Friday's Feast #27

Appetizer.
Name 2 things you would like to accomplish in 2008. Lose weight and organize my home.

Soup.
With which cartoon character do you share personality traits? Bugs Bunny. I can be a highly verbal smart ass.

Salad.
What time of day (or night) were you born? The stroke of midnight. The hospital told my mother that legally I could not be born at midnight -- that in order to put a date on my birth certificate she had to choose between 11:59 PM and 12:01 AM. She went with the latter. I have had my astrological chart done twice, and this factoid completely freaked out both astrologers. I was born on the cusp of the cusp!

Main Course.
Tell us something special about your hometown. Some of America's most creative citizens have lived here: Frank Lloyd Wright, Hemingway, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Bob Newhart.

Dessert.
If you could receive a letter from anyone in the world, who would you want to get one from? Gloria Steinem. She has had a profound and ongoing influence on my life.

For more information, or to whip up your own feast, visit www.fridaysfeast.com.

It helps to have a plan

Let's examine the facts:

•  I hate to fly

•  The airlines have twice lost my bags on the ORD/EYW route

•  A major snowstorm is supposed to hit tomorrow, right about the time my flight is supposed to take off

This makes me crazy. At times like this, my mind just won't stop spinning. My flight won't take off on time and I'll miss my connecting flight and I'll never get to Key West. Or my flight will take off but the conditions will be treacherous and I'll end up as a Galcicle in icy Lake Michigan. Or … Given a few hours and my gift for awfulizing, I can easily whip myself up into a frenzy..

So I took steps to protect me from me. First I got a deep tissue massage. Ah … Then I met a friend to exchange Christmas gifts. It was good to blab and gossip and not think about the flights. Then I got home and started to panic again. What it … what if … what if …?

What if my flight is grounded for hours and I miss my connecting flight in Tampa? I sat on the phone with a very nice, very patient customer service rep who held the last seat on a flight to Key West on Saturday. It's super expensive, but it will get me down there. Hopefully I won't need it, hopefully my travel tomorrow will go without a hitch, but just in case it doesn't, I have a plan.

The illusion of control feels almost as delicious as that deep tissue massage.