I've Been A Bad, Bad Girl

So yeah, the Billy Joel concert was unbelievably awesome. Better than I imagined, and even better than that, better than Beau imagined. Phew!! More on that later though.

You see, I did a very bad spouse thing. And I'm here to confess. It was very late one night and Beau had already gone to bed. I was just fooling around on the internet, and then suddenly found a ticket site, not Ticketmaster, but what I assumed was the New Zealand equivalent. I checked to see what kind of concerts come here, since I'm sure in a country of 4.something million people, you don't get a lot of Rolling Stones concerts. I was stunned, and thrilled, to see that Billy Joel was coming to Auckland, and not only that, in just a few weeks!

I tiptoed into our dark bedroom, climbed into bed beside Beau, and whispered, "Sweetheart....I know what I want for Christmas...and my birthday." (which is in January). Beau, startled awake, let out a startling array of protests and expletives, making it quite clear that he was not interested in hearing this right now. Okay, it was pretty late.

Feeling that perhaps it was not the right time to continue to the conversation, I went back to my computer and stared at the screen. Concert tickets are a second by second deal. When Elton John came to Madison, I was poised at my computer, as far ahead as possible as Ticketmaster would allow before the 10:00am starting point. As soon as it hit 10, I clicked like a ninja through the rest of the screens and in less than about 2 minutes, I had the tickets purchased.

And though we were on the floor, we were still in row 30. It's a competitive game. Which is why I was so incredulous at the amount of pissy people in Missoula when Elton John came to town just about a year ago. For some reason I couldn't fathom, it seemed a huge mass of people had taken off work, driven miles and miles, rented hotel rooms, and then.... STOOD. IN. LINE. to get tickets. Stood in line. I got my EJ tickets ONLINE almost a decade ago.

Well, big fat surprise, the majority of in-line people didn't get a ticket, since they sold out, ONLINE (duh) within minutes. What happened next? An unbelievable storm of protests from the hundreds (thousands?) of dumb-butts who had stood in line. Protests of how unfair it was that they had taken all this time out and not gotten tickets. How it had all happened so fast! Letters were written to the editor, hostility was rained on the University of Montana who had just implemented some new computer system for tickets recently.

I was stupified. People still stood in line for tickets? AND they were outraged that they didn't get any? And isn't it a LOT cheaper to take a couple hours off of work to sit in front of a computer with a fast connection (the public library?) somewhere and purchase them that way instead of all the driving and hotel renting and line standing? Supposedly, a chunk of tickets were supposed to have been set aside for the line standers anyway, and those had been snatched up online. Oops, computer error. Still, I was unsympathetic.

Anyway, back to my naughtiness, not my eternal confusion about Montanans. Again, as I sat in front of my computer in that stillness that is late, late night, I thought, "Okay, I'll just go ahead and buy the tickets anyway, and then that can be my Christmas/birthday present." Here was the second bad part -- well, they were expensive. Real expensive. They didn't have to be -- the site had two choices: super cheap or super expensive. I haven't been to a concert since Elton John nearly a decade ago, but I have been to plenty before that, I knew what the super cheap seats entailed. Desperate greed coursed through me. Shit, if the tickets are THAT expensive, they can't possibly be bad. Right?

As I finalized my purchase, with the map-grid open in another window, ready to pick seats as soon as possible, I was suddenly at the end. It wasn't letting me choose the seats. Sure, it was letting me PAY for them, just not CHOOSE them. Ummm.....

Yeah, I went ahead and bought them anyway.

The next morning, I brought up Billy Joel again, hoping to ease Beau into the idea. We wanted to go to Auckland anyway, and this would be a great reason, beside the usual shopping errands and restaurant hopping. I was feeling really guilty about the money spent, EVEN if I had bought it with our American money, which meant, since the NZ Dollar had plummented, that the tickets were half of what they sounded like. It was 72 cents to the US Dollar when we got here. Now it was down to 50 cents. Made big purchases feel like a 50% off sale.

Still.

Anyway, as I talked about it some more, some very disturbing news came to light. Beau didn't like Billy Joel. !!!!!

Who didn't like Billy Joel? Seriously.

Uh oh.

