Category: jet lag

My Fair New Mexico, In the Zeitgeist

When I travel internationally (or even in the US) I know I have to find many ways to distract my monkey brain. Sitting still in a seat for flights that last anywhere from six hours to sixteen hours means I have to bring a lot of toys and distractions on an airplane to keep me sane.

Lately the best and easiest distraction for me is to load my iPad with movies. Good long movies that will help me while away the hours.

On this recent round trip to Ireland, I had four movies on my iPad and watched two more on the plane. Six movies, all told, have been absorbed into the ol’ brain pan.

They were: “American Hustle” (awesome movie!), “Don John” (far better than I had expected), “The Great Gastby” (far worse than I had expected), “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (way better than expected as I expected to fully hate it), “August: Osage County” (was a little hard to watch, hits too close to home and is rather depressing), and “The Wolf of Wallstreet” (eh, I was lukewarm).

So as I found myself locked and loaded and flying the skies, it was kind of funny to stumble across not one but two references to my fair New Mexico in these movies. A little “hello” from my homestate as I flew thousands of miles away.

The first was in American Hustle. (spoiler alert!) The character Sydney (Amy Adams) has been affecting a British accent and a faked up backstory of being a British aristocrat and finally has to come clean. She and Irving (Christian Bale) are fighting and she admits not only is she not British with ties to banking and business in England, she’s actually just a girl from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

This made me pause. What am I to take from this? She’s not a big time global force, but a simple girl from New Mexico?

Or do I infer that she learned her hustle in New Mexico? Hell, I don’t know and really it doesn’t matter, but it was a little startling to hear the name Albuquerque casually tossed about. However, I was a happy for the name check of my hometown in a big time movie. The Sydney character is pretty cool.

The other reference came along in “The Great Gatsby” when Tom is riding in a car with Jordan and speaking ill of Gatsby, as they have just had an unpleasant encounter in a hotel room in New York City. Tom is apoplectic and the dialogue goes something like this (parentheses added by me to make the speaker clear):

“An Oxford man!” He was incredulous. “Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.” (said Tom)
“Nevertheless he’s an Oxford man.” (said Jordan)
“Oxford, New Mexico,” snorted Tom contemptuously, “or something like that.”

From that exchange I certainly could infer what was being said. Oxford, New Mexico said contemptuously. As though New Mexico is the most backwater place a rich man from East Egg can think of.

That one made me wince a little, even as I was pleasantly startled to hear New Mexico called out again, in another movie.

A little research showed me that this dialogue is in the actual book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I read a thousand years ago and didn’t remember this.

But there it was, in a blockbuster movie!

I’m not entirely sure why New Mexico is in the zeitgeist these days, maybe it’s chalked up to “Breaking Bad” or maybe it’s something else, but hey here we are in the big time.

Not sure how I feel about that, really. Sometimes it’s best to keep our something very nice as something very secret.






Went back to the very first post on this blog to snag this photo, one of mine. It just seemed right.




Photo of ristra Copyright © 2007, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page.




The Roots of My Raising Run Deep

Part V, and the conclusion of a five part series.

It was a short plane ride, take off, cruising altitude for something like a minute, then get ready for final descent into Las Vegas.

Las Vegas. My kind of town. Vegas and I go way back. Now you know my not so secret secret, I wasn’t actually born in New Mexico, I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada.

My dad was working out at the Nevada Test Site and one thing led to another and…

Growing up some of my friends liked to tease me that my parents took a gamble and lost. Oh! Hey! Good looking crowd. We’re here all night. Tip your waitress.

My folks loved living in Las Vegas, but for various reasons moved back to Albuquerque when I was very small. Really too small to remember much of life in Las Vegas. All I’ve ever known is New Mexico, so I still rightfully call myself a native.

I scrambled off that Southwest Airlines jet, through the jetway, and hit the carpet in McCarran Airport. I walked without hesitation to a bank of slot machines that were unoccupied and pulled up a seat.

My family likes to gamble. A trip to Vegas was my present for my twenty-first birthday. My folks used to get out there at least once, maybe twice a year and we kids often went along. I didn’t grow up in Vegas but I grew up an awful lot on the many casino floors through the course of my life.

