i'm not the only one who wonders about the little peanut nub

sunday afternoon found me flying to corpus christi. i grabbed something to eat on the flight, and then found a seat near the gate. as soon as i got my stuff set down and settled, i turned to the right and saw someone waving at me with grand gestures-it was cris! so i gathered my belongings and went over to where she and ginger had congregated. (can two congregate? it just seems like such a small gathering). anyhoo, while in houston, the girls wanted to grab lunch, so having already eaten, we split one sandwich, fries and chips/queso between the three of us-just a snack. i'm pretty sure that either we were there at the same time, or we missed neddy and jane s by mere moments. (saw something on facebook). 

there were some great children and grandchildren swapping of stories, and as we lined up for the short hop to corpus, ginger had a fun face-time with one of the babies! so fun to see the joy that the grandchildren bring!

i love that cris and ginger knew the lay of the land, and had been there before! once i had spilled my coffee and we'd gotten our rooms upgraded from a king size to two queens...hotel issues-did i ever mention that one of my duties when i was at c of o was working at the old hotel for a couple of weeks? true story, so i get it, that the front desk needs verification that the cleaning staff has finished cleaning and prepping rooms! it was also great when i knocked my perfect cup of coffee and it spilled all over the lobby...again, they couldn't contact housekeeping...so i was trying to ward people off and help them detour around the lake-o-coffee, with pretty much everyone who walked by mentioning how great it smelled...and it did! but we finally made our way to our rooms and had a few minutes before we were to meet in the lobby with tina, a former trainer in corpus.

the view from across the street to the hotel

bay area hotel 

where we had our amazing shrimp with tina

a view from the back side of the restaurant

it was great to meet her and we grabbed dinner in the bay at a little restaurant with some live music and a little floating dock. when by the ocean, you don't turn your nose up at seafood, and so we had a little taste of cathy's delicious pecan-crusted shrimp! and the topper was the key lime pie slice that we all delved into! mouth-wateringly good! got to see tina's grandbabies- she has the cutest pics of their tea-party...what a great idea to have fun tea parties to learn table etiquette as a pre-cursor to joining at the big table with the real dishes! love it!

evening walk on the bay

after dinner, we were able to enjoy a short walk by the water. it was a little windy, so it would've been perfect if we'd had a cape to follow suit-and recreate red-cape nation by the bay! i saw jane's pic in the white-sands! loved it-we need to do more of this, and it would've been the perfect setting!! hindsight, note to self-buy the cape!

enjoying the breeze and the sunset with ginger and cris

when we went to set up for the training, ginger was getting crazy "if i start flashing and vibrating..." oh yeah, she'd just sat her phone down and asked me to monitor and push a button if it did those things. it's really fun trying to get everyone situated when they need devices-and no one brings any (while we had verified, i think there was a gap in communication back to participants...summertime!), so this is when we try to figure out how best to accommodate and move forward-double up-double down! some people went to grab their laptops during lunch..we ended up with a short lunch, so the first option was out, and we ended up at the original whataburger because it was only 789 paces to the east...did you catch it that this was the ORIGINAL whataburger?! yes, it's true! i think i forgot to mention it about JAX, but when we were in florida, neddy and i were talking about whataburger, because i was surprised that they'd made it to florida..kinda like the 9-banded armadillo...we looked up the origins of said fast-food establishment, because i was fairly certain that it was texas...and i was right-corpus christi-so as you can imagine, it was a grand culminating excursion to bundle all of these thoughts and feelings about whataburger together-AT THE ORIGINAL!!

if you gotta be famous for something, why not the original!?! (did i mention?)

needless to say, it was a short, fast lunch, which required tums afterward! and then the participants dove in, hands on, and played with the data and reports! cool thing: the sales rep, carl was available, and he came in for a bit to observe the training and meet some of the teachers and admin in the area who were using it. good times! i am pretty sure this region 2 office has one of the best views of any of the education service centers (ESCs) out there!! we got off to the airport in time to make our flight; granted, there was a moment at which the car may or may not have caught air and caused sparks on landing as cris, aka: daisy duke, was intent on making good time-it was as if we were runnin' from the law! ok, perhaps i embellished, but hey, we made it and the security man  was like the honduran security checkpoints...making us roll the window down and open the trunk...it felt so third-world..and that was just to get into the rental car lot! fun fact, he found the button to automatically close the rear door-we obviously didn't look hard enough and had been forcing it closed, working against the hydraulics..like wrestling with an alligator only with no teeth and no scales...and not violently thrusting around...so...not like an alligator at all, really.

before we started out, i noticed that our pilot had an easy button...