Eventually, the truth came out. Beau was not really wanting to go, and I couldn't blame them. Concerts are fantastic when you love the artist, but ugh, to go to one of someone you don't like. I visited TradeMe, the NZ version of ebay, but it seemed that everyone was selling their tickets and no one was buying. WHAT? At first, Beau tried to convince me to take a local friend of ours -- someone I really like a lot, but still. I'm not really the kind of person who feels comfortable going on a 6-hour drive, each way, with a casual friend. Shit, I'm not up for a 6-hour drive with someone I'm not sleeping with. Or my friend April, whom I'd feel pretty free to tell that I need to pull over every 2 hours to wee again.

But in the end, we were off to Auckland, and after some homicidal driving around town (my god, the roadways in that city are ludicrous), we ended up at our hotel which appeared super posh from the outside, which was awesome since I got our room for a song online. Turned out it was two hotels in one building. You go to the right, you get the high-end rooms. You go to the left...and you get our room. Well, it had a bed and cable TV, so that's what matters.

We made it to the restaurant that we were excited about -- an Italian one owned by the host of a reality TV show on local restaurants. We were surprised that his own place, Sal Rose, wasn't as fancy as we thought it might be -- pretty laid back with so-so decor, and good, but not great service, but the food was wonderful, and so worth the trip by far. We loved our meal.

So that night, we went to the arena for the concert. As we walked up to the ticket window to pick up our tickets, I was pretty petrified. Beau still didn't know exactly how much they were, and if by ANY chance there was a giant beam obstructing our view or we were 40 rows back on the floor. After a nailbiting wait in line (of course, those in front of us were having some huge issue), I showed my receipt from the internet to the ticket lady. "Oh," she said, "You're on the guest list. You have to go that window over there."

The guest list!? Wow. I knew the tickets were expensive and all...

Thankfully, a much shorter line here, and after the girl fretted for awhile (she went through her small pile of tickets twice and both times passed up my name on the envelope). Finally, they were handed over and I slowly pulled them from the envelope.

Fifth row. FIFTH ROW. Omg, omg, omg, omg, omg! I was thrilled, giddy, child-like. I nearly bounced up and down from the ticket window to the merchandise line where I got a nice hoodie. No program though. I never really did see the need for a program five minutes after a concert/play starts.

We walked in and were on the floor...closer and closer to the front. 5th Row and in the center (well, okay, slightly off to the right, but on the aisle!). I've never had such good tickets in my life, even when sprinting at breakneck speed during general admission concerts or when seeing has-been bands at the state fair. Bliss, pure bliss.

We got to our seats, and bonus! Each seat had a free Billy Joel handbag with a big, fat, glossy program. Ha! Free program!

I won't go into TOO many details, but the concert was absofuckinglutely fantastic! Billy Joel was hilarious, crass, and is still soooo talented. His voice may not be as crystal clear as 40 years ago, but it's still strong and warm, and pudgy and balding as he was, he still had enough energy to belt out each song with full gusto. And impressively, he can hit all those high notes that Elton John couldn't come close to when I saw his ass 10 years ago.

I was a little concerned, since Kiwis have a reputation for not being too.... ebullient, and to me, a concert's not a concert until you're permanently standing. The first half of the concert was seated and polite, until Billy Joel announced that they had a roadie who, if it was alright with us, they'd like to give him a go on stage. When the guy came out, it was just SO awesome. He was like a blatant stereotype of a roadie - he looked like he walked right off the set of Wayne's World 2. Old, grizzled, cut-off t-shirt and jeans. He marched purposefully on stage, and with Billy Joel on guitar (!!), the roadie, and every light in the place, exploded into AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

The crowd went totally apeshit -- everyone was on their feet, shouting and cheering, banging heads and making signs as if at an ... AC/DC concert. Billy Joel and his band seemed to be having a great time with it too, rocking out on their guitars.

I had a major non-sexual crush on the only woman in his band, Crystal Taliefero -- a beautiful black woman with a gorgeous curly hair bob, dressed in flowing pants and a sparkly gold shirt. Officially, she played percussion, but she also played the sax (with 2 others), sang back-up, and could move her body in ways I dream of, but look ridiculous trying.

And this is the best part -- Beau loved it. He had a great time and really enjoyed himself. Sure, a part of my joy for him was relief -- if he hadn't had a good time, I would have felt like the world's biggest asshole. But of course, when you care for someone, it's almost more important that they have a good time than you do. It's about shared joy, really.

And that night, we had it in spades. :)

Off to Auckland and Billy Joel!

Back to the present for now...

