Just Another Night

I guess if you work as a server in an airport it may as well be in the world's busiest, and that's where I landed! (small pun)

It's been crazy busy lately (a good thing) but even after almost two years, see something or someone bizarre almost every single shift.

At the airport manager's meeting this past week,  had forecast a slow down for Saturday and Sunday. I was okay with that, my bones needed some rest and all my bills were paid. It was kinda slow when I went on the floor at three fifteen and regretted thinking it would be okay if it was. There's nothing which makes a shift longer than watching paint dry. It's just the way I'm geared and if I'm working  have to be doing something. All the younger staff doesn't mind doing nothing and quite a few excel at it.

I stocked and cleaned everything I could and then settled on folding linens. All the servers poke fun at me because of how fastidious I am about it. I fold the napkins for tables precisely and alternate them in the stack I fold so they end up being a level stack. Then I put them in the linen cabinet in the most perfect order. Four stacks across, all the way to the top and always with the top napkin with the folded side down. Then when the cabinet is perfect and full as a tick I go get an empty box and begin to fold more napkins in precisely the same way and fill it to store them in the bottom of the huge liquor cage we lock all the booze bottles in when we close. I folded over two hundred by seven o'clock and yes they all looked perfect!

It's crazy, I'm nowhere near a neat freak at home but when someone is paying me to do a job I turn into "Anal Lady". Everything has to be neat and tidy, in it's proper place and done the correct way.

By seven o'clock felt like it should have been at least  nine thirty but was still light outside so knew it wasn't even eight.

Big sigh...

They finally cut three servers from the floor as travelers dribbled in. I had my MOJO working and the few tables I had really liked me. I had an elderly gentleman sit at one of my tables speaking broken English. Heck, with my southern accent it was a hit or miss conversation.

"Beer" seems to be a globally known word. I ask if they want draft by acting like I am pulling the tap handle forward or bottle by seeming to pop a cap off.

He had a draft, and after going small or tall with one hand down and the other up going from four inches apart to ten inches apart learned he wanted a tall one.

BAM!

He looked tired but after some small mixed language talk learned he had traveled half the globe in the past week. He had some cured meats and cheeses, one tall beer and paid his tab. I told him it was slow in the restaurant so to sit as long as he wanted.

Then this happened.

Old dude crashed like a freight train that jumped the tracks. Several tables were looking at him and chuckling.

After twenty minutes couldn't resist a photo opp. I really wanted to sit opposite of him and act like I was chatting away with him, boring him to death.

Then I thought about posting "Boring the Bern" but finally settled on this one. I would have never taken this pic if he had been smashed. He was just (as we say in the south) "Wore slap out" and after being given the go ahead from me to sit as long as he wanted simply crumbled.

At least I didn't take the pic when he semi woke up and simply put his head on the table and rested for twenty more minutes.

After that it started in earnest. Before I knew it had seven tables at once and all six tops or more. I waited on peeps from Brazil, Norway and Amsterdam. Before I knew it was ten o'clock and we were closed.

I truly love this job, it's beyond awesome but taxing when done five days a week at my age.

It starts from fighting for a good spot to park near the shuttle bus or elevator in the parking deck to getting through security quickly.

Working at International is a world different from any I've ever known but has been a hoot (as we also say in the south) and knowing I only have  six more months left make it much easier to deal with.

On top of everything else it's done for me has let Massey experience things and opened her world to the entire planet...literally.

Like I said before, if you gotta work at an airport, why not make it the world's busiest?

 One of our favorite shuttle bus drivers.

 Ang Lee, director.

 Our mentor, Damir.

 Captain America, Chris Evans.

 Who's the best momma in the world now?

Sam Smith!

It's been an awesome run and glad my daughter got to make it with me.

When a professional server like me, it's just sales and marketing.

Our mentor said it best on his last day with us.

I've finally found what I'm best at selling, and it's myself.

