Mr. Observant Man and his Sidekick, Oblivious Girl

I was once asked what superpower I would like to have if such a thing were possible. Possible? What are you talking about sister, I do have a superpower! I am Oblivious Girl! Sure, if given a choice, I might like some other power - telekinesis, flying, x-ray vision, but I've been endowed with something else - the ability to remain completely and totally oblivious to my surroundings no matter how interesting or perilous they might be. This is remarkably good for my stress level. "What? I almost hit a bus? Really?", "What? There was a pervy guy staring at me menacingly? Really?, "What? My toddler just climbed to the top of the refrigerator and came back with a cookie? Really?

One might think that obliviousness is a liability. I say it's an asset. There are many things in life I might never have attempted had I not been oblivious to the level of difficulty. "What? It's over-ambitious to enter 47 projects in the county fair? I got all blue ribbons (and three purple!).""What, most people don't graduate in four years with a double major in two totally different disaplines and study abroad. Really?""What, it's insane to coordinate and cater a wedding for 100 people at a site with no electricity or running water? I think I pulled it off pretty well."

My power is most noticeable in relation to my complete lack of a sense of direction. I get lost a lot. I tend to build it in to my schedule now, although these days Google Maps has significantly cut down on the time I allow for aimless wondering. I've happened across some interesting things this way (not that I noticed). I could get lost in a town of only 900 people (done it!). I could get lost in a shopping mall I had been two at least once a month for 18 years (done it!). I could get lost in a room with one door (done it!). My husband misunderstands my ability. He is sure that I am willfully ignoring my surroundings in a strange campaign to irritate him. Of course, he is Mr. Observant Man.

Mr. Observant Man lets nothing slip by him. Details stick like insects on the flypaper of his mind. "Did you see that woman in the purple tube top, pink sequined shorts and wraparound shades? She has a nose ring shaped like a ladybug." "I must have missed her." replies Oblivious Girl. Mr. Observant Man points and says, "Look Out!" "For what?" says Oblivious Girl, looking in the opposite direction.

Sure, we're an unlikely match. But after all, opposites attract. If you think about it, we compliment each other nicely. Can you imagine two oblivious people together? They would surely get lost, never to be seen again. Or two observers? That just sounds boring.

Absolutely True Stories from 350

The very best thing about having been a commercial flight attendant is that I have a enough crazy stories to last through a lifetime of cocktail parties. Here is a sampling.

We must have been having a fare sale, or this woman would have been on a Greyhound bus. I knew she'd be trouble as soon as she walked up the airstairs. She had teased brunette hair, skin-tight jeans and a crazy gleam in her eye. She also had a huge faux leather shoulder bag that looked like she'd taken her Bedazzeler to it during a drinking binge. I mentally rolled my eyes as I watched her stuff the thing in an overhead bin, unable to intervene while passengers were still boarding. We happened to be on an aircraft (DH-8 100) whose overhead bins were devised to appear larger than they really are. I can picture the engineer who designed them - the same one who made cart bins that do not hold an even number of soda cans and thought giving exclusive control of the cabin temperature to the pilots was a brilliant idea. Idiot. Anyway, when I "attempted" to close the overhead (for show - I knew it wouldn't close) and told her the bag was too big, she had trouble pulling it out of the bin where it had been so tightly wedged. A very nice gentleman got up to assist her, an action I am sure he immediately regretted when she started making groaning noises as though she was giving birth. After a solid minute of this embarrassing spectacle, the bag finally popped free. She actually cradled it in her arms and beamed up at the now beet-red gentleman, who quickly resumed his seat.

