Archive for April 2010

Sitting Out for Jazz Fest

April had been a very busy month packed with travel to  Phoenix, AZ, home to Kansas City, New Orleans, and soon Greenville, MS.

Months ago, I bought tickets to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest), bound and determined to attend this year. There are a limited number of perks living in Jackson, MS, and the proximity to New Orleans is one of them.  My husband and I love festivals, the food, music, people watching, being outside…but life did not go as planned, imagine that.

Plans started to go downhill Thursday, a day before heading to New Orleans. I had started to feel bad earlier in the week waking up with a sore throat, sleeping more, and losing stamina during workouts. Yoga was a bit rough and my inexplicable coughing probably hindered the relaxing and meditative experience for others (my bad). By Friday afternoon I was coughing, a bit achy, and downing hot tea as a cure-all last resort. We decided to go ahead and drive down Friday evening, despite how I was feeling or the looming bad weather.

Saturday morning I woke up as a 90-year-old woman. It hurt to exist. My bones ached, muscles were throbbing and I hardly made it through breakfast without wanting desperately to lay down and curl up in a ball in the booth at Russell’s Marina Grill. I hardly ate. My husband knows something is terribly wrong when I’ve lost my appetite. It’s a bad, bad sign.

Our host, one of my husband’s friends from college, has a house in nearby Metairie and was very gracious. He stopped at a local drug store on our way back from breakfast to get rations, medication and tissues. My Saturday consisted of laying on his couch, moving to the guest bed, and going back to the couch. I switched from having chills to being incredibly hot. This was not included in my Jazz Fest plans.

The weekend continued, we headed back to Jackson, and I don’t remember too much due to Tylonel’s severe cold and sinus medication, my allergy medicine, Advil and Nyquil.

On Monday we got an appointment for the doctor, who knew better to ask how I felt with one glance at me. His diagnosis was bronchitis and I had a fever of 101 degrees. After one steroid shot in the butt, bottle of antibiotics and bottle of cough syrup in hand later, I was once again settled onto a couch.

For the next three days I slept, watched some terrible t.v., and ate six cans of chicken noodle soup. The most depressing part was I couldn’t taste anything, well, that or the MTV show 16 and Pregnant. Throughout this time, I went through two entire boxes of tissues and two travel packs, gross. It’s lonely being sick as an adult during the day and it didn’t help that I couldn’t do anything. Inactivity for a person who likes to stay busy is like putting a panther on a cat leash, unnatural and slightly dangerous.

After some thorough lecturing from my husband about hand washing, water drinking, and hand sanitizer, I’m now armed with Flintstones vitamins and more self-awareness at work. This is the second time I’ve been so very sick within three months. The hospital or state of Mississippi is trying to kill me.

Thursday Finds

I’m fighting a cold. I’ve been sick more at this current job that nearly all other jobs combined. Maybe the hospital proximity contributes to the atmosphere of sick germs more than I thought.

When symptoms first show up: achy, runny nose, cough, sore throat…the regimen begins. I drink lots of hot tea (lemon/ginger, blueberry, green), water, ingest various forms of vitamin C, take zinc cold tablets, suck on cough drops, minimize working out, and sleep as much as possible.

Once when bronchitis set in I was being stubborn and would not stop going to the YMCA. During my usual step class I felt clammy and almost passed out. So I must be growing as a person to actually put that lesson into practice. If it gets real bad I reach for the saltines, Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, and orange juice mixed with sprite.

One day my immune system will be iron clad.

Meanwhile…here are a few things I’ve found that are somewhat interesting.

Paper chips = zero calories, well yeah, because it’s paper. I’m with the Consumerist on this one, it’s hard to believe the world has come to this.

This Sharky Tea Infuser amuses me, even if the visual is a bit disturbing. Creativity in the culinary world!

And in case you didn’t make it to Baskin Robbins last night, here’s a coupon for buy-one-blizzard-get-one for 25 cents at Dairy Queen.

31-cent Ice Cream

It’s time to clean out underneath your couch cushions!

Find that hidden change and head to Baskin Robbins. Tonight is 31 cent scoop night from 5-10 p.m.

Growing up, my family made an occasional trek to a Baskin Robbins across the street from our neighborhood. To get there we would walk down the street past three houses to our local park, take a right on the bike path, follow the creek underneath the street overpass, and hike up a small grassy incline.

We would make our way to the door, step in, and inhale the sweet smell of sugar cones.

Choosing one ice cream flavor from the 31 varieties was (and still can be) a big decision. I wavered between quarterback crunch (vanilla with caramel and chocolate covered Rice Krispie pieces) and mint chocolate chip. My little brother would nearly always choose that terrible pink  bubble gum flavored ice cream, suck out the gum pieces, and save them to be chewed last. Ick.

As I can recall…my dad preferred fruit flavors, black walnut or vanilla and my mom likes toffee.

It’s a small memory, these family ice cream outings, but oh-so-sweet to remember now. The price is right to start a tradition tonight!