Tomorrow we're off to Auckland, City of Sails, which also happens to be the nickname of the city of my birth, Milwaukee. I've been surprised at just how excited I am about this. The longer you live in rural remoteness, the bigger of a deal going to "the big city" becomes. It makes me feel like a bit of a hick, and also makes me feel like I'm getting a vacation from this paradise prison.

Yes, I know. I love love love living here. It still dazzles me with its beauty and peacefulness. Every single day I feel grateful for being here. But what you have to give up can suck too. I'm used to the convenience of a big city -- both New York City and Bangkok have twice as many people in them as the entire country of New Zealand! I love this change, but sometimes it's challenging.

Big cities have Asian groceries, luxurious bookstores, ethnic restaurants, shopping malls. Basically, big cities are a mecca for a bunch of stuff I can't get while I'm here. I ran out of fish sauce the other day, and well, I may be surrounded by a gorgeous ocean, but there probably isn't a bottle of fish sauce within a 150 mile radius. Fish sauce, you say? Who gives a fuck about that obscure foodstuff? That's kind of my point! Big cities have all that stuff that a lot of people may not give a fuck, but a few people, like me, are like OMG, I NEED THAT! (Seriously, you have no idea how much fish sauce I use in cooking. Seriously).

And when you cannot just run down to the store quick when you need something for a recipe, or when you run out of bread or sugar, it can kind of suck. We're not 19th century pioneers or anything, we'll hardly starve, but with the grocery store 50 minutes away (or at least an hour when Beau drives), you can feel at times like you're living in the distant nowhere.

So, in true J. style, I've already compiled a file folder of lots of possible "to do's" for the trip. Like, the 30% off coupon for Border's which I'll use for the book I've been coveting. It's a bestselling book I tried to get, unsuccessfully, at 3 different bookstores within a 90 minute drive of us. I called up the the first of three Auckland Border's on the website and with a quick "yes, ma'am," it was available and put on reserve for me! Just like that. I didn't even have to order it and get that "it MIGHT show up within a few weeks...but there's no guarantee" answer that I would "locally."

I've also got printouts for where to find the Thai food exporter, the address of the two Asian food courts, the posh and pleasurable shopping mall, and the weekend market. Oh yeah, and SOMEHOW I gotta get Beau's hair cut. It starting to get those weird wings it does when it begins to go wild, and he's done the UNTHINKABLE -- threatened to wear a ponytail if it gets longer. Uh uh, not with this wife!

I also have the info for Sal Rose restaurant, which is owned by an American, John Palino, the guy who heads up a reality show here that we LOVE called The Kitchen Job. It's kind of like Extreme Makeover, but for restaurants, and with pissy instead of grateful people. John Palino goes to shitty, deep-in-the-hole NZ restaurants and tells them how to fix up their decor, service, and food. And he always has a critic friend come in secretly to trash-talk the place as well.

Of course, what makes it interesting, is that although people may be as high as $250,000 in the hole, their doors on the verge of closing for good, they'll still be completely offended that the host finds anything remotely wrong with their restaurant. In the end, they'll do what he says, for the most part, and it becomes obvious that the host has totally turned their restaurant around. People come, the food is better, and hey, that waitress is smiling! What is kind of sad, is that when he comes back a couple months later for the follow-up visit, almost always the restaurant will have reverted back to a few of their old ways (putting back the obnoxious decorations, the owner is still the ultimate asshole, the food has gone back to cheap/crappy/nasty). I'm really curious to see what Palino's Italian restaurant is like. It looks good from the website.

But of course, the REAL reason we're going to Auckland is to see Billy Joel in concert. I am SOOOOOOOO psyched for this! I haven't been to a concert in nearly a decade. And Billy Joel has been a favorite of mine since I could learn to talk, and that's no joke. When my mother had me (during those 0-5 formative years), and we spent a LOT of time in her car, like, especially when there was no home to go to, she would play Billy Joel's The Stranger album, which to this day, I still think is one of the best albums of all time. I knew all the words by heart by the time I could form them. I look back with a bit of sad amusement today when I think of the song, "Moving Out (Anthony's Song)" which was on the album. It was my favorite song on the album at the time. I could relate to it; it was about a guy who was moving! And well, to my small brain, it seemed like mother and I moved...a lot...like, every day. There were hotel rooms and great grandmother's couch, and as mentioned, the car. It wasn't until many years later that I realized that the song was about materialism and how Anthony should "move out to the country" to get away from the 'working two jobs to afford a cadillac' mentality. It was only my mother and I who moved around so much.