The Vegas I know is an old school Vegas, from the 1970’s, and it always feels a little right to be there.

With twenty dollars in the slot machine, I managed to make it play for a little over a half hour. I’d get down to the last dollar then the machine would pay off again. I was on a nice hot streak. Not hot enough to cash out, but hot enough to have some fun.

When that was gone, I picked another machine and chased another twenty dollars around for about fifteen minutes.

When that was gone, I got up from the seat with a sigh. I felt hungry and went in search of something not airport-awful to eat. Over a really disappointing slice of Sbarro’s pizza, I stopped chewing for a minute and smiled.

A thought occurred to me. In that same day, I had been in New Mexico, I was in Las Vegas, and I’d soon be in California. Those are all of the places I have ever lived. Those are all of the places I know.

Those are all of the places I belong.

Kind of cool, really. Kind of a nice way to end my journey. A full circle kind of a thing.

My trip to New Mexico was, all in, pretty good. I was so glad I made the trip, so glad to see my best friend and my goddaughters, so glad to go home and immerse myself in memories (and make new ones too).

My trip to New Mexico was also a little difficult. You see, my dad died in 2005 and he’s buried in the National Cemetery in Santa Fe. There was no way I could live with myself if I was in Santa Fe and didn’t go to the cemetery. And yet I really, really didn’t want to go to the cemetery. It’s not a joyful thing.

The last time I had visited was in 2009 and I was without a job and had lost my mind a little bit. I was scrambling to find a way to get back on my feet. That year I took a trip home to New Mexico to see if going back to my roots could help me find my compass needle.

I had cried a bit when my dad had died, but I was also a little stoic. My mom had asked me to be strong so that she didn’t have to be, and I agreed. I was as strong as I knew how to be back then, and a few years later there may have been some pent up stuff that needed to come out.

In 2009 when I found the stone that marks the place where my dad’s ashes are stored, it was a surreal experience. Gray skies opened up with rain and I stood there with my hand tracing the letters in stone and I cried, I keened, I howled. I scared the grounds crew. I honestly did, I freaked out this nice man taking care of the row of headstones nearby.

I guess back then I had some things I had to work out. On that recent spring day in March 2014, I was afraid that monster was still inside of me. I was terrified I’d find myself keening again at my father’s graveside. When considering going to the cemetery, I balked, I stalled, and finally I borrowed the keys to my friend’s new Suburban and set up Apple maps on my phone and took off on the highway, dreading it all the way.

Apple maps led me on quite a merry chase through the streets of downtown Santa Fe. That is a very old city, built by the Spanish Conquistadors so the roads are narrow and the sidewalks are high to accommodate horse drawn carriages.

With a little bit of axel grease and a shoehorn, I was able to navigate a huge Suburban through the streets, getting more lost by the moment.

Eventually, Siri found her head and I found my way, and there I was again, at the Santa Fe National Cemetery, both ready and not quite ready for what lay ahead.

That cemetery is always a difficult place for me. Rows upon rows of headstones mark all of my fellow New Mexicans who served in the military and who passed on, either in service of their country or later, as my dad had done. It is quite a humbling place for me, and that is even before I get to the place where I have to face my personal sorrow.

I had a bit of a false start, stopping at the wrong row of stones and realizing I was off by a bit. It didn’t take me a long time to find the right row and my father’s stone.

His ashes are in what is called a columbarium and it’s covered with a lovely piece of what I think is marble and secured to the wall with these connectors that look, to me anyway, like conchos.

They are so beautiful and so New Mexico appropriate.




Copyright © 2014 Karen Fayeth


For personal reasons, I will decline to post the entire stone, but I wanted to share a nice photo of that fastener. It stands on its own as a useful reminder.

On this visit I didn’t keen and I didn’t wail, but I sure did cry an awful lot. I put my hands on the now weathered stone and I traced his name and the word “Korea,” the war in which he participated. I felt the cold marble and I noted the sand blasted wear and tear and laughed at the unyielding New Mexico elements that caused the letters to already become faded. It’s only been nine years.

“Well, dad, I guess I’m doing a lot better than I was the last time I was here,” I said aloud. And I was.

Seeing my father’s name carved into stone never fails to break me on some level. After pacing a bit and having a pretty hard cry, I walked up the row and sat on one of the benches. It looks out over the valley and has a gorgeous view.