I may not be a Kardashian, a Real House Wife,  a Dance Mom or even Honey Boo Boo but a pretty decent person who thinks if I continue to  be,  will go far beyond my wildest expectations and at the age of way over half way done with my life feel pretty stinking good about what I've been lucky enough to accomplish with a little help from my friends.

Orlando bound.

COTTON

It's A Plan Now

For what seems like ten years we've had one chance or another for Tim to possibly transfer and advance with one company or another. Let's see...

We had an offer to move to Charlotte, got pulled from him. Then it was Raleigh, then it wasn't. Then It was Dallas, then it was a nope. Next was Pensacola, seemed it was going to happen and didn't. When Orlando got mentioned I was like "yeah, whatever" and now suddenly Tim has already been living in Orlando for over two months waiting for the rest of us to join him. He's living with my brother for now and they have even been to see about a couple of houses for us to live in.

Massey wanted to move down as soon as she finished her school year but has agreed to stay here with me and Zach through the summer. Her airport badge expires on her birthday (August 19) and will work with me here at the airport until then, saving up as much money as she can. By then, Tim will have us a place to move into and she'll go down first. I've told my managers I'll stay until the end of September to catch the last wave of summer travelers and join Tim and Massey in our new digs in Orlando.

It's actually worked out almost perfectly. We decided to rent our house here for extra income, since our fifteen year mortgage will be  paid off in a few short months. We started to use property management but as luck would have it are going to rent to my nephew and his wife, letting them make any changes they want and have a nice spacious fenced in yard for their own two pups. Zach is going to stay here for six months with them, taking over Massey's downstairs bedroom which is separate from the rest of the house. He'll be on the ground floor with his own half bath, access to the laundry room, kitchen and garage to come and go as he pleases while my nephew , his wife and their daughter/ step daughter occupy the top two floors which have the big living room on the second and three bedrooms and two full baths on the third. The only thing they will share is the dining room off the kitchen downstairs.

Zach told me last night that he's only going to stay for six more months after I leave at the end of September and then move to Orlando with the rest of us. I was thrilled to hear him say that and pretty sure my nephew and his wife will be too! Originally he had planned to remain in Newnan and I was pretty bummed. As much as my kids can get on my nerves I like to have them close.

I want all us Clampetts to be together again and now we will. Our oldest son is already living in Orlando (moved about six months ago) with his little family and has a great job. My brother lives there too and now so will the rest of us.

Most excellent!!

The only bad thing about the entire move is that I'm leaving my sister. She's not just a sister, she's my best friend and soul mate. Our mother died in 1977 and Cindy immediately took over as a role model. I think every major decision I've made in my life since August 19, 1977 has been run by her first. She was my matron of honor when I married Tim. She's loved all three of my kids as her own and helped me raise them all. When I ever had parenting issues, I went to her. Whenever I had marriage issues, I went to her. Whenever I had personal or financial issues...ditto. She gave solid advice and shot it straight whether I liked it or not. She's the most generous, humble person I've ever known and never been judgemental of me but encouraging, supportive and always, always there for me.

I'm really not sure how I'm going to survive without her being a ten minute car ride away.

She encouraged me to accept the airport job when I didn't even own a vehicle. I had to borrow a car from a friend just for my interview. Before that, my sister loaned me an older spare car of hers until I drove it to it's death. Her comment was "It would have quit running no matter who was driving it and glad you got some good use out of it."

Once I took a job twenty five miles from home she and her husband loaned me vehicle after vehicle or caught rides with a friend also working at the airport. Then her son loaned me his car and I drove it for a couple of months. By this point I was making enough money to buy her son's car and he was just as nice as his mother and let me pay it off over a couple of month's time.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

I've since been able to buy myself a brand new car, gave Massey the one I bought from my nephew and bought an older Ranger pick up for Tim to take to Texas which he drove back home when getting his transfer to Orlando and was able to give that truck to Zach when Tim bought his own car in Orlando. It's called Paying It Forward.

My own kids went through a lot during our six year financial meltdown but never ever complained one time. They went without a lot of things but always had a roof over their heads and were grateful for it. They've helped me out time and again when I've needed it and always been there for me. I figure a used vehicle is the least I can do for them. They pay for the insurance and maintenance and take good care of the vehicles. It's a win/win.

