We Need To Talk About Drinking And Flying

Hey you. Yeah, I'm talking to you. You know who you are. You're the person pre-gaming your flight, trying to sneak booze onto my plane, doing your best to con free drinks off the flight attendant, and claiming that a Gin & Tonic "helps you sleep" on your day-flight.

You.

We need to talk about your drinking problem and the problem it's causing for everyone around you because you're doing it in a public place.

Today's rant is brought to you by 2 incidents in so many weeks. First, a man getting off my flight was so drunk that he and his teenage son got into a physical fight on the jet bridge, one that I, your flight attendant, had to break up. One that caused me deep concern for your son because he was way too unsurprised when you shoved him violently against the wall of the jetbridge.

Second, a woman traveling by herself was so drunk she literally could not put one foot in front of the other when she arrived at her destination. She was not capable of walking to baggage claim on her own, and I had to go so far as to order wheelchair assistance for her and use her cell phone to call her ride on her behalf because I was scared she might be attempting to drive wherever she was headed next.

Morning With Dogs

Some of you know that I recently had a change of address.  Unable to continue affording my last apartment (or, rather, unwilling and unable to continue accepting financial assistance from my parents), I have recently moved in with a friend of my boyfriend's and am renting out her spare bedroom for a few months while I attempt to find a better solution.

And I have not gone quietly.  I'll admit it.  I've been a giant baby about this move.  Once you get used to living alone like I have been doing at my last two permanent residences (ignore the 2 months of Flight Attendant training and 7 ensuing months of homelessness), it is very difficult to reconcile yourself with the idea of having a roommate again.  I am, of course, incredibly grateful to her for taking me in.  She did not have to, but hopefully the next four months will be mutually beneficial.  Meanwhile, my body is acclimating to the new surroundings.  Experience (and being a generally deep sleeper) has taught me that in a couple of weeks I will no longer awaken at the sound of her 5:00 A.M. showers or the dogs following her around the house before she leaves for work.  For now, if I'm lucky enough to be sleeping in that day (never a guarantee in my line of work), I stretch, roll over, and bury my head under a pillow.

…while silently thinking to myself how much I miss my studio.

Sixty Six Word Stories

So I've been flipping through my notebook, looking for a little inspiration for something new, and I found this collection of Six Word Stories I wrote during a 3-day trip a couple of months ago.  I think my goal was to try to write 100 of them, but I didn't make it quite that far.

Anyway, I'm gathering them all here for your amusement and to see if anything strikes me as being worth turning into a longer story.

"But You'll Never Be Strong"

I am tired of being constantly on the defense.  It's something that starts at my job and continues at home and has dogged my steps as long as I can remember.

As someone who works, ultimately, in customer service¹, I have found that the best way to handle attacks is by refocusing a customer away from whatever has upset them onto what I can do for them.  At its simplest, for example, if a customer in coach is upset that the airline does not provide blankets, there's nothing I can do to suddenly change the policy that we don't do that.  But instead of saying, "I'm sorry I just don't have a blanket for you.  The company did away with those years ago to make ticket prices cheaper," I focus on what I can offer.  "I'm sorry you're cold.  Can I bring you some hot coffee or tea to warm you up?"  A good majority of people will take me up on the offer.  And an even greater majority are at least happier because they've been acknowledged and offered something.  Only a very small percentage of them are still upset and, well, some people just like to suffer and you're not going to be able to make them happy anyway.

A Compilation of Gingers

Endless List of Awesome Red-Headed Women In Fiction

(i.e. people I wanted to be when I grow up)

Anne Shirley

 

Mary Jane Watson

 

The Girl With the Titian Hair

I'm having one of those days where I'm remembering all the reasons I loved who I was for the 3 years I was dying my hair red.

For those of you not keeping track, I dyed my hair a dark auburn red around February of 2011 while I was studying abroad and went from this

to this

and then continued dying my hair as close to that shade of red as possible for the following three years.  Again, for those of you not keeping track, I stopped dying my hair around October(?) of 2013, and actually hardcore bleached it in November 2013, leaving it strawberry blonde.  I did a glaze in January that sort of toned it a bit, and since then have not colored it at all.  Every day I get closer and closer to my natural blonde.  My father and brother, who have been active leaders of the We-Hate-Rachel-With-Anything-But-Natural-Hair Club, are thrilled.