I can't wait to hear Allentown, my personal favorite, and bop to Tell Her About It, My Life, and Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, sway to Don't Ask Me Why and The Piano Man, grit my teeth and smile through We Didn't Start The Fire or Uptown Girl, which I do think are a little dumb, and probably openly weep when he sings And So It Goes or Goodnight, My Angel.

And I'll laugh and dance to Only the Good Die Young. Did you know that the song is about a guy trying to convince a Catholic girl to give up her virginity to him? It's hilarious if you listen to the lyrics closely.

And on the way we have to drop off Tonks, our monstorous 4-month old puppy, at the boarder, or shall I say, the "pet lodge" *snicker*. I feel like a total chump, but we can't take her with us, and truthfully, she's too much of a handful to hand over to anyone else. Plus, in all honesty, the way I've seen some animals treated around here, I'd be too frightened to leave her with anyone else. Beau's words often echo in my mind, "It's your job to protect her." I know if I leave her at the boarder, recommended by our lovely vet, that I can relax.

So, I'll see you in a couple days, with our car bursting with new books, summer clothes, toiletries, Thai food ingredients, and of course, fish sauce.

You Move, Stuff Breaks

(Written in early October 2008)

One of the unfortunate costs of the move abroad is the inevitable cacophony of a dozen maracas when you pick up a box of precious possessions you have chosen to ship through the mail ahead of you and realize that something inside is now destroyed. This is a consequence I have gotten used to, and to this day, about half my wall hangings are sans glass, though I have vowed many times to go to the hardware store and replace them, damn it.

There’s really no way to avoid it, and I have found it doesn’t seem to matter whether you roll your item in 12 yards of robust bubble tape, stamp “FRAGILE!” all over the box like chicken pox, or send it air mail with insurance. Sometimes it breaks, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes one small frame in a box of many will be the only one to smash, while another box will have so much damage it’ll sound like a box of glass confetti. At times a box will arrive as crisp and firm as the day you shipped it, other times it arrives as if a heavyweight boxer has been using it as his personal punching bag, battered and ripped in places. I’ve had a giant, heavy painting with glass, ship by boat (3 months travel time) from Thailand to the U.S. and arrive unscathed. And yet, when shipped from the U.S. to New Zealand, AIR MAIL no less, it arrived with the glass busted into a million dramatic shards. Guess one’s status as a “third world” country doesn’t have anything to do with its ability to ship with dignity.

And sometimes, you’re just stupid, as a couple days ago when I flamboyantly yanked a down comforter from a box I was unpacking only to see one of only 2 remaining CRYSTAL champagne goblets I own fly into a graceful arc and crash onto the floor in a shower of unglueable pieces. *sigh*

A slew of breakages that I have found hard to swallow this time around are my holiday decorations. In Montana, I had entered my now-I-will-start-buying-really-nice-things-of-quality-that-I-will-keep-forever phase, thinking Montana the final stop on my lifetime gypsy tour, *sigh.* I had started to slowly acquire pieces for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Easter to display around the house – a trend I was never much into before. The University of Montana bookstore, obviously sensing this new shopping lust, obliged me in stocking fun, funky and beautiful things like whimsical, fat-bottomed characters for all holidays from Seasons of Cannon Falls, and cute little statues from Giftcraft, Inc. I seem to have a thing for little statues to put up everywhere, like silly reindeer or big fat rabbits. I love them, and if able, would have bought the lot every time. But, after patiently (ha ha) waiting for the bookstore’s 40% off sales just days before and after the actual holiday, I would start to buy up a few of these pieces. They weren’t cheap full price, but hey, it’s hard not to justify 40% off, right? I was almost giddy placing them carefully around the house, and they were top candidates in the very short list of what was being shipped with us to New Zealand.

Well, most of these holiday pieces are ceramic, and so, seem to have taken a specific delight in smashing into a cloud of terra cotta dust when shipped. Heartbreaking. At first, I pushed aside these small, clinky bags for the trash. But for some reason, I couldn’t quite throw them out entirely. The worst was a small set of witches – a mother and daughter which were shaped into an exaggerated angle leaning into each other. The mother – untouched, the daughter – puzzle pieces. And gruesomely, the mother stood with the daughter’s now disembodied head dangling from her curly hair. At first (after removing her daughter's head), I just placed the mother on the windowsill since it’s her time to shine pre-Halloween anyway, but her solitary S-shape seemed so odd, so sad, that I decided to get some super glue and give the daughter a go.