My saving grace is  my sister retired from Delta and flies for free. I'm hoping after getting tired of visiting so much will eventually move to Orlando as well. She'd never leave her two boys behind but bet they would like moving there too with their wives one day in the not too distant future.

One's already married and the other will be in a few short weeks.

I can't blame my sister for not wanting to be away from them. I have two awesome nephews who have chosen excellent life mates.

 I feel like I've been all over the place as far as feelings and emotions go over the past half decade. I also know would have never made it this far without my brother and sister. 

Without them, I'm simply not me. With them, I can do anything. 

 We were three little kids sitting on our parent's used clunker of a station wagon. Our parents weren't rich by any means but we were, by every definition of the word.

I still love my job at the airport and all it has allowed me to accomplish for not only my family but myself as well. Yes it's demanding to work a forty (sometimes more) hour work week there at the age of almost fifty six but propelled us out of the red and comfortably into the black. If I kept up this pace would be dead in less than another year. Instead I'll give it my all for six more months and then do what old peeps who hate cold weather do best... retire to Florida and enjoy the rest of my life.

I've met and made wonderful friends. I've risen to financial heights as a professional server never thought imaginable. It's time to relax a bit and time to put this family back together.

I've learned a lot about myself on our tumultuous and twisting journey.

I learned to never ever give up and to fight like a giant for what you believe in, especially when you're lucky enough to have people who believe in YOU.

They never let me  down so why let them down?

Every day feel firmer in my conviction this is the right thing for us to do.

Six months and counting...

Til next time  COTTON

Give Peace A Chance

So the small minded idiots have reared their ugly hateful heads again and literally sickens me. There are so many millions and millions and millions  of good people on this earth as compared to the evil few, surely we will win this battle.

I was a proud airport employee and  American today at work. Did the thought of something bad possibly happening cross my mind? It did,  but only fleetingly ; just as it does every other day of my life. I could be in a car accident or be the victim of a sudden heart attack. I could step off a curb and be run over by a bus but none of that occurred today and I'm okay.

You can't and shouldn't live in constant fear of  bad things you have no control over. Live your life to it's fullest and take control of the fear instead.

The international terminal was packed with travelers continuing on with their plans to fly overseas and was proud to see it. I don't think one table or person mentioned the madness of yesterday, it was simply implied since being all over the news and social media with each event. We chose to talk instead of pleasant things and plans they had made, and were keeping...regardless.

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

There's nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
No where you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy

All you need is love.

The Beatles called it right, all you need is love.

It even brings back memories of a hymn we sang countless times in the church which I was raised.

If I trust Him ever, I shall not be moved;
He will fail me never, I shall not be moved,
Just like a tree that's planted by the waters,
Lord, I shall not be moved. 

On His word I'm feeding, I shall not be moved;
He's the One that's leading, I shall not be moved,
Just like a tree that's planted by the waters,
Lord, I shall not be moved.

I quote this simply because I happen to have been raised in the Christian faith, not because everyone believes the way I do because they don't. Believe what you believe but live  a good life and aspire to be a good person. We'll all know one day...trust me!

I've seen a lot in my almost fifty six years and very clearly these past six or seven.

Live every day as if it were your last. Love and you will be loved. Be a good person and good things will come your way, even if you have to wait. Remember your roots and those roots will hold you firm. When you think all is lost, it isn't. Fighting for what you believe in will surely help in winning the battle and be the sweetest victory of all. Never judge a person for their own beliefs, what if they did the same to you?

We're all on this planet and in this race together and regardless of individual ideals or beliefs should all want the same thing.

Peace.

Judge not lest ye be judged.

If we all stick together, if we all give our best, if we all never give in or all never up...will win over the minuscule madness of hate which is bullying our world.

You can be a Christian, you can be a Jew, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu or even an Atheist. Just be a good one and is a no brainer... us good guys will win!