My summer uniform as a Horizon Flight Attendant was designed by a dirty old man. Or maybe for dirty old men, either way, it was so embarrassing I had to slink through customs in Vancouver BC, lest I find myself in the pitying gaze of an impeccably dressed British Airways or Korean Air flight attendant. The uniform consisted of black shorts (polyester, of course), a white short-sleeved aviator shirt with black epaulets, black heeled shoes and the piece de resistance - white knee socks. There was also a multi-colored scarf that, while horribly unattractive, was actually pretty good at hiding coffee stains and improving a pasty, hungover complexion. I don't really have any interesting stories about the uniform itself aside from its total inability to flatter anybody, although once I did spill wine on an afternoon flight. I leapt back from the galley counter and looked down to see if I had gotten any on my white shirt. Fortunately, I had escaped - or so I thought. That night, after having completed several more flights in a row, I looked in the hotel mirror. I had a broad red wine stain striped across my midsection. I hadn't been able to see it beyond what some might call my "rack". And speaking of boobs, the one time I wore the tuxedo style shirt with the tiny buttons, I released myself from the shoulder straps of my jumpseat and noticed the guy in front was staring at me. I looked down. The maneuver had caused my buttons to come undone all the way down to my waist.

On overnights, crewmembers rely heavily on the hotel shuttle vans for transportation. This is generally included in whatever contract the airline has worked out with the hotel, undoubtedly to the airline's advantage. We are definitely on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the van drivers' pick-up schedules. Traditionally, the captain tips for the whole crew. Captains are notoriously cheap, a habit ingrained from their days building time in rinky-dink cargo operations and flight instructing for next to no pay. This doesn't help our cause. On one particular evening in BFE, America the captain from our trip bailed out on us to meet some friends, so the first officer and I were left to wait (in the rain!) for the hotel van. And wait...wait... Finally, a van pulled up. Naturally assuming it was the hotel van, we waited a beat for the driver to get out and then just opened the back ourselves and threw in our crew bags. We clambered in to the rear bench seat and headed out. For the first part of the ride, I joked with the first officer a bit, negotiating who was going to tip since the captain wasn't there. Gradually, we started taking in our surroundings. What should have been a ten minute ride down the main strip had become a 15 minute drive through neighborhoods that kept getting more and more run down. By the time we crossed the railroad tracks, we were holding hands. By the time we started seeing trees, the first officer was practically in my lap. We were seriously worried that we had haplessly fallen into an axe-murderer's clever snare. About the time we began to plan our escape, "....sshhhhhh! When he slows down for the next pothole, we'll open the door and jump out. Don't forget to roll when you hit....", we pulled up at the hotel.

Neither one of us tipped.

Why you buggin'?

Okay, so I've been "tagged" to write a list of 10 things that bug me. Let's see...CNN, "Only God" mugs, shrink-wrapped vegetables, those fake testicles that hang from the back of pick-up trucks....clearly these things must bug 90% of the population and simply aren't funny (well, maybe shrink-wrapped vegetables..) So, I will narrow it down to 10 things that bug me about passengers. A little background information: I am a flight attendant for a corporate air shuttle. All of my passengers are professional men and women. We don't accept kids, pets or people who are unable to move expeditiously to an exit in the event of an emergency. This eliminates 99% of the most annoying things about being a flight attendant, so I am forced to complain about minutia. I hope you enjoy the list.

1. ICE. Ice is an integral part of the in-flight service. Seriously. By weighing an open can of soda in my hand, I can tell precisely how much ice to put in the cup so that all of the liquid will fit and there won't be any leftovers to spill later. Ice varies by location. I hate the ice from San Jose the most. They don't have a filter on their ice machine, so whatever minerals are lurking in the tap water make the soda fizz uncontrollably, adding at least 10 minutes to my service over the course of the flight. I also hate ice that is round with divots in the top. This creates a ski-jump like surface, allowing the first pour of soda to leap out of the cup onto some unsuspecting person. I actually concentrate on pouring between the ice cubes when I am unfortunate enough to encounter this evil, irritating ice. The thing I hate the most about ice though, is when someone says, "No ice" AFTER I have scooped the ice and am just about to pour the drink. @#%%# is it so hard to say, "I would like a Coke with no ice please" in the same breath!? Is it?!