Well, it’s quite clear I would not make much of a surgeon, but damn, trying to glue the witch daughter, a giant “chocolate” bunny, and my large and beautiful Santa turned out to be a comical event. Did I get them together? Hrm, yes. But it seems being even a millimeter off when gluing one piece to another results in the entire piece coming out rather Dali-esque. During each painstaking process, I whispered to each one that as soon as I began buying up oil paints again (since I had to ditch my previous ones for the move, *sniff sniff*), that I would paint in these giant cracks and fissures and chips and no one would ever know the difference.

Hrm.

Well, I’m not sure how much dignity each piece now holds on to, but I did get quite a big of sentimental satisfaction in reuniting the witch daughter, now with head and body attached, to the scoliosis curve of her mother. See for yourself.

POSTSCRIPT

Well, I would have let you see for yourself, but the daughter witch isn’t with us anymore. I found a picture of a somewhat similar witch to the duo I had to the right. Anyway, the departure of the daughter came about like this:

Setting: J. has just laid down for a nap in the bedroom. Beau is in the living room, most likely playing Civ IV: Beyond the Sword.

*THUMP*
J: “What was that?”
Beau: *long silence* “Nothing.”
J: *slightly more alarmed voice* “What was that?”
Beau: … “Nothing.”
J: “Beau….”
Beau: “I don’t know, but it wasn’t your itty bitty witch!”

*sigh* Goodbye, itty bitty witch.

"I Would Gaze At Your Face The Whole Night Through"

I got up in the middle of the night to “use the toilet” – a phrase, as an American, I still find crass, though it’s perfectly acceptable here. I also had a sudden, intense yearning to down a few swallows of Vanilla Coke, no doubt to replace the very fluids that woke me up in the first place, and so proceeded to the kitchen to satisfy this craving. When passing one of the curtain-less living room windows, I was surprised to see a dramatically bright light shining in. This was puzzling, since one of the aspects of being out in the middle of nowhere, is that the nights are very dark. Peering through the window for the source, I saw the moon, at about ¾ size, flaunting all of its glowing glory upon me. It was in what we would call the “Harvest Moon” phase – giant and orange – and it cast a beam upon the water like a helicopter searchlight. It was rather stunning, and gave me one of those moments where I take a deep breath and feel so good to be here.

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Painting: Harvest Moon by Elizabeth Fraser

I'm a Winner!

Jumping back to the present for a moment...

I just had to stop and give myself a huge pat on the back, because, what else are blogs for except self-promotion?

I've talked a bit about wanting to be a writer on this blog and have even received a few emails from strangers suggesting I get off my duff and do just that. I took a great class in NYC, practiced on my blog, read books on writing, done some preliminary research, but like the majority of us who say, "Someday I'm going to write a book..." it's always been just that for me. Some. Day.

Well, NOW is the time! In fact, it couldn't possibly be a better time. I'm unemployed with little chance of employment due to our super remote location. I'm living across the road from the ocean which is inspiring even when I wash dishes. My husband actually supports me in doing this. Now!

So, to jump start myself, I entered this year's National Novel Writing Month competition. It's an annual thing where every November you try to write an entire novel, yes a whole novel, between November 1st and 30th. Basically, it's supposed to work as that catalyst to get you to actually DO it. No one expects a Gore Vidal novel to be produced in that month, but what is expected that at the end, is that a) You will have done it! You will have actually written a book! The feeling is incredible. It's a sense of accomplishment that makes a big impact on you. And lesser so b) you may not have a publishable novel as yet, but you have something to work with. Something to edit, and even if a lot of it was rushed, you'll find a lot of really good pieces in it that you can use.

So, I signed up for it. I joined the New Zealand group and my inbox was pummeled with very friendly, supportive emails of meet-ups, parties, and general encouragement. But after a day or so, I couldn't read them anymore. They suck too much time away.

The goal is 1,667 words a day. It sounds like a lot, but it's really not. Well, on a good day. There were times when I could sit at my computer for a few hours and only get out a few hundred. Other times, I could do over a thousand in less than an hour. It depends.

I write historical fiction. To me, it makes writing even more fun, because I get to do all the fascinating research of some fantastic person and/or time and/or place. Then, I take what is essentially a real story and I get to fill in all the dirty details as if I was writing history myself. I really enjoy it, even the research part. I feel like a detective hunting down a rather diverse group of resources -- a new book at the bookstore, an obscure book off of ebay or trademe, articles or letters from museum archives, or a totally forgotten book in some dusty library. And even though I make a true effort to be as authentic as possible, since it's a fiction work, well, I don't have to.