We're all the same on the inside and need to fight the outside enemy of hate from within ourselves and together.

Let's power through it together, not worry about who's power is right.

Til next time..COTTON

Call Me A Funeral Crasher

My sister makes fun of me because I rarely miss a funeral, and she's right. It's not that I love funerals but because I truly believe in the whole "paying last respects" idea.  What better way to let let someone know how much they mean to you is there than taking time out of your own life and day to console someone when they feel at their lowest and have lost someone dear? It lifts them up which in turn lifts you  up. It may sound contrite but misery really does enjoy company.

I say it quite often and becomes more true with each passing year. I go to a lot more funerals than parties these days.

Years ago, funerals were sad occasions which I didn't care for too much. These days tend to be mini reunions of old friends and an hour or two to laugh and reminisce about what great times we all shared together and remember why we're still close after over half a century has passed.

Yesterday I attended yet another one. I had to work at three but the funeral was at one and on the way to the airport so just wore my uniform for work and crashed another one. A friend who I've known since kindergarten lost her mother. A grand lady, close friend of my own mother had declined in health the past couple of years after seventy odd years of being a vibrant  force of a woman. Her own husband passed just a few short months ago after his own rapid decline. What a shame, but now are together and whole again.

My daugher had to work as well (she works with me) so she crashed along with me. Pretty much every person there knew who she was, meeting her before or just feeling like they have because of how I put my family out there for anyone who will and does read about us, whether via my blog or simply social networking.

I'll have to admit it's also the first funeral I've been to that had a picture made with the officiating pastor (also a childhood friend) before the service.

The guy on the left I went to high school and also grew up with while attending East Point Christian Church. Ditto for the pastor behind me, except he attended another local high school.

It was a melting pot of my past. Massey met peeps I've known all my life and I tried to make sense of how it all corresponded. "This one was from high school and lived next door to this one and that other one went to the church up the street from my childhood home and lived next door to those other people over there who I knew from these people who were related to that other family over there."

In essence I said to her...your momma grew up in the best environment with the greatest people a person could ever hope to grow up with and helped me be the person I am lucky enough to be today.

I've known all the above people for as long as I can remember. Some from elementary school and some from the neighborhood we grew up in.

My childhood friend's mother had the chapel packed for her funeral and was a great show of love, respect and support. My daughter and I sat at the very back because we had to leave for work before the very end but was a touching tribute and was nice to visit with everyone before the service.

Us three on the left were cheerleaders together in high school and the one on the far right was one of our running buddies as well. Not too shabby looking for old broads well into their fifties and screaming quickly towards sixty. The tall blonde to the left of me is my friend who lost her mother.  I'm not really sure when I first met her but remember us going to kindergarten together so must have been about fifty three years ago.

I do know that her mother gave me this haircut in her beauty shop which was located in the basement of their home. The woman was a pro with bangs!

We were in the same Bluebird troop together in the early to mid sixties. Her father who passed away four short months ago is the handsome man on the left. He was a State Representative and let our troop  tour the state capitol. I'm the mouse on the upper right corner and my friend is the blonde to the right of the Governor, Lester Maddox. There are at least four of the above people pictured who also attended the funeral of her mother. East Point people (the city I grew up in) are a tight bunch who never forget a friend.

Bounce ahead a few short years...

Her father was still a State Representative and she and I were pages at the capitol one day. That's her dad on the left and speaker of the house on the right. We were jokes as pages and spent the entire day goofing off in the concessions area snack bar eating tomato soup and crackers. It was still a lot of fun and bonus points got to skip school. Hard to believe she and I are the same age, I look like a midget.

I spent a lot of time at her house growing up. We were incorrigible kids, constantly up to no good and came up with crazy schemes and played more pranks than you could count on an adding machine. (no calculators back then)

Her parents were always a handsome couple and still in love right up to the end.

She battled and beat breast cancer. He suffered later on from dementia and ailing health but just like East Point peeps do had each other's back and held onto each other.

What a testament of true love!

