Blog-TOWER OF BABEL

I have become quite sentimental over the last few months. I have pondered the last twenty years of corporate work. When you showed up for on interview, people told you that they were thankful that you could make it. They laughed and joked, told old stories of bizarre flights and they hired you right away. They gave you a uniform that you were not ashamed to wear, like Brooks Brothers, or Ann or Calvin Klein, you were given an expense account (not that of a supermodel) where you could actually eat and maybe wash the great food down with a few glasses of vintage red.

Crews had your best interest at heart. You got two weeks off if you got married and as long as you needed to have a baby. The carpets and interiors of the jets were new and the wood sparkled. The supplies to perform you job were unlimited, and if you got sick, they filed nothing and you still got paid. Catering was whatever the passengers and crew wanted. The crew ate what the pax ate. There was never a compartmentalized box lunch with mystery meat and polyester bread, with token shrunk plum and saran wrapped brownie from 2009. The hotels smelled good, the lobby with marble flooring and a great staff. They remembered you and what you drank, and your room number without reminding them, people acted looked better and stood taller back then. Room service was an event to witness and you could leave your shoes outside your room to be shined. The bathroom was larger than my present hotel room. There were sometime heated towel racks and hot pipes to warm up the bathroom floor. All these things required thoughts of the guest.

Now, it is suggested we live on 25-50 dollars a day. whether in Chicago or London, no dry cleaning, no movie, no snack and no love. If catering is over 50.00 per person, they do not want to pay for it. No magazines, no cell phone, not internet,  imported chocolates or bathroom amenities, no floral, no eyeshades, no linen, no fine china, no mileage, no tolls, no no no no.

Are we headed to a socialist flying position? Am I supposed to fill up on the vending machine honey bun or Oreos packet? The FBO provides popcorn, apples, cookies, creamers, coffee, tea bas. pens, and mints. If I fill up on these comp items, will I be dead by next year? Or will I live long enough to be told I do not get any Medicare or Social Security, because the government ran out of money? What a choice.

When you see that 25 year old flight attendant in the FBO, you can smile at them and know that they will never know what we had. It is sad in a way. Her life will be filled with only cut rate hotels with see thru towels with no fabric softener,  Applebee's, Ponderosa, a dirty uniform from Cintas catalog, a cell phone bill, no movie, no pillow chocolate, 40 watt bulbs, a banner across the toilet saying it has been sanitized, a broken alarm clock  and a broken attitude.

We knew what the days of Camelot were, and the memory is forever mine. I have lived at the Peninsula, The Mandarin. the Ritz, the Greenbrier Resort,The Park Lane London, The Hotel Gansevoort, they were all the bomb. I can see for miles in my memories.
 

I have not had much to write about lately. I accept a trip, it cancels. I get another one, i cannot take it because it overlaps on the one I have, then that cancels. I am holding a bad hand. I better keep my sunglasses on, someone may see my bluff. 

I am on a what was to be a 24 day trip. We were to go to london, which we did for 8 days, turned into 11, then on to nice, was to be 14, it is now 6, back home on the 6th of july. total days "laying about" a lot. We may leave for New York on the 6th or go back to London. 

It is Africa hot here in Nice. Waiting till the sun loses some strength to go for a shop and drop. The children in France are so breathtakingly beautiful, they look like ads for A and F or the gap. Their hair styles and clothing choices must start at birth. Their eyelashes are an inch long and they love their moms and dads. They hang on their every word. It is like parents KNOW STUFF, secret clues about the world, the planet, music, art and food. I like kids because they are innocent, real and not all up in their own villa about money, status, gossip and all the crap that floats thru an adult mind 24/7.

I want to go back to age 9. No puberty for me. Give me 9. The children in London are not bad either. I look at kids when I am away from ben. The kids in London, are fair skinned, and they have the coolest school uniforms. They are proper, plaid skirt or shorts, starched white shirt and a beanie. I am sure they are mortified, but it pleases me to know there is order in the world. I had to wear the same as a child. 

 

I think I have become jaded working on private jets. It is like i lost my soul, my childhood gone and I am really at the beck and call of the rich. I am always reminded of the Areosmith song. "eat the rich". Well, lets not let the rich eat us! Another day another 450.00, really? What is this going to bring me spiritually? Hello?

 

I feel like I am in a play or a TV series. Being freelance, I am the understudy, the fill in person, if someone gets sick, or wants time off or surgery. If my son asks me why I am not working, i sometimes say, " no medical problems this week. CHARACTER playing flight attendant sarah willis- fill in- played by Betsy Dwyer- a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks. 

 

 I am going to take August off. It is summer, I deserve summer too right? I need a vaca as well. I will be played by myself and there will be no fill ins or understudies on that. 

 

I thought I had no fear. 

I have bungee jumped in 14 countries, got married to someone i barely knew, have a tattoo, worked in bars all over the world, chewed tobacco, at times in my life people have been actually afraid of me, duly noted. But i realized the other day, when I saw someone driving a Buick, that I was so afraid of what I saw at 812 am on Tuesday morning, my heart stopped, I broke out in a sweat and was taken back to when i was 6. It was a nun, in full habit, taking a left turn on east main street, Branford, CT.

 

I was tortured by them. Could do no right actually. They shook me, pinched me, cut my hair in anger, (my bangs were touching my eyebrows), I was forced to kneel on pencils, kneel in the snow until my knee caps were frozen) for my uniform skirt was too short. Sister Mary Bernadette, of Notre Dame academy for girls had me on her radar for an eternity. I walked in, she pounced. 

I was in hell or detention for most of those frightful ridden eight years. I can remember her face like it was yesterday, fortyish face scrubbed so clean it was shiny, a little facial fur, mole to the left of her lip, rimless glasses, and a bit of a double chin. She smelled like rubbing alcohol and had a clicker. 

I remember being at desk height, staring at her waist rosary beads, and wondered what the hell god was thinking when he supposedly chose this ornery, bad tempered , unattractive, crazy woman to spread the word of faith, and to be his servant. I was the servant, feeling like cinderella with not a chance at survival, humor or a wild life. I do remember looking out the window for solace.

The window showed another life without screaming and without physical and mental anguish. Things have changed in schools today. If my son got slammed by a teacher, there would be a lawsuit. I asked my parents why this was happening, and they said I was bad, and I needed to be punished. I thought the nun just needed a boyfriend, badly.