Copyright © 2014 Karen Fayeth



The mountains at my back and the dried grass and valley in front of me. The New Mexico unrelenting wind dried my tears the moment they slipped from my eyes. I laughed as the wind whipped at my hair. “Goddamn springtime wind,” I said to no one as I sat there alone.

Tumbleweeds of thoughts bounced in my mind. Through tears of sorrow, I smiled, because of that view, that place, that moment.

I had spent the past three days wondering I was even a New Mexican anymore. Sitting there, letting the climate steal my moisture and feeling grounded, I remembered that I always was and will always be.

I can never not be a New Mexican. Just as I can never not be born in Las Vegas. And I can never not be a damn near twenty-year veteran of California.

I am all of that. I am none of that. I am more than that.

I am greater than the sum of all my parts.

My version of New Mexico may not exist anymore but it’s mine. My particular brand of Las Vegas may not exist anymore, but I own it. My California is still telling me its story.

There is a lot left to learn about all of those places and as I gaze forward to the celebration of another revolution around the sun, I humbly admit there is an awful lot yet to learn about me.

What started as a fun trip to see my best friend in the entire world and my gorgeous godkids turned out to be something of a journey. A grounding moment in time that changed me, humbled me, reminded me and helped me grow.

I had no idea that was going to happen. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know. To paraphrase one of my oldest goddaughter’s favorite songs (that dates back to my college years), I might have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss that dance.

And there is no way I’d ever miss out on a good dance with some of my most favorite people in the world, back home where I belong.





Both photos Copyright © 2014, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app. The fastener photo was further edited in Instagram.




And Then I Danced With The TSA

This weekend I arrived early at an airport to climb on my fourteenth airplane of the year so I could head home to the now all too familiar San Francisco International Airport.

In twelve of the first thirteen flights of this year, things have gone very smoothly. One was a bit rocky, but could have been much worse.

Then came flight number fourteen. I suppose it was just my turn.

I stepped up to the security line and pfft’ed at the amateurs around me. Before I even got to the steel table and the plastic bins, I had shoes off, laptop out and a determined look in my face.

As in, this is not my first rodeo.

I stood in line kibitzing with friends. I shoved my bins forward into the tube and awaited further direction. This airport was using both metal detector and backscatter and the TSA agent was alternating the line. One to metal, one to xray. One to metal, one to xray.

I was directed to xray. With a sigh, I took my spot and waited. Then I was waved into the machine and I assumed the position. Feet spread, arms up over my head with elbows bent. Fingers spread.

Did I mention this is not my first rodeo?

I waited. And waited. And thought “damn, the backscatter at SFO is a quick one. This one is taking an eternity.”

Finally the TSA agent waved me out of the machine and pointed to a rug with the outline of two feet. That’s where you stand and wait for the agent to hear from The Someone in the backroom reviewing scans and reporting back.

So I waited. And waited. The TSA agent kept saying into her radio “Do you have a scan for a female? Results of scan. Results of scan, please.”

Nothing. Seems her radio was busted. So she asked her counterpart. He called it in. Three people had already come through the backscatter and given the all clear. Seems that certain Someone didn’t have my scan.

The female TSA agent said, “ok, let’s send her back in” pointing to the backscatter machine and I nodded. I was ok with that.

The male TSA agent said, “No, she left the machine and she can’t go back in.”

What?

“I’m sorry ma’am, we’re going to have to give you a pat down,” I was informed.

I sighed, nodded and raised my arms. “Ok, let’s do it,” I said.

“You can put your arms down, I have to call for an assist.”

So I waited and waited and waited for the pat down lady to come give me a good fondle.

“Do you want a private room?”

“No.”

“I will run my hands all the way up and down your legs, between and under your breasts, in the back of your shirt, in the waistband of your pants and in some sensitive areas. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, let’s get started.”

And so the blue uniformed woman got frightfully intimate with me right there in the security area, and I let her. I felt mildly dirty but to be honest, this was not my first pat down. Turns out when you wear a flowy skirt sometimes the backscatter can’t see you so well and they pat you down anyway. It’s why I wear pants to travel these days (even though skirts are way more comfy).