So instead of grieving we all came together and celebrated having known this wonderful couple with stories of our youth and memories which will last until we  all have dementia, a time closer than further away considering we're all babes of the late fifties and early sixties.

Come what may and/or when, I'm still so very fortunate to have grown up around and with all these many people who are still so very dear to my heart and the biggest part of who I really am.

I'm a girl who was born and bred on the outskirts of Atlanta in a small community with a huge heart and wonderful people who still care about each other over half a century down the road of life. What a wonderful way to grow up and even better way to grow old.

We spent every day of the summer at the huge olympic sized swimming pool in East Point, rocking out to the juke box loudly booming out "Ride Captain Ride" and "Brandy" while jumping off the high dive, which had to be at least thirty feet high. It's where I took my first swimming lessons at the age of four or five and spent every summer there, even when I was fourteen and got a job working in the basket room.

I can say with pretty firm conviction was the luckiest kid on the planet to grow up where I did.

It's the town and time I'm from and the reason I'm who I am today.

I learned from an early age the importance of friendship and honesty. As I grew older learned to work for what I wanted and to never expect of others what I wasn't willing to do myself.

It's turned out to be a pretty good motto.

I'm the lucky member of a wild and crazy family which loves intensely and unquestioningly. You're supported and loved every step of every day in every way. You may make mistakes but that's okay too, they have your back and always a shoulder to lean on. We all work hard and give our best, and if do will be okay in the grand scheme of life.

My world is wide and meaningful. What a great concept to live by.

Til next time...COTTON

When My Kid Hurts, I Hurt With Them

I learned many years ago, you can tell your kid something until you're blue in the face but if hurting or feeling devastated will never hear you; they only hear their world crashing down around them and nothing else.

It's happened with all three kids at one time or another. You can't convince them everything will be alright and never believe you when say in the grand scheme of their radar in life will be a teensy tiny blip on the screen when all is said and done.

I lost my own mother when I was just seventeen, a week before my senior year in high school started. That's a pretty tough time in a girl's life even when you (feel like you) know everything anyway.

I was about thirteen or fourteen in the above photo of my mother and me. It was right before I learned everything a person needed to know about overnight. Suddenly I was a know it all.

I've told all three of my kids at one time or another the most important thing my mother ever said me.

"The older you get, the smarter I'll seem."

She was spot on,  oh so right.

My favorite memory about the above  picture is when TJ saw it for the first time when he was about three. I had it framed and on the wall in our first house. He asked me who the two people were. I told him it was a picture of me with my mother when I was little. He cocked his head, looked at it and solemnly said "You was a boy ?".

I'll have to agree I didn't look very girly, never did...and the bruises on my arms didn't help much either, along with my chopped off hair.

Anyway, back to my story.

Massey has suddenly found herself in her third year of college, working a pretty demanding job three days a week while paying her own way through school. I know it's a lot but  know Massey, and have no doubt in my mind she is knocking it out of the park and learning what it is to be a self sufficient grown up.

Now we're all suddenly moving to Orlando in six short months and starting over there. She'll be in a new school in a new city in a new home without a bestie in sight. I also know that with her huge heart and exuberant personality will make friends in no time.

I knew by the time the above picture of her was taken that she was a force who would take the world by storm. I'm even more sure of it now.

Convincing her of it is another thing altogether.

She's rethinking her decision of her major and mentioned she may want to take a year off from school.

My immediate response was NO.

I told her to finish, get her degree regardless of if she ever used it. Too many people, including her brother and both Tim and I did the same thing. Took some time off to make a little money before going back to school then never went back. Then know what you spend the rest of your life doing?

Making a little money.

TJ has been the exception to the rule after doing just that for several years. When he worked at the airport with me a couple of years back were on the shuttle bus one day when he ran into a guy who he used to work with when selling cars at a Toyota dealership. The guy said he was opening his own car dealership in Orlando and if TJ ever wanted a job would be happy to hire him.

