Storming the Castle... erm.. Airport

So this morning I'm picking Andre up at the Airport.
It was a typical moment in the life of me, and it went something like this:

6:10

• Alarm goes off
• Decide that that is waaayy to early as I don't have to be at the airport until 8am. What was I thinking???
• Remember that I decided last night that was going to wash my hair so that it looks pretty.
• Decide my hair looks pretty enough and reset alarm to 7:am

7am

• Reluctantly get out of bed and enter dark bathroom
• Light candle (yes, friends, we're back to candle-lit showers because I'm too lazy to figure out how to re-install my ghetto lightbulb that Andre knocked off the wires the LAST time he was here)
• Shower by candlelight

Plod downstairs and turn on computer. Read Reddit for 10 minutes.

7:30am

• Realize I have to BE at the airport in 30 minutes to pick up Andre and I'm not dressed
• Run upstairs making a mental note of the location of my mobile phone
• Peer into closet and mentally dismiss the outfit I had selected last night as hair is not washed and slightly non-pretty hair does not match completely pretty outfit.
• Glance at watch and grab jeans
• Locate black camisole
• Run back into bathroom and slap on some slap, by candlelight, and hope I'm not making myself look like the missing member of Twisted Sister
• Return to location of last sighting of black camisole and become baffled because it is no longer there.
• Search frantically for black camisole: under the bed, in dresser drawers, under the covers, in the bathroom, under the bed again (not sure why). Become convinced that someone is fucking with my head because the black camisole was RIGHT THERE 2 MINUTES AGO.
• Yank open closet door to locate alternate outfit that doesn't require a black camisole.
• Fix eyes on black camisole hanging oh-so-innocently with my bras as if it hadn't just crawled across the room and jumped onto a hanger in the closet.
• Get dressed, run downstairs to grab flight details... which turn out to be still AT THE OFFICE despite the fact that the last thing I did before leaving was print them off to take them with me
• Yell "GRRRWAAAAWWAAWHAHHH!!!" which is the sound someone makes when they face the incontrovertible realization that they are braindamaged.
• Boot up work computer to locate work email with flight details... computer cheerfully refuses to connect to the wireless network
• Frantically search through stack of paper and find envelope where booking reference is written so that I can log into the BA website with my other computer and confirm that Andre's flight is, in fact, landing at 7:45 which is, uh RIGHT NOW.
• Grab purse and head toward door
• recall that mobile phone is not in purse but is in clever location in the apartment. Somewhere.
• Have no bloody screaming clue where mobile is, but suspect it has hung itself up with the bras.
• Scramble through purse to locate my business card where my mobile number is printed, grab the land line and dial mobile number.
• Listen to theme from "Hockey Night in Canada" and recall that oh-so-clever me left my mobile by the front door.
• Grab mobile as I race out the door
• Race to the airport and somehow arrive just after 8:10, park and run like mad into the arrivals area while smoothing down freakishly messy hair
• Walk calmly the last 100meters to the arrivals gate. Oh yeah, I'm a little late, but I was probably just finishing my manicure. No biggy.

Andre is not yet in the arrivals area! So I wait.

8:25

• Check the arrivals board and realize that Andre's flight LEAVES London at 7:45 and that his flight actually arrives in Brussels at 11:05.
• Start to say "MOTHER FU*..." but stop before it comes out
• Pay 2Euro50 for parking and drive home.

10:00

• I am a dick.

The Shower Pod

On a recent flight from Toronto to Brussels I had a stopover in London Heathrow where British Airways has an oh-so-lovely business class lounge. And really, there is nothing like shaking off the drudgery of a (champagne sodden) transatlantic flight (where your every ridiculous whim is attended to), by spending some time in a well-appointed business class lounge.

To my delight, I quickly discovered London Heathrow’s British Airways business class lounge has a day spa.

Excited, but trying not to look too much like I’d just tumbled off the pumpkin wagon, I approached the mahogany reception desk to arrange to have a shower. The pretty robe-clad attendant reached to the shelf behind her and took down a puffy, white towel that had, roughly, the surface area of Kuwait. She handed it to me with a smile and said in a lovely British accent “Room 6. Please enjoy the shower pod. Do you have any questions about operating it or can I otherwise assist you”?

Shower pod??? What’s a shower pod? Not wanting to discotinue my charade as a business lounge insider, I opted not to ask her about this. Instead, I thanked her, took the towel and restrained myself from skipping over to room 6.