“There, that wasn’t so bad was it? Now I just need to test my gloves. Wait here please.”

“Ok.”

And so I waited and waited and waited and I heard “uh oh.”

I turned to see another TSA agent say to my new girlfriend, “You got an alarm.”

“It’s these gloves again, I swear this is crazy!” she replied.

Oh those pesky, pesky gloves. Silly gloves. Naughty gloves giving off an alarm meant…

Every item in my possession had to be wiped and scanned. Everything, including the Hello Kitty popsicle mold I’d bought there at the airport (a gift for a friend’s toddler).

None gave off an alarm, but I wasn’t finished yet.

I was then invited into the private room. Was this like the champagne room at a strip club? Only I’m the dancer? I hoped to make some killer tips off of this routine.

This time not one but two female TSA agents came along for the fun. I got to keep my clothes on, but they felt me up real, real good.

Let’s just say…they were quite vigorously able to confirm that I was in fact NOT the next underwear bomber.

Ahem.

After this mauling, I was set free to move about the airport.

I reported to my friends that I needed a Silkwood shower and maybe a Cinnabon to get through the trauma.

We opted instead for a TCBY non-fat yogurt cup. Amazing what sugar can do to make you feel better about this mean old world.

To be fair, it could have been much worse. I had plenty of time before my flight and I was very cooperative with the TSA agents, which meant they were very cooperative with me.

But I just can’t get past the fact that I had to be mauled, molested and detained because their radio malfunctioned and their backscatter machinery burped and their gloves are known to set off alarms and yet they keep using them.

I was just trying to get back home.

Before this crazy ol’ year is over, I have two more planes to ride. May those trips go as smoothly as twelve of my fourteen flights thus far.

Waltzing with the TSA sure was fun, but I think I’m over it.






Image from Toonsville.



What Are The Odds?

Over the course of the past six months, I have had occasion to be on twelve different airplanes.

To my utter surprise, eleven of those twelve plane rides have gone off without a hitch. No mechanical failures. Nothing more than slight delays. Only a bit of notable turbulence over the North Pacific and also over Iceland. But even that was quite tolerable.

Eleven safe, easy, trouble free hops.

And then there came ol’ number twelve.

It had to happen sometime, right?

My day started in the dark hours of a foggy Alabama morning. I rose before the sun, packed my bag and climbed into the rental car. It was time to go home.

I had worried about a lot of the day. I had to drive the 75 miles or so back into Atlanta with commute time traffic. Atlanta is one of the busiest airports in the world so I fretted over planes being on time. And then there is the morass of the security process. It had taken almost an hour to get through SFO security on the way out so who knew was ATL would be like.

Turns out all of that worry was for naught. The drive in was easy. Turning in the rental car a breeze. There was a bit of a line at security but even that was no problem.

My biggest issue was that I had allotted so much time that I was ridiculously early to the airport.

So I had some breakfast, eggs and sausage hold the grits please, and I idly shopped the stores. I sat around a while too and even that was fine.

That big ol’ jet plane arrived right on time and in due course I was called to step onboard.

My seat wasn’t the best situation, I was in that first row at the plane door which meant every person who walked by took a chunk of my long limbs with them. I’m rather fond of my knees so I found myself hugging them to me to protect their little caps from further contusions. This made me cranky.

Soon enough the flight attendant was locking that door and running through the safety briefing required for takeoff.

She said at one point, “in the event of an emergency, which totally won’t happen, there will be lights along the aisle way leading you to exits.”

I thought it a bold statement. I should have known right then…she was calling down the Baseball Gods.

You know the Baseball Gods, those mythical entities that require you don’t speak of a no-hitter while it is in progress. The fickle hands of fate that will school you if you utter things like “when we win the division…”

And the baseball gods that occasionally smite a plane of passengers when our lead flight attendant says things like “in the event of an emergency, which totally won’t happen…”

Because it happened.

We were buckled in and cleared for takeoff. We taxied down the runway and took our place in line. There was one plane ahead of us and we were next. As the plane rolled, a man in the row behind me shouted, “we need help here! Get someone, we need help!”

The man seated at the window of that row was having a rather severe seizure. To his great fortune, the man seated next to me is a neurologist and there was also an anesthesiologist on the plane. These two doctors hopped into action and assisted the man through the worst of it.

