29 July 2011

Yeah, I know...It's been a while.

So, right this minute, I am cooling my heels in the Atlanta Airport (ATL).  Why, you may ask.  Well, I have temporarily abandoned my current domicile in Hawaii for a trip.  I've accumulated a "bunch" of leave that I need to use,mor my employer will take it from me.  Now, I earned that time off, and I don't intend to let it go, so I scheduled a freaking month.  I didn't want to spend that time bumming around the islands and I had learned that a favorite actor (those who know me know who this august personage is) was going to be performing in a production of Shakespeare in London.  Somehow, my twisty little brain concocted a plan to go to London to see the play (after all, the play's the thing) and other "stuff" and maybe go some other places, too like Ireland to hunt up my late husband's family.  As these things do, the little plan turned into a month long production of Shado's UK Tour (t-shirts will be available in the lobby).  Never being one to do anything solely for pleasure, with a few notable suggestions, I have managed to incorporate a little work into the trip.

I have another 12 months left in my current assignment in Hawaii.  This fact has both its good and bad points.  The bad first:  I have come to love the islands and the way of life there.  I love the ocean and the mountains and feel like I belong there.  I've been really comfortable there.  It's as close to home as I have come without my sweetheart being with me.  Now it seems that I have to leave.  There are situations with my job that make it nigh on to impossible for me to stay.  Unfortunate that I have found a "home" and now it seems that I must leave it.  So, what's the good?  The good is that I will be using this trip as a vehicle to find another job.  If I can, indeed find a job (or as I like to say, some Brit with the means and inclination to support me in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed), then I can avoid returning to the dreaded east coast and I can also sidestep the issues that are driving me out of Hawaii.

So here I sit, dragging my way through the world's longest layover (14 hours) to get on another plane that will take me to England.  I am dead chuffed, and when not so tired that I can't see straight, I'm so excited that I bounce a bit.  So far, I've got tickets for that Shakespeare play, The Doctor Who Experience (yah, I'm a nerd...), Dinner at Gordon Ramsey's restaurant at Claridges (I'm a foodie snob, too), plans for a day trip to Paris and another (maybe) to Brussels or Bruges (if the train goes there).  I'm going to Cardiff, and Dublin (to drink Guinness on its home turf, and York, and Hadrian's Wall, and palaces and stuff.  I've actually really trimmed back my plans because, understanding the power of visualization, I don't have to see ALL the things, because soon I will be living there and can see the rest of the things at my leisure.  That, and the fact that I'm planning on having FUN and don't want to be exhausted.  I almost forgot...Y-A-R- freakin-N, too.

Now, if y'all will forgive a tiny rant.  I recently changed over to insulin therapy for my diabetes.  OK, so no big deal there, BUT, I really wish someone would come up with a formulation of insulin that is reasonably temperature stable.  I schlep enough stuff with me, but now get to drag along those get cool pacs or ice in ziplocks.  It's bulky and heavy and just a fiddly pain in the ass.  --end rant.

Speaking of insulin, it's about 2300 London time, and I've taken my insulin for the day (trying to get all my cycles aligned with Aldebran or something, so that my meds work with my activities.  I should probably toddle off and find something to eat that's not crappy nibblys.  Use-ta-wuz, you could get decent food in the first class lounges.  Not any more.

Thus goes my first day of leave.  Gotta go eat...