This delightful little room did, in fact, have something that – if I had been personally responsible for naming it – I also would have named a ‘shower pod’. It was a shower. Encased in a glass pod. I opened the door tentatively, frowning a little at the various buttons and water jets next to what was a rather overlarge console. The console, which looked like it might have been modeled after a modern cockpit instrumentation, was a mindboggingly complex array of dials, buttons, levers and electronic touch pads. Luckily there was a long page of directions etched onto a plaque on the wall next to the pod. Unluckily, I’m not one to read directions. Rather, my mind did what it always does when presented with unfamiliar and interesting gadgets – which is to go “hey, what does this do”?! And then my hands spring into action while my mind then goes off counting blades of grass or something.

The choice between actually experiencing the shower pod or reading about it first for 10 minutes, was really no choice at all. I quickly stripped naked, wrapped a towel around my hair so it wouldn’t get wet, and jumped into the shower pod (and probably yelled ‘woo hoo’ while doing so), closing the door behind me. Once encapsulated in the pod, I stood in front of the console, paused for a brief second to consider a prudent approach, and then enthusiastically grabbed two of the dials and turned them hard in opposite directions.

Immediately the entire room flooded with freezing cold water. I hadn’t noticed the jets on the ceiling or the floor of the pod, and frigid water was now shooting at me from all directions. I screamed. I started running frantically around the pod trying to escape the freezing cold spray while trying to turn the dials off – unfortunately there were cold water jets set to ‘massage’ that were spraying me directly in the face, so I was no longer sure which dials I had initially turned. Also unfortunately, there is no-where to run inside a pod. Dial turning quickly took on a random quality with much whooping and sputtering -- much like a naked Native Rain Dance in reverse.

A few minutes of Arctic face massage and numerous button/lever/touchpad permutations later, I got the jets and temperature under control without actually drowning myself. Relieved, I put the sopping wet towel that had formerly been on my hair onto the pod’s built in seat and sat down breathlessly.

I started laughing, realizing that it seems like I’m always doing something idiotic like that and can’t seem to help it. Chuckling, I soaped up and started to wash my hair. That’s pretty much the same time I started to smell the eucalyptus. Which apparently signals that the water will shut off and that steam will start pouring out of the jets.

Some moments later, after I figured out how to deactivate the steam timer I’d triggered, I rinsed off the soap that I was starting to fear I’d be wearing to Brussels, and got out of the shower pod. Forever.

Cyber Stalker

After work today I was a bit bored, so I googled my ex-boyfriend. I know... not cool to do; really not cool to admit.

Many of the return results were eBay listings, so I clicked on one. Apparently in December Sandy bought a French copy of "Brainy Baby"... which is, I guess, a dvd to ensure that your baby grows up to be an existentialist philosopher.

Sooooo... now I'm the kind of bummed out you can only get when you are nearly 40, single, childless, and you find out that your ex-boyfriend (who, to your surprise, married your good friend right after university) is going to have a baby. Or just had a baby. Or whatever.

I don't care.

Rather, I do care but in that way where I wish I didn't.

Ennui

Tonight I'm beyond bored.

I worked all day *yawn* and then had a French lesson*Je baîlle*.

It's specified in my employment contract that I'm entitled to 60 hours of private language instruction. Tonight I had hours 54 and 55. So, I guess I'm almost completely French.

Early on in my intention to study French, I, being a serious student desiring of a well-rounded education, decided to date a French man. It was wonderful for a while, but I noticed quickly that our French lessons kept deteriorating into makeout sessions. Over time, my general proficiency with French hadn't increased as I'd hoped. I do, however, now possess a fairly extensive vocabulary of vulgar French words for the baby-making bits and nearly shameful control over the trilled R.

I'm not sure how useful this will be in a business setting.

In the end, I admit that having a French lover wasn't all I thought it would be. Sure they are fun to play with, and very nice to look at, but it's my (limited) experience that they are also completely psychotic.

Or maybe, in fairness to the eleventy-hexillion other French men, it was just this particular one.

Our last moments together took place one candle-lit evening between 10:10 and 10:20pm. I remember sitting on the couch cozily with him, when he asked me if I had drunk the last of the cognac. I said I had. He said "but yesterday you said you were going to wait and drink it with me". I replied "oh, did I? I don't remember. I'm sorry. I drank it". At which point he called me a liar, got up and started packing his things to leave. When I tried to talk to him, he said in his super sexy French accent "if you are going to lie to me about small things, there is nothing that you won't lie to me about". I started to protest, and wanted to tell him that, although I drank that particular cognac, I had earlier in the day bought another bottle,. But he put his finger on my lips and said, smoulderingly, "don't speak to me, I don't want to hear your lies".

It was the only time I've ever simultaneously experienced raw fury and raw desire to rip someones' clothes off.

Without another word from either of us, he left my apartment and my life forever.