Out of respect for the gentleman who suffered the seizure, I’ll keep all the gory details to myself, but I’m not going to lie, it was scary as hell.

The pilot was called and we had to step out of line and return to the gates where a group of EMTs waited. These EMTs were top notch, and they got the man stable and they got him off the plane.

Then there was the aftermath. The paperwork. The clean up. The “what the hell do we do now?”

All of the airline staff kept saying to each other “I’m just so glad this happened on the ground and not in the air.”

Eventually the airline got it all sorted out and the lead flight attendant commanded us to sit and buckle in. It was time to go.

We taxied out again to the runway and the passengers were quiet and tense. We took off and the wheels went up and other than the lady at the window in my row having a broken tray table and the bathroom running out of toilet paper, there were no more mishaps on that flight.

The pilot must have put the spurs to it because the flight was only maybe an hour late getting to SFO, and that’s not bad. Probably helped that prior to the emergency, we were due for a really early arrival (the jet stream must have been taking a smoke break yesterday).

And so…eleven out of twelve is a 91.6% chance of a flawless flight, which are damn fine odds as far as I’m concerned. I’d place a Vegas bet on that in a heartbeat.

I think what’s actually more amazing to me is the eleven flights that went off without a hitch. I’ve always considered getting on a plane to be something of a crap shoot. A little Google search advises that the odds of winning in craps is about 50%. So yeah, 91.6% is a far better bet.

As of this moment, there are no more plane rides scheduled for the rest of the year. Knock on wood and touch a lucky rabbit’s foot and with all due deference to the Baseball Gods.

I think I’m ready to stay on the ground for a while.






Photo by Jesse Clark and used royalty free from stock.xchng



When In Rome…or Reading

While on my way out the door and quite ready to make a voyage to England, among the parting thoughts from The Good Man was:

“Enjoy the traditional English breakfast.”

I’m a fan of all things breakfast so I readily agreed, despite not really knowing what a traditional English breakfast was all about.

My first morning in country, I stumbled downstairs to the complimentary buffet and started to understand.

It looks a little something like this.





I say “a little something” because this plate is missing a couple key components, mainly blood pudding (a sausage, also sometimes called black pudding), fried tomatoes and fried mushrooms. But other than that the main items are there. Griddled eggs. Hash browns. Bacon (center cut and YUM).

And the key component: Heinz Baked Beans.





No other will do.

I’m no stranger to eating beans for breakfast. I’ve been eating pintos in many forms alongside eggs for years, so this was zero hesitation to me. That said, I usually hate baked beans because they are just too sweet. Too much brown sugar, I think (as if such a thing as too much brown sugar exists).

I really like the Heinz baked beans because they aren’t especially sweet. They are tomatoey but not sugary sweet. A perfect compliment to eggs, in my humblest of American opinions.

Here’s the thing…I started having the Full Breakfast every day. They even served it at the cafeteria where I reported for work the second week of my stay. This meal formed a good solid start to my days of battling with suppliers and the English rain and pesky coworkers.

I felt like I could climb mountains on that breakfast.

And now that I’m back home, I miss it.

Breakfast now just seems sort of…blah. Sad. Lacking. And without verve.

So I looked at a couple local grocery stores. Lo and behold, I found the key ingredient here locally.





The real stuff! The good stuff. Ok, it’s a little more work to make all the fixins myself rather than ladling from a hotel buffet bar.

But it’s worth it.

Oh so worth it.

Now that breakfast is sorted, let’s chat about British dinners too, eh? Here is a beauty shot from one night at the local pub. Big yum.

Though all of that on the table (except for the Pedigree, a proper English Ale) is quite readily available here in the US. Thank goodness!





So now I have quite a menu for my post travel life as there is plenty of can’t-live-without-it food from Singapore (laksa, chili crab and kaya toast) and Costa Rica (tostones, Olla de Carne and Cas) and now the charms of Britain.

Tonight, however, I head back to my roots. We’re cooking New Mexico style in my house. All that British culture made my green chile blood level get a little low.

Must fix that problem right away!




All photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the far right corner of this page. Photos taken with an iPhone 4s and the Camera+ app.