled snow in front of it.  After storm 3, my neighbors had dug me out.  But after storm 4, it was a lost cause. 

 

I was thinking of shoveling it out this weekend but there really is nowhere to put the snow.  And the snow is hard to shovel, being older melt/freeze snow.  So I’m living the urban life and walking to places.  Luckily I don’t use my car much as it is and everything is a block away.  Saturday I ran errands via foot - library to return my Paris travel books, bank to deposit checks, and vet to pick up cat food, and grocery store to stock back up.  Check this out - of all the strange things I saw on my trip, this probably ranks near the top, and it was at my grocery store around the corner.  From the cabbage family.

 

This weekend I basically spent sleeping, unpacking, sleeping, doing laundry and sleeping.  I’m surprised how tired I am.  But I guess I don’t have the excitement of the trip to keep my energy level on uber drive.  To celebrate being back, I had a glorious “American” breakfast.  I love the pastries, but I also love a nice full breakfast/brunch.

 

Check it out: cornmeal waffles with real maple syrup and a side of applewood smoked bacon, boiled egg, grapefruit, salad with baby greens, salmon, blackberries and a  cheese I brought back from my travels (it’s not as good as it was in Paris, still good, but not the same) and a glass of OJ.  And you know what, after I gobbled it down, I was still a bit hungry.  I do love me the big breakfast in the morning.

 

Nick came over for lunch and baked me a cake and I opened all my wonderful gifts and birthday cards.  I forgot what it’s like having young cats around with wrapping paper.  The little “kittens” loved the mess.  Their favorite toy was a bit of plastic packaging from a wooden Rubik’s cube that I received. 

 

And this morning, I’m still amazed at how high the snow banks are on the way to work, even after the little bit of melting we had yesterday. 

 

It’s super cold and unfortunately my tree at work didn’t make it while I was gone.  It wasn’t doing that well when I left but am surprised it just gave up all of a sudden.

 

And now I’m playing catch up with emails - still, and getting back into the swing of things at work and home.  Lot’s to still catch up on.  But I did enjoy my new Roku at home that I finally installed - I was able to watch PBS shows (through their app) and even british favorites from youtube - all streaming to my tv.  Gotta love technology.