Checking in from LAX

Now I am glad I brought the laptop.  I have a 5 hour wait in LAX for my next flight.  The astro-dweeb is flying in from Hawaii to catch this flight with me – seems sort of romantic ….

People look so dowdy in airports don't they?  I suppose it is a combination of wearing "comfy" clothes, anxiety & tiredness which leads to very few good looking fliers!

Maybe you are curious about what sort of music I have on my iPod to wile away all these hours.  Well, the back of my iPod is inscribed with my name and under that it says "Daggy-licious" .   I have over 5,000 eclectic songs on my iPod but the general genre could probably be described as daggy.

I enjoyed nearly an hour of Nana Mouskouri over West Virginia & Kentucky (I realise that probably only my sister will not have to google her!); followed by some Alison Krause and Dixie Chicks.  I then listened to Jenny Lewis's "Rabbit Fur Coat" album twice – love it!!    I have Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Amy Winehouse, Beach Boys, Robert Plant, The Animals, Chris Isaak, Commander Cody, Shirley Bassey, Cilla Black, Dean Martin, Eminem,  Edith Piaff, Frank Zappa, Israel Kamakawiwo, Green Day and the list goes on….  but my favourite travelling music is Johnny Cash.  His sonorous voice and the consistent level of sound, both voice and instrumental, is effective in keeping me in a lulled state.  I have, and love, all his American Recording albums and have them in a playlist of their own which I set on "repeat".  

So now you can imagine me over the Pacific Ocean playing 15 hours of Johnny Cash!  Now that is daggy!

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“What if” worry – number 1

One of my "what if worries" would be getting sick and having to fly to Australia with a vicious bout of the flu. So, this week I am trying to isolate myself from all those infected with the current flu "epidemic".  This is difficult when one rides mass transit and works in Reception and sick people insist on continuing to come to work and in to meetings.  

A guy came in today and when I shook his hand it was disgustingly feverish and clammy and then he had a bout of coughing which he covered with said hand before shaking hands with the next person!!

I wanted to race off and wash my hands but that wasn't practical so very discreetly (well, I hope so) I rubbed Purell over my hands to get rid of the icky feeling and whatever germs he had shared. 

Later I needed to open a new bottle of Purell and inside the box there was a snazzy little pamphlett using scare tactics to encourage me to buy gallons of this stuff.

Quote:  "Did you know the average phone harbors over 25,000 germs per square inch and the average desktop has over 20,000 germs per square inch?  Compared to the average toilet seat with only 49 germs per square inch you might actually be better off working in the bathroom than at your desk!"

It goes on to give some other "savoury" numbers – all germs per sq.inch:
Mouse:  1,676
Keyboard:  3,295
Desktop: 20,961
Phone:  25,127

Purell does not provide a break down of the types of germs nor does it make any claims of being able to kill them all – but it is probably the best defence I have.

I know that my company would not fully appreciate the reasoning behind their receptionist suddenly wanting to work  from the bathroom, so this week I will be slathering my hands in purell constantly even if it means the skin is shredding off them!

I must get on that plane healthy  – I must, I must!

 

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One Week today …

One week today I fly off home to Australia for one month!!

Total travel time for this trip is about 30 hours – door to door – from the time I leave here, sit in the airport, sit in a plane, sit in another airport, sit in another plane, get through customs & the rental car counter and then drive to my friend's house.

From Washington DC to Los Angeles is 5 or 6 hours. Then it is 14 & a half hours flying across the Pacific where you wonder if you should have paid more attention during the safety demonstration on "water landings".

You know it is going to be a long trip when they welcome you aboard and tell you that "for your enjoyment we have 6 movies to show during this flight".

You know it is already way too long when you eat a meal, watch a movie, have a nap and still have not gone half way!

I have never quite managed to grasp the International Date Line effect ….  I leave on Saturday & arrive on Monday – what happened to Sunday?  Coming back I get to land in LA before I have taken off in Sydney!

I tend to dress for the worst…. all cotton so my clothes don't melt to me in the event of fire, joggers incase I have to sprint away from a burning aircraft and all my valuables at my feet because there is NO way I am leaving my "personal effects" in the case of an evacuation!

It is no wonder then, that my mind conjures up the image of a great big blood clot forming in my leg and insidiously travelling to my lungs and thus ruining my holiday.  United shows a little film of leg lift exercises you can do during the flight to help prevent the likelihood of DVT.  Well….   I am just a smidgen over 5'8" tall and when the person in front puts their seat back my knees are touching it and there is no way in hell I can do any sort of leg exercise except wriggle my toes (which of course are swelling in my joggers!).

Having seen a few studies recently on the success of compression stockings in not only preventing DVT but also alleviating some of the jet lag tiredness I decided to buy a pair.  (BTW,  one of these studies involved people wearing the stockings on one way of their journey and not in the return direction or vice versa and then answering a questionnaire on how they felt as well as having medical tests done on blood pressure and various other tests of their blood flow oxygenation and efficiency).
 
So my thigh high medium compression stockings arrived and today was "test day".  Mmmmmm!  Not so sexy but at least they are in a suntan shade and not surgical white. They have a sort of rubberised top with lace on the showing side – though I have no idea why the manufacturer would put something sexy on these. They are not the sort of stocking that is going to tempt my fellow passenger into a hustling me into the mile high club!

Putting them on was a little bit challenging but then they are supposed to be tight.  The rubber grip is supposed to stop them from falling down but it does not feel nice on the skin and because they are tight there does tend to be a little bit of flesh overflow!!  This overflow is somewhat lessened upon walking when the bands roll over at the top …  I'm not sure they are meant to do that!  LOL .  Once rolled over the rubber tended to stick to the skirt I had on today giving it a weird look which I am sure the fashion designer did not envisage on his creation! 

And so, the all up assessment is:  I doubt that these are going to last on my legs any longer than the time between take off and "you are now free to move about…"

Tomorrow I will start stressing about what to pack ….

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Princess SJ

Princess SJ arrived the other night and the routine for the next 6 weeks is seemingly set:-  

Emerge from bed around 2pm asking “what’s for lunch?”.
Retire to the couch to watch really atrocious afternoon television (though some could be described as quite comedic!).
After dinner head off to the land of instant messaging, Facebook and MySpace.

Wish I was a teenager and had this kind of routine!

This is the first time my 18yo daughter has flown from Australia on her own and we were both a bit jittery so the astro-dweeb extended a meeting he had in San Francisco to meet her and escort her back to the East Coast.

Well…….  her plane landed an hour early and then she broke all records getting through Immigration & Customs to find that, of course,  he wasn’t there to meet her.  Princess SJ does not wear a watch (doesn’t like them) and so she was not aware that she was early. She got in a panic and left the designated meeting area; found a public phone and called me at work  – the first words I heard were:   “It’s me and I don’t know where I am”. ….    What do you mean you don’t know where you are?  Go back to the meeting place!   “I don’t know how to get back there”!

Her mobile wouldn’t work and the astro-dweeb does not have one –  double frustrating!!   Finding the number for the SF International Airport paging service, I organized to have the astro-dweeb paged to call me  – but he is really “sciencey” and moves through life thinking up codes to block out life’s noises.  I was not optimistic he would hear it.  

But …  all turned out well as Princess SJ found her way back to the meeting place & there he was, wondering why the hell she was coming from the opposite direction and not from the arrivals hall!

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