Anyway, I did it! I had to write about 9,000 words over the last two days to make the 50,000 mark, but I did it! And they're right, it's an INCREDIBLE feeling. I had to put the book aside and take a break from it. You get so isolated during the month of November, that you almost forget how to write...it's like you're the only person in the world and you have nothing to compare your work to. So, I'm going to take the next couple of weeks to read some GOOD books to get more inspiration, and then I'll come back and do the worst part of all....edit. Ugh.

And a big thanks goes to Beau since I basically ignored all but the very basics in terms of housework or other "duties" I usually take care of since I'm the unemployed slug of the family. But now that this is over, I'm back to washing dishes and mopping up dog wee. Great.

It's Never a Trip with J. Without a Lot of Drama

It's Never a Trip with J. Without a Lot of Drama: How J. and Beau Almost Didn't Make it to New Zealand

As anyone who has read more than 2 entries from this blog has realized, I don’t seem capable of escaping drama in my life. The more I crave peace, the more I swim in a pool of chaos. And of course, every transcontinental trip I undertake is required to have a little excitement. Okay, a lot of excitement.

Beau and I got to the Phoenix airport nice and early, and after a marathon check-in (we had 3 giant suitcases, and 2 pushing-it carry-ons each), we finally were free to move on to our gate. My aunt saw us off and we got through security without a hitch. The flight was fine, if a bit cramped, and we ended up in San Francisco ready for our 12 hour *dread* flight.

I was happy that the layover in San Francisco was only about an hour. I often find layovers even more difficult to take than a long plane ride, though shopping in airport gift shops can ease some of that, *cough* pain. We would have to go through security again, and after what seemed like a 10k walk-a-thon through various terminals in the airport, we finally found ourselves face to face with the looming TSA entrance. Great!

As I walked up to the TSA woman, whom I could tell from this distance was Filipino due to her accent I was catching, I reached into my carry-on to my “special pocket” where plane tickets, my wallet, and my passport are all kept. Plane ticket, check. Wallet, check. Passport….passport. Oh, shit.

Beau must have been REAL excited to get to New Zealand *more fits of coughing* since he left me in a trail of his dust and was soon disappeared through the throngs of the security check-in crowd. Back outside the glass, there was I, crouching in the middle of the floor, rifling through my bag while cussing like a sailor under my breath. What a fucking pain! Being fairly susceptible to losing things, I try to always have a “place” for them so I always put them in the same place and don’t have to go through this circus. Well, I must have reneged on this self-philosophy, because after embarrassingly depositing the entire contents of my bag on the floor, practically at the TSA lady’s feet, I had still not coughed up my passport. Beau, finally realizing in his state of bliss that his wife was not with him, had backtracked and was making elaborate “What the hell is going on?” faces and gestures at me from behind the security glass. Remembering how I had handed him my passport and ticket at one point while juggling some other articles, I motioned for him to remove himself from the security area – and if you’ve ever suffered through the stupid security check, you know that giving up that “pass” status once you’re inside is tough.

By this time, I was rather cranky, and I garbled out the problem as he started rifling through his pockets from top to bottom. This is the part where you start re-checking all the places you’ve previously checked, twice, three times, four times, thinking maybe you just overlooked it. *snort*

Finally, I realized the only possible place the passport could be was on the previous plane from Phoenix to San Francisco, and knowing our once-a-day New Zealand flight would be leaving shortly, I could feel my blood pressure percolating. Like a Vietnam War soldier, messily sprawled upon the ground among such items as balls of yarn and knitting needles, trashy magazines, my iPod, and a Barack Obama biography, I cried out to Beau, “Go on without me! I’ll be fine! I’ll take care of it! Just don’t miss that flight!”

Beau just looked at me, now a bit of a hot mess, like the pathetic psycho I was and said he wasn’t going anywhere. Well, might as well stop freaking and go take care of it. I marched to a, thankfully, nearby Information Station which was surprisingly staffed by not one but two people! After telling them the situation, I asked if we could call the airline immediately, since they were very likely still cleaning the plane. The first man basically kept giving me the “We can’t help you” line and told me to start hoofing it back to the gate. When I informed him that “my gate” was about 4 terminals away and my international flight was soon to depart, he had little sympathy. The woman was slightly more sympathetic, but that went as far as handing me a phone number. I said, “Great, can we call them” and she looked at me as if I had just farted. Petulantly she replied, “Don’t you have a cellphone?”