Why, you ask, should you give a crap?  Well, you probably shouldn't; it's my business.  But the real question is: "Why is this such an emotional thing for you, Rachel?"

To quote one of my college professors,  "Well, I'll tell you."

Fifty Shades of Grey Drinking Game

Fifty Shades of Grey: The Drinking Game

Because at this point, booze may be the only way to get through the rest of this book.

One Drink:

• "Oh my"
• "Double Crap"
• "Mighty _____," particularly "mighty fine."  (Who even says this?)
• Christian's "long fingers" are mentioned
• "My subconscious."
• someone gasps  (no seriously you will be amazed by how often this happens)
• absurd product placement (cars, tea, computers, etc. mentioned in excessive brand detail)
• Ana "flushes" or "blushes"
• Grey's pants hang "in that way"
• gift-giving disproportionate to the relationship
• unnecessary lists of three (one adjective or metaphor is more than sufficient most of the time, E.L. James)
• Ana refers to her roommate by her full name, Katherine Kavanagh, rather than simply "Kate."

Two Drinks:

• Ana is painfully ignorant to the point that you have to forcefully suspend your disbelief
• "Inner goddess"
• "Laters, ____."
• Grey does something so pretentious/ridiculous you have to stop reading to laugh. 

Bottoms-Up:

• You are actively offended.
• Unnecessary ellipse ("…")
• Someone refers to sex as "doing it."
• Someone refers to a part of the anatomy ambiguously as "…there." 

Round for the Whole House:

• A sexual act feels non-consensual to you. 

Rachel Reads Fifty Shades of Grey Masterpost

As most of my facebook and tumblr friends know, I have been cataloging my reactions to reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  I've decided to go ahead and collect all of those reactions and dump them here.


Day 1: "This book is fifty shades of fucked up is what it is."

Day 2:  They have now fucked and called it making love. I feel extremely uncomfortable.

Day 3:  

part I: Main character reveals that in spite of having attended university for four years, she does not have regular access to the internet or a computer of her own.

I frantically flip through previous reading to determine what year this is set in. Thought it was 2010s.

part II:  I have read "The Contract." I have also vomited in my mouth at least 4x.

part III:  page 151—concept of a "safeword" is finally introduced.  It is not confirmed before the shortly following sex scene occurs.

Day 4:  p. 169—Ana is finally appalled by something, anything, that Christian Grey has done.

Day 5:

 part I:  "I will watch the movie on the sole condition that it is done Lizzie McGuire style with little cartoon characters voicing Ana's 'inner goddess' and subconscious."

part II: The rape-y, non-consensual aspect of this book is starting to really show itself.  Ana has stated several times that she is not comfortable with certain things (I won't specify what because I promised to try to keep these posts PG-13), and Grey has insisted on doing them anyway, insisting that she will like it.  I suspect this will only get worse over time.

Advice to both men and women: Insisting your partner participate in a sexual act because you "just know he/she will like it," is not acceptable. If you really want to try something with your partner that they are not comfortable with, DISCUSS IT. TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE COMFORTABLE TRYING. Perhaps they will be willing to try it later on, but if and when they are, let THEM tell YOU they are ready.

Day 6: I have created a Fifty Shades of Grey drinking game.  You are welcome.

Angrily Eating M&Ms

Questions I've Heard 100 Times

Newest installment in the video edition of Cakes & Ale.

Come Have a Nosh

The first ever Cakes & Ale video blog!  WATCH IT!  And feel free to give me some suggestions for next time.  This is pretty maleable in its current state, and I haven't really decided where it's going to be going.

Deadly Donuts and Peter Pan

My hobbies: Convincing the natives that I actually speak Spanish/Portuguese even though I have absolutely no idea what's going on.  My wakeup call for instance:

"Buenas Días!  Jibberish gobbledegook speaking speako thingo tu no understando."