Deals to Make Tax Day Brighter

Baja Fresh: Get a $2 burrito if you join their facebook fan page.

Cinnabon: From 6-8 p.m. get two free cupcake bites.

MaggieMoos: From 3-7 p.m. get a free sample of their new ice cream pizza, click the link to find participating locations.

McCormick and Schmick’s: There are $10.40 dinner and drink specials at the bar, plus you will receive a “Tax Relief Certificate” for $10.40. Also, tax preparers get a good break on April 16; by presenting your business card receive a free dessert with the purchase of any entree and one of those “Tax Relief Certificates” for $10.40.

P.F. Chang’s: Visit today and receive 15% off food purchases (does not include alcohol).

Subway: Score a free cookie.

And technically this promotion is to celebrate Earth Day (I think) but today at Starbucks bring in a travel mug and they will fill it up with coffee for free.

Famous Last Words

“There are never problems with morning flights at MCI, they nearly always leave on time,” so says my mom on our way to the Kansas City airport. For the rest of the day, the air transportation industry set out to prove her wrong.

Tuesday I woke up at 5 a.m., to be out the door by 5:30 a.m., to arrive at the airport at 6:15 a.m., to fly out at 7 a.m. I was schedule to fly from Kansas City to Atlanta, GA and from there on to Jackson, MS.

Sounds pretty flawless right? It was smooth sailing until the fly out at 7 a.m. portion.

The first flight of the day out of MCI to Atlanta was scheduled for 5:45 a.m. and delayed until 7:45 a.m., because the plane didn’t have a battery. (This doesn’t make sense to me either, I’m just conveying what I was told.) You’ll need to know this later.

Due to the first plane delay, the Delta crew was running behind before the day started.

For my 7 a.m. flight, a frazzled representative near the boarding gate kept getting on the intercom telling us (in other words) to not heehaw around, we had 15 minutes to get our butts on the plane in a quick and orderly fashion if we wanted to leave on time. Yes ma’am!

Lesson learned. People behave when their schedules are threatened; I’ve never seen a mass of people follow instructions so well.

We boarded the plane, sat down, fastened our seat belts, and were ready to go within our time challenge. Then, the pilot got on the intercom, praised us for our efficiency, and told us we had to de-board the plane. Apparently this plane didn’t have oxygen. Again, one of those seemly necessary elements worth checking before herding us to our seats. So, we got back off the plane.

By this time it was 7:30 a.m. and there was a mad dash to the ticket counter to wrangle a seat on the previously mentioned delayed 5:45 a.m. flight. An entire plane’s capacity worth of people were desperate to get on the next plane in 15 minutes.

Somehow I lucked out with a seat on the 7:45 a.m. delayed flight and at 8 a.m. we took off from Kansas City. My connection to Jackson was scheduled to leave at 10:45 a.m., but I kissed that good-bye upon landing in Atlanta at 11 a.m.

Since I missed my first connection I was re-booked on a 1:25 p.m. flight, but my boarding pass had the words “Seat request” printed on it. Wasting no time after touching down, I made my way directly to my next flight’s gate, which included some terminal hopping on the shuttle. The words “Seat request” made me nervous.

Of course, no one was at the counter yet, and I was instructed by another gate keeper to come back at 12:30 p.m. I wandered around looking for food, a flat screen television and comfortable seat, but settled on a Quizno’s salad, a large window, and an empty row of seats to stretch out on.

Promptly at 12:30 p.m. I made my way back to counter D1A and secured my seat on the next plane. However, they were taking volunteers to fly out at 4 p.m. with the incentive of a $400 credit voucher, because they overbooked by one passenger. As I was pondering this, my eyes follow the sight path of a gathering crowd near the window, who were watching two mechanics open up the plane side thingy (technical, I know), questionably peering into it. The boarding lady gets on the intercom and announces that the plane is delayed due to a routine mechanical inspection and will take off at 2 p.m. By this time, I accept the bump back to 4 p.m., figuring my day is shot anyhow and I can at least get another flight out of it.

Two p.m. rolls around, and another announcement is made. The plane has problems, they moved us to a new plane, a new gate and new take-off time of 2:30 p.m. Everyone gathers their belongings and grumbles while making their way to the new terminal gate.

In the meantime, suddenly there is a 2:50 p.m. flight to Jackson, there’s a seat available for me, and I can still receive a credit voucher. For an extra twenty minutes of wait time, I score $200 dollars from Delta.

Time passes, 3 p.m. arrives and we finally take off from Atlanta to Jackson. That flight was routine, except my seat was directly next to the only lavatory on the plane. Gross.

I was extremely happy to touch down in Jackson. My original estimated time of arrival was 11:12 p.m., but the air industry managed to stretch that out to 4 p.m. (a mere five hours later).

It wasn’t so bad, my plans were somewhat flexible, although I was planning on working half a day, ha! The most unsettling part was encountering three planes that were unfit to fly at the scheduled time.

And that ends the great airplane debacle of 2010.