I paused in shock for a moment – I’m still always surprised when someone is unwillingly to make that tiny extra effort which is fairly minimal on their part, but will make a more substantial difference in the receiver’s life. I felt this way doing retail as well as an administrator. It’s the sales clerks who tell you, “If it’s not on the shelves, we don’t have it” while turning their back on you, or the administrator who does nothing more than transfer you to another incompetent, unhelpful person. Recovering my senses, I said, “Um, yeah, I guess I do,” and walked back to my carry-on bag with its puked up contents and Beau standing sentry. Pulling out my cellphone (in that same “special” area the passport was supposed to be in, *grumble*), I opened it up and tried to dial.

Nope. Our cellphone service had ended THAT DAY, naturally, since they don't work in New Zealand, and the cellphone was now a metallic pink paperweight.

Fuck!

Again, the information desk was unsympathetic and pointed me toward some public payphones quite aways down the terminal. So, I had to march back, get my wallet, blabbing out the update to Beau in a stressed jumble, again pleading with him to go on ahead, him refusing, and then jogged back to the public phones.

I can only explain the next 20 minutes as a period of desolate frustration. The number that the Information desk had so "helpfully" handed me was a recording, and the U.S. Airways number displayed next to the courtesy phone sent me to their main 1-800 number – from which, they were unwilling to even transfer me to the San Francisco office. There were no phone books, and every number I tried ended up in recordings or someone who said, “Sorry, can’t help you.” By this time, I was in near hysterics. With a payphone reciting another recording pressed against my right ear, and one of those “White courtesy phones,” also with a recording, pressed to my left ear, I must have looked like a lunatic. I was a lunatic.

I finally got a courteous woman on the courtesy phone, who did manage to give me a more direct line to the “lost baggage” department of U.S. Airways within the SFO airport. FINALLY! Calling that number with a slight shred of hope, again, I got...you guessed it...a RECORDING, despite the fact they were indeed, open for business and no, it wasn't lunchtime.

Now at my breaking point, I left a half-pissed, half-hysterical message in a trembling voice asking that pathetic question, “Why can’t I get anyone to help me?” while giving them every scrap of information I could, including email address, since without a cellphone, how could they reach me anyway? Now, basically I knew we were fucked, and the thought of shelling out a few more thousand dollars for plane tickets gave my state of panic a whole other level of guilt to go with it.

Tears flowing freely now, I returned to Beau and said, “I just have to walk back to the domestic terminal; there’s no other way for it.” I started packing up my carry-on bag, while continuing to plead with him to go on to Auckland. I figured, at least if he went ahead, we’d save the cash on one fare, and I could just as easily work all this out on my own. Again, he was adamant, and with heavy hearts, knowing we probably already missed the flight, we started the return Bataan Death march.

Continuing to sob, and also heatedly bickering with Beau for coming with me (oh how wonderfully we treat our better halves when stressed!), we tiredly walked on. At one point, Beau marched off toward the left. “I have to go the bathroom!” he said. “Um, I do too, can’t that kind of wait!?” I guess not. I stood stewing as he wandered around aimlessly and at one point looked like he was going to go down an “employee’s only” stairway to the airplane area. In an unexpected move, he dropped his bags in a flourish and began circling, head up looking for the bathroom. Stupified, I yelled out, “What the hell are you doing?” while frantically pointing toward the bathroom just a few feet away. Without even bothering to look abashed, he found his way to the bathroom and emerged shortly thereafter. One man sitting off to the side watched all this as if it was dinner theater.

We continued again on our panicked walk, when suddenly I heard over the P.A. system: “J., please *garble garble garble*. J, *garble garble*.” Thankfully, SF airport has an ingenious thing where they’ve put TV monitors up all around displaying the names of those called for a courtesy phone, since hell, no one can really understand those intercoms anyway.

Rushing to the nearest phone, I picked it up and was told that US Airways wanted to see me in their baggage claim area downstairs. Yes! We turned around and rushed back the way we came, then down a flight or two, and threaded through crowds of people waiting by the baggage carousels. Entering the cramped office which had enough space for about two people to stand, I fidgeted as the person before me was asking how he could lodge a complaint. The woman was trying to tell him the various ways, but obviously, he wanted to do it his own way. He was being obstinate, and taking his time. I was about to burst a blood vessel in my forehead. “Get the fuck out of the way, asshole! Go online and do this shit!”