"Buenas Días."

"Furthero wakeo up-o call-o Señorita somethingo somethingo."

"Sí.  Gracias."

And then they say something else, and I just keep saying "Sí.  Gracias," until it seems appropriate to say "Muchos gracias.  Adíos," and hang up.  The only time I *don't* try this?  When it involves food.  I learned my lesson after the Great Whole-Wheat Donut Debaucle of '14.  For the record, although I was hoping that perhaps "Glaseado Integral Con Amaranto" meant some sort of glazed amaretto donut, it does, in fact, mean glazed with whole wheat (er…technically the Amaranto [or Amaranth] plant is some sort of weed, and they put the ground up seeds in their whole wheat flour).  -shudders-  Never again.

We Need to Talk About Glee (Yes, Again.)

So, we need to talk about Glee again.  Because I am getting extremely frustrated with the messages this show is sending to relatively impressionable audiences.  Now, I know the show's average audience is 18 and up, but an 18 year old is still impressionable, and I strongly suspect that there are plenty of people younger than 18 avidly following this show.

Dropping the Fluffy Pink Robe

Well, once again, Glee proudly exhibits its complete inability to portray reasonable or moderate view points.  (Please don't ask me why I watch; it's a combination of enjoying the music, and loving the drama in a train-wreck-can't-look-away sort of way.)

A Birthday Blog

I meant to write a Christmas blog, but life had other intentions, so I'm making this a birthday blog instead.  Regardless, it is a blog of celebration (and it has an alliteration, now, which automatically makes it better.)  No, not because of Christmas, or New Year's, or even my birthday, really.  It's a blog of celebration because I made it one whole year in Chicago as of last week.

A Toast to Your Health

There are a lot of things going on, some that I'm simply not okay talking about at the moment, but here's what I can tell you.  I have been sick for going on two weeks now.  Every time I think I'm doing better, I discover I was wrong.  Last week I came down with a nasty sore throat for maybe the sixth or so time this year.  Whatever.  I popped a throat lozenge and sucked it up like I usually do.  I cancelled one private lesson and expected to be back to work the next day.  Except that some way that I can't explain, I managed to throw out my back.  Again, I can't be sure exactly what happened, but there was a muscle in my back that simply decided that it wasn't getting enough attention, so it did what any mature, reasonable person would do.  It threw a temper tantrum.  Again, I tried to brush it off.  I have, on occasion, dealt with some muscle pain from work before, for which I used a heating pack, maybe popped a pain killer, and went to bed, tender but otherwise fine the next day.  So I delicately went to bed that night convincing myself that it would be fine in the morning.  It had to be fine in the morning.  I had to go to work.

No Last Rep

Another Blog Boost, but this time, it's a health blog.  I know what you're thinking:  Me?  Reading a health blog?  Don't be ridiculous.  And I'll admit that if it wasn't run by a friend of mine, I probably wouldn't have even bothered to skim it.  Honestly, though, I'm boosting it because the author is really good at sharing information that is accessible and useful for a wide audience, from the hard-core gym rats to those of us with a more moderate interest in health and fitness.

He shares a lot of great tidbits ranging from basic knowledge for first-time gym-goers to helpful (but realistic) eating tips.  I highly recommend giving his page at least a quick browse.  You're sure to learn something.

I Should Be Drinking Coffee

I should be drinking coffee right now.  More importantly, I should be pulling a homemade pumpkin pie out of the oven right now.  But sadly, neither of those things is happening.

Why I Hate Politics

Other than the uninformed idiots running loose on facebook, convinced that they, and only they, have a full grasp of the way our country should and shouldn't be run, the thing that really bothers me about politics is the complete lack of respect it seems to promote.

Things I Don't Understand

1. Brides who bring their fiances wedding dress shopping

2. Mark Rothko

3. Joel Schumacher

4. Popcorn balls

5. Those little silicon packets

6. Jim Carey's face

7. Mondays

8. Pizza with pineapple

9. Pomegranates

10. "Do not remove under penalty of law."

ETA: I also don't understand chihuahuas.