February 28, 2007

• Greetings from Hartford!

  Well, folks, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Hartford, CT right now. I have a work meeting here that starts tomorrow morning, so I had to fly in tonight. It's kind of weird being all alone! But, I'll be heading into New York after my meeting tomorrow and staying with Lily, then working from the New York office on Friday. I'm excited to see all my friends in the office! This will be the first time I'm in the New York office without Johnny also working there, though -- so sad!

  Today's flight was uneventful until the end. I had to fly from Los Angeles to Chicago (O'Hare), then connect to Hartford. Since I've been pregnant, I haven't taken landings too well. It's odd because I didn't get morning sickness, and pre-pregnancy, I handled flying just fine. In college, I flew at least three times a year, home from Chicago to California on breaks. While I was working in Chicago and New York, Johnny and I flew so many times a year for vacations and work (and to visit each other when we were long distance for seven months) -- I think I once logged something like 36 flights in a year. I can't think of anything pregnancy-related that would make me sick on flights, but since I've been pregnant, I've thrown up during or shortly after the landing. It's very embarrassing! Luckily I've located a barf bag each time. On my first leg today, I was fine -- felt queasy at the end but held it down. When I landed in Hartford, I made the mistake of coughing, and all of a sudden everything came up. People were looking at me like, "Who is this weirdo?" For some reason I wasn't really showing today (my belly size seems to differ each day, plus I was wearing a sweatsuit today), so I couldn't even get pregnancy sympathy points. I felt very sorry for myself -- the first time I threw up on a flight after I got pregnant, at least Johnny was with me.

  So then I got into a cab to go to the hotel from the airport. One of my pet peeves is when taxi drivers ask me where I'm from. This always happens, without fail. I'm a friendly person, I always say hello to the driver, but I don't make any other signs of wanting to talk. I really don't mind when people ask me about my heritage; I'm proud of it, and I'll share. But normally, people ask me during the course of a conversation, or if they hear me speaking another language. However, every time I get into a cab from an airport, the cab driver asks within the first two seconds, without any lead-in, where I'm from. Today was no different. I climb in, exhausted from my vomiting episode. I tell the driver where I need to go. He says, "So, where are you from?" I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt and tell him that I just came from Los Angeles. Pause. "No, I mean, are you Korean, or Japanese, or what?" he asks. I tell him tersely that I'm of Taiwanese descent. "Oh, so not Korea," he replies. I say nothing. I call Johnny to tell him that I've landed and am on my way to the hotel. When we're close to the hotel, the cab driver asks me when I arrived in the States from Taiwan. I tell him that I was born here. Then he asks me if I need a ride back to the airport tomorrow. I say no, I am going to get a ride from my boss. He then asks, "Is your boss from your country, or is he American?" I have just about had it with 20 questions, but I realize I'm basically at the driver's mercy, so I just bite my teeth together and tell him that my boss is "American." He asks if I've ever been to Hartford, and I said yes, I used to live in New York. He asked me why I moved to Los Angeles, and I reply that my family is there and my husband goes to grad school there. He looks at me and says, "You have a husband?" (I'm going to take that to mean that he thought I was too young to be married.) Then he asked if I had kids yet, and I said that we had one on the way. This leads to a whole monologue about how I don't look like I'm pregnant; is something wrong? No, you crazy person! I'm just sitting down and wearing a loose-fitting hoodie!

  OK, so finally I am in the hotel room, which is very nice. I change and start to log on to my work email. Then I realize that while I had packed two pairs of sneakers (one each to coordinate with my gray sweatsuit, and my pink sweatsuit for the flight home), I had forgotten to pack my work shoes! Fridays are jeans days, so I could theoretically get by with sneakers in the office that day (however, I'd brought my long jeans to go with heels), but tomorrow I'm going to a meeting and wearing black tights, a pleated back skirt, a sweater and a collared shirt under it. Definitely not sneaker-wear. Johnny's mom had told me this story once of how she forgot her shoes on a business trip, and there was no time to get another pair before the meeting. So she went in a skirt suit and white tennis shoes. Afterward, the client took her aside and told her how much he admired the fact that someone with her "disability" managed to do so well for herself! (He thought she had an orthopedic problem.) She took what she could get and said thank you. Well, I'm not as plucky as my mother-in-law ... this was around 7:30 p.m., and I took a cab to the nearest mall, dashed into Nine West, and got a pair of cute black shoes (on sale, I might add!). The whole thing (including the taxi trip to and from the mall) took less than 45 minutes. Whew, crisis averted!

  Now I have checked my work email, eaten dinner and am about to go to bed. Hopefully tomorrow goes more smoothly! The good thing is that I won't have to get into another cab for the remainder of the trip -- Lily is taking me to the airport on Saturday, and Johnny will pick me up at LAX. And I don't mind if either of them asks me where I'm from (although that would be kind of weird, LOL).

  • 9:53 pm
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