Okay, once again, I did not say that, just thought it…loudly…over and over...and over.

Finally, when I spoke to the woman behind the counter, she handed over my passport --- yes!! We grabbed and took a breath. We were pretty sure our flight was gone by now, and that our next step would be to make our way to the Air New Zealand desk and see what our options were. As we walked back, we looked on the Departures board and noticed it hadn’t left yet. “Hmm, we might as well try to make it if it’s still here,” I said, “since if we miss it, we’ll just be back where we are now anyway.”

Again, we did our quick, uncomfortable walk to the TSA gate, where meeting the Filipino lady once again, I handed her my passport and boarding pass. “Air New Zealand?” she gasped. "Yes." With that, she held up my passport and boarding pass like a flag, turned to the other TSA agents and yelled, “Air New Zealand, Air New Zealand, right here!” while pushing us forward. “Salamat!” (Thank you!) I said in Tagalog, and without even blinking, she replied, “Walang anuman (you’re welcome),” while giving me a shove forward. With that, Beau and I were ushered to the front of the line (other passengers just love that) and were through the security checkpoint within minutes.

A small, plump, middle-aged woman stood just outside security waiting for us. She grabbed both of our passports and boarding passes, once again confirming, “Air New Zealand?” (Shit, it’s like a magic word!), and with that she trilled, “Come with me!” and to my utter astonishment, took off in a dead sprint.

Okay! With that, I took off after her, Beau following, enormous and heavy carry-on bags in tow (one including our laptop, which seemed to have doubled in weight by this time). She was frickin fast and as we sped down those moving walkways, her waving her arms and shouting for people to get out of our way, I felt like miles were passing below my feet. Every once in awhile I’d peer back at Beau, who was lugging heavier bags, puffing behind me. On one walkway, a group of languid flight attendants very begrudgingly stepped aside to let the little lady and I get by – assholes – and immediately closed ranks as soon as we passed, so by the time Beau caught up to them, he was confronted by their wall of snootiness. Surrendering, he halted, panting, behind them.

I continued on, though I was seriously laboring for breath by this time. Our leader, the little lady, was still blazing a trail ahead. Here and there she’d look over her shoulder and send out words of encouragement, but after running the full length of a terminal carrying two 30-lb bags, I was damn near spent. After walking for about 30 seconds, I started a brave, but pathetic job the last length, ending in a heap of sweat at the gate, where I mutely handed over my passport, panting like a dog. Beau arrived shortly thereafter.

Her quest completed successfully, the little lady wished us well and departed, while Beau and I gasped out “Thanks!” as best we could. Now that we were no longer in motion, the sweat began to pour down, profusely. I could feel how hot my face was, and knew grimly, what that meant – beet red, RED RED RED, super-embarrassing face. The kind where people look at you and go, "Are you okay?" And it doesn’t return to its lovely ghostly hue all that quickly either. It takes it’s sweet time, even if splashed with cold water or sat in front of a fan. My face was burning, my chest and back felt wet – wonderful! Great way to start out a 12 hour flight in close quarters with a couple hundred strangers! Not to mention, I was assigned the dreaded middle seat. Someone was about to get to know me real well.

As we sheepishly made our way onto the airplane, I made sure to keep my focus straight ahead to where our seats were (in the rear of the aircraft, naturally), in hopes of not catching the evil eye of a fellow passenger. If I was already seated, I’d probably have made a stink eye at oncoming me as well. It’s not that big of a deal to be delayed on a short flight, but when you’re about to embark on one of these test-your-humanity flights, delaying the long flight is unforgiveable.

As we finally made it to our seats, stowed our bags, and collapsed in a slump into our respective chairs, a flight attendant rushed over to us and said, “My, are you two okay?” (see!?) I figured we looked pretty bad, but her startled face didn’t help. “Um, let me go get you some water,” she said, rushing off. We looked at each other, happy and shocked to have made the flight we had thought impossible, just in the nick of time too!

As the flight attendant returned with our Dixie cups of warm water, which we accepted gratefully, we explained to her our present state of hot, wet nastiness. She looked perplexed for a moment before saying, “Hmm, well, we aren’t set to take off for a little while yet. You guys still had time.”

Fuck.