i know you can barely see it, but that red button there on the console...easy button.

not sure what this means about his flying skills...but i will say that every pilot so far has not been able to speak loud enough for anyone to understand their monologue once the bird is up in the air and there is air-noise..this plane is not a buick lucerne. sigh.

once we got on the plane from houston to dallas, i chose a seat next to a young man who was traveling unaccompanied minor. we'll call him tyrone for the sake of calling him something, because i didn't ask his name, but he looked like a tyrone, and i really like that name. i sat down and settled in with my serious face, until i recognized that he looked a bit anxious, so i changed my face, and started some small talk about summer, school, used to be a teacher, etc. big step for me-even with a child-it automatically opens one up for additional future conversation. we were having a good conversation...looking forward to a leisurely flight to dallas, as the podium-man at the gate said it wasn't a full flight, which more often than not, means extra leg-room, because no one in their right mind purposely chooses a middle seat.

no sooner did this mentality set in, than the girl. the girl stopped and looked at the middle seat, and asked if she could sit there. i wanted to say, "not a full flight...i'm sure there's an aisle or window seat further back!" but what came out of my mouth was: sure. then i hesitated, thinking she was going to find a spot for her large rolling-bag-carry-on (you know, the ones that don't fit under your seat?)...but she didn't go looking, she merely stood there waiting, so i stood to let her in and said, "are you sure the bag will fit under your seat?" "yeah, i got it" HMMM. i was interested to see what magical chant she had that was going to make this happen. nope. she managed to wedge it in by her feet and try to get her feet/legs comfortable behind it. snug. the boy by the window gave me a withering look-he was enjoying our conversation as well.

 then the flight attendant with the bright pink lipstick mad the announcement about nothing around your feet, and i don't know, maybe my new seat-mate just wasn't listening, but it didn't phase her. i was reaching down to put something in my bag (the one that actually fit under the seat), as the flight attendant was getting nearer to make her checks, so i immediately sat up abruptly to ensure that she could see the obvious faa violation, and sure enough, she did! she told the girl, "you're going to have to store that." so i unbuckled and stood up. the big girl got a little huffy and heaved the bag into my empty seat and looked at little hot-pink lips and said, "well? where do i put it?" and pink lips got sassy to match the attitude and said, "you can strap yourself to the wing and carry it in your lap, for all i care!" oh, wait...that was me-in my head...actually, she looked at the girl and said, "you're going to have to find an overhead bin". the girl looked a little bewildered and i just kinda' looked down the aisle at the male attendant past hot lips and gave him the A-LITTLE-HELP-HERE look...he motions that there is some space toward the exit row. so the girl grudgingly made her way down with all the ease of patti from gilmour girls (my latest netflix obsession)...she lumbered toward the exit shoving and coaxing her bag into the overhead and made her way back, obviously not locating an empty aisle or window seat. she was none-too-talkative...and i was pretty certain that she didn't put her phone in airplane mode, as she was texting on the final approach (i was totally planning to hold her responsible for any interference with the nav system).

before she had arrived, my little friend had said, "i do have a question. is flying boring?" the more boring, the better, son! he had nothing to do but listen to his music, so i tore off my pages of writing and gave him my notebook and pen so that he'd have something to do, and i told him to write everything he did in houston, and how he felt...and that he had to give his mom a huge hug and tell her how much he missed her when he arrived to sacramento! i actually had a question that i'd been contemplating, and i was going to ask my little friend what he thought...what would you call the little piece of peanut that is tiny and sometimes falls off..i decided on nub. then i was thinking about it last night at past midnight, and someone else had been thinking about this as well (great minds...wandering minds). landess from huff post wrote an entire article about it...and she called it a nub as well!! yay me!

then i deplaned and went straight to the wait area for the parking spot and saw a familiar face waiting for her shuttle-de an had just returned as well, so we exchanged a hello and she was off!

upon arriving home, i had a conversation with my scale which when i stepped on it the first time registered "E" (error, not empty) and the conversation was riddled with alliteration: eventually everyone endures episodes of exasperation, even ewe! i looked at the scale a bit sheepish and said please...it's YOU...calling me fat? scale: i didn't say heifer, i said ewe. ME: can't pull the wool over my eyes! i know where you were going...so i am going to have to start being more intentional and aware of my nutritional surroundings when traveling. just because there is a per diem, i don't have to use it all!

and when i stopped by the po box, i was able to pick up my mail and i had a sweet thank you note from andrea with some addison event coupons, and a card from brandy-made my day, and i felt pretty awesome!

love being me-love what i'm learning
julie