Since then things have dramatically changed in TJ's life. He met a wonderful woman, single mother with a four year old daughter. He moved in with her, asked her to marry him and "Whoop there it is" she became pregnant again. I wasn't thrilled about it at first but turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He stepped up as the father of a now family of four and called his friend in Orlando. He went down first and knocked it out of the park as a salesman. He quickly moved up to financing and is doing exceptionally well, working long hours but making it happen and doing exceptionally well.

Here's Massey holding our first grand baby, Juniper (I call her the lil nipper) with TJ's soon to be wife and adorable daughter Zeli, TJ's soon to be stepdaughter. Ignore my brother's photo bomb, although is hilarious and so my brother.

Back to Massey.

As deep talks go with twenty year old daughters feeling overwhelmed, were lots of tears and voices raised.

She said  just felt depressed she had been dumped by her best friend a while back when the girl met the man of her dreams and Massey fell out of the loop, to which I replied "Well then she wasn't your best friend and get over it. She was a good friend, her parents were wonderful to you for a while and be grateful for that but move on with your own life". Get your degree even if you never use that particular one.

I continued our teary eyed talk with...

THEN take some time off. Be a flight attendant for a while (they quickly snap up college grads) and see the world while being paid a little money. You might meet someone or visit some place which tugs at your heart strings even more compel you totally in another direction. You may realize something else leads you in a completely different direction and if that desire or compulsion requires a different degree will be a driven force you.

It's been a long and winding road with Massey. She unfortunately grew into semi adulthood at the worst point in our lives...broke as jokes and scrambling like roaches when a light is turned on.

I sent her this link last night, a note from Sir Paul about who Mother Mary was in the Beatles hit "Let It Be".

I was going through a really difficult time around the autumn of 1968. It was late in the Beatles’ career and we had begun making a new album, a follow-up to the “White Album.” As a group we were starting to have problems. I think I was sensing the Beatles were breaking up, so I was staying up late at night, drinking, doing drugs, clubbing, the way a lot of people were at the time. I was really living and playing hard. The other guys were all living out in the country with their partners, but I was still a bachelor in London with my own house in St. John’s Wood. And that was kind of at the back of my mind also, that maybe it was about time I found someone, because it was before I got together with Linda. So, I was exhausted! Some nights I’d go to bed and my head would just flop on the pillow; and when I’d wake up I’d have difficulty pulling it off, thinking, “Good job I woke up just then or I might have suffocated.” Then one night, somewhere between deep sleep and insomnia, I had the most comforting dream about my mother, who died when I was only 14. She had been a nurse, my mum, and very hardworking, because she wanted the best for us. We weren’t a well-off family- we didn’t have a car, we just about had a television – so both of my parents went out to work, and Mum contributed a good half to the family income. At night when she came home, she would cook, so we didn’t have a lot of time with each other. But she was just a very comforting presence in my life. And when she died, one of the difficulties I had, as the years went by, was that I couldn’t recall her face so easily. That’s how it is for everyone, I think. As each day goes by, you just can’t bring their face into your mind, you have to use photographs and reminders like that. So in this dream twelve years later, my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes, and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly: “Let it be.” It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling. It was really like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message: Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out. So, being a musician, I went right over to the piano and started writing a song: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me”… Mary was my mother’s name… “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” There will be an answer, let it be.” It didn’t take long. I wrote the main body of it in one go, and then the subsequent verses developed from there: “When all the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.

I left her sniffing snot back with a puffy face in her bed but made the only point I knew how to make.

It will be just fine...trust me.

I'm your Mother Mary.

I'm not the best mother by the wildest stretch of anyone's imagination but certainly (hopefully) not the worst.

Raising three kids has been by far my greatest accomplishment in life and wouldn't change our journey even if I could.

It was meant to happen...and  did.

I've had to fight (like a hopped up on meth crazy person) for over seven years but did, and did because it  was what I needed to do.

And now almost a decade later have come full circle. Ironically enough have been by the Grace of God sent to Orlando where my brother lives and our oldest son lives with his new family.

Yep.

Us Clampetts are survivors, getting by with  little help from our friends.

Til next time...COTTON