I have not seen Madagascar 3, but I have seen the previews, and you know the zebra (I think) with the crazy rainbow hair, well that was me traveling back at the end of last week. Add to that the fact that I did not have any razors left so I tried the disposable razor that the hotel had and I would have been far better off to have asked for a butter knife. I made the calculated decision that trying to shave my chin and mustache would have been complete suicide so for the week I had left the goatee, and then of course on Thursday morning I had to be at the client site at 6:30 AM.
My first flight on Thursday afternoon was at 4:15 Eastern out of Baltimore, and there was good news and bad news. The good news was that I was upgraded, the bad news was that one, we had the Asian mom from hell on our flight and she two was upgraded with her two kids and the husband. She and her husband were seated three rows apart and thus she spent the entire time either handing him the infant, for five minutes at a time to complain to the flight attendant, or ringing the flight attendant call button because she was unhappy with whatever was going on at that moment. Her technique was quite unique by the way, she would push the button six times every time, thus getting three rings instead of one. The second bit of bad news was that we left the gate late for the third week in a row, and I almost forgot, but I was seated next to a high maintenance dude, and I use the term loosely, that I was in a group of 6 or so folks that I spoke to in the gate area as they lined up to be first on the plane before they were done deplaning. As you might imagine, this simply delays the entire process.
When we arrived in Denver, for the third week in a row, I had to hurry to the gate to try and make it onto the 6:35 connection, to get me into Boise at 8:30 instead of midnight or later. Last week I ended up having to spend the night in Denver and return on Friday morning. This time the plane was still there and the door was still open, however, there were no seats. To add insult to serious injury, the flight attendant walked me down the jet-way because she thought there was a seat open...there was not.
With all of this as background for just how horrible I was feeling by 7:00 PM when I entered the French restaurant in the airport, and for the fact that I looked much worse, the next five hours was truly amazing.
As I was sitting at my table, just sort of spacing out for a while since I had over three hours to kill, a young lady was seated at the table next to me. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a perfect smile, and very natural outward and inward beauty. This young lady was born and raised in the middle of nowhere South Dakota, and was now living in Sioux Falls and working as a dental hygienist. Once I discovered that little bit of information I am certain that I did not allow my teeth to show again.
As it turned out, this young woman was headed to Boise to visit her sister, a nurse at St. Alphons.
We chatted through the rest of my dinner, her dinner, and some dessert and then headed to the gate together. When she first was seated she was apparently speaking with her mother on the phone, which I did not know, and so I asked a question. She said quickly into the phone "I'll call you back," and then she put the phone down on the table. She mentioned that it was her mother and I joked about that not being a very nice way to treat her mother, to which she replied "isn't that the way it is though with our mothers?"
On the way to the gate I reminded her to call her mother back and she laughed and said that she better. As she chatted with her mother I again, half joking this time, jabbed at her and said I wanted to speak with her mother. She looked at me somewhat surprised, but not in an all together bad way, and said "you do?" I confirmed, but kept walking to the gate.
When we arrived at our gate it was packed. She looked confused, too many people for a 10 PM flight to Boise, and so while she continued to chat with her mom I went up and inquired and in fact our flight had been moved. She just kept on with her conversation all the while loosely following me through the terminal. We arrived at our gate and found a place to drop our stuff and have a seat. She sat and finished her conversation while I paced, as that is what I do.
When the call ended I went over and sat down, still waiting for them to begin boarding. I asked if she was in the "back of the bus," which she confirmed. I asked if she wanted me to try and get her an exit row seat and she smiled and said "that would be very nice of you, thanks." I headed up to the woman at the main counter and she had no additional mental capacity available to help the process, so I then went to the woman at the podium by the gate door, she had less mental capacity, or none at all perhaps. I went back to the first gate agent and tried again and this time she was able to secure us another exit row seat. Two more hours together.
We continued to chat the whole way onto the plane and then the whole way to Boise. I remained me, saying hello to the little kids as they entered and making them smile. Picking up a cup that our very grumpy row mate dropped along the way and bringing it up front to throw away. I knew two of the four flight attendants on this flight from flying too much and so we joked with them a bit and gave them some ideas for their day off in Boise the next day, and then continued to inquire about one another.
By the end of the journey I knew a great deal about her and that I wanted to know a great deal more. I had babbled enough along the way because that too is what I do, at least when with a beautiful and intriguing woman, so she knew about the coaching, the writing if you want to call it that, and the coaching. She knew about the love for cooking, or at least the past love, and requested a grilled cheese sandwich when I asked what would you want me to cook? She actually said "an amazing grilled cheese sandwich." My reply of course was that I would be more than happy to so and then I explained how my Italian grandmother had shown me how to make these amazing grilled cheese sandwiches, and how she had a grilled cheese "press" that my grandfather had constructed for her a very long time ago.
I also asked her favorite food...watermelon!!
Who wouldn't be taken with a down to earth, easy to talk to, beautiful lady? I definitely was. I had shown her one of the cards I had made with the painting on it that I had done for my sister Mia. I also showed her the card with the Matterhorn. We also discussed movies and theatre and the fact that she would like to see the Lion King on Broadway. I have seen it and agreed that it was very much worth seeing. I suggested that meeting in NY for a show was not that hard to do from Baltimore and Sioux Falls.
As I got up to get my things and get ready to go I made sure she knew that I would love to continue our conversation and then I told her that I had a "dilemma." I told her that I was raised to believe that women do not call men, or at least not men they do not know, and a man never asks a woman for her number, or her age. Of course when I was growing up this thing existed called a phone book and people had home numbers.
I have spent much of this weekend as I do most weekends, trying to get things done so I can be back on the road tonight, but I also spent much of this weekend actually missing, if that is the right word, maybe wishing for, this amazing woman that appeared in my life Thursday night, and then walked out of it very early Friday morning outside the Boise Airport.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
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