2. I'LL HAVE THE STEAK/MARTINI/HAM & EGGS. Hahahaha you are so funny Mr. Passenger, I have NEVER heard that joke before, how clever you are. Here's your minuscule bag of pretzels and a water - eat up.

3. HERE YOU GO (While handing me an sick sack full of vomit). This almost always occurs as someone is leaving the aircraft, like it's their parting gift to me. I am usually suckered into taking it, too. A lot of people think the sick sacks are their own private garbage bag for apple cores and chewing gum (they aren't!), so it's not that uncommon to have some "helpful" individual hand you a bag as they leave. Of course, now I look for steam and leaks before accepting any packages. So you think this is gross? You're right. The correct way to handle airsickness is to ring your call button and -this is important!- tell the FA you were sick WITHOUT handing her the nasty bag of vomit. At that point, she will put on gloves and get a plastic bag for you to deposit your lunch. This can actually be a pleasant transaction. I always reward people who do it right with a small glass of water, a wet wipe and a breath mint.

4. PILOT ANNOUNCEMENTS. Is there anything more boring in the world than a pilot announcement? No, they all stink. You can almost guarantee that it will be too loud, too long and too garbled to even make sense. I have had to get on the PA system after a pilot has made an announcement to "translate" into something resembling sense. There is a reason pilots have limited interaction with the passengers.

5. SNACK GRABBERS. We offer three snacks on each flight. I make a general announcement advising passengers of their options for the day. Guaranteed, 95% of people aren't listening. Fine, I'm resigned to that (I could stand up in front of the cabin and proclaim that I was wearing purple panties and nobody would notice). However, when I tell someone in seat 2A what the snack options are, and then the person sitting in 2B RIGHT NEXT DOOR asks what the snacks are, it makes me absolutely crazy. The only thing worse is when they just reach their hand in and snatch the snack. Or even worse than that - ask what the options are and then make a grab. Someday I will snap and slam someone's hand in the drawer.

6. COMMENTS ON MY WEIGHT. One of the nice things about my job that is unusual is that I have quite a few "regulars". Unfortunately, this tends to breed false chumminess. Hey, you noticed I lost some weight? Guess what, I was pregnant, not fat. (Well okay, maybe a little fat) but seriously, it has been two years! Comments like that only serve to remind me that I must have looked hideous for you to have noticed. Lately I have been telling people I have a wasting disease.

7. COMMENTS ABOUT MY HAIR. That's right, I'm not a natural redhead. Shut the hell up.

8. IMPROPERLY STOWED BAGS. News flash - I'm not blind (the FAA frowns upon visually impaired crew members). The response, "It's okay", in reference to the enormous purse sitting on your lap, as though I am concerned with your comfort and not my job, is ridiculous. How many times have you flown on airplanes? PUT IT AWAY. And if you think you're clever wrapping the purse strap around your ankle, I have one word for you: Darwin.

9. WRAPPER STUFFERS. You may think that my beef regarding garbage is that I have to thank you for handing me trash. Not so, I am thankful, because it means I won't have to pick it out of the seat pocket later. No, my issue with trash is when people consolidate by wadding up their snack wrapper and then stuffing it in their empty cup. This effectively spring loads the cup so that when the next passenger tries to be helpful by stacking their cup with one already on the tray, it tumbles over and knocks two more cups off the tray. Sure I could pick up with a garbage bag, but that's for low-class commercial flight attendants.

10. NO MORE GOOD STORIES. When you think about it, this list is actually quite petty. I had much better things to complain about when I was a low-class commercial flight attendant. Like the time I basically carried a ninety year old man to the lavatory and held him up while he peed. Or the time a woman got her ridiculously overstuffed carry-on bag stuck in an overhead bin and then started making noises as though she were in labor while trying to pull it back out. Or the time I unintentionally read the riot act to the CEO of the company while he was disguised as a ramp agent and said something particularly stupid. Or the time......

Corn Bread Eatin'

I am pathologically incapable of making cornbread. I can't even make bad cornbread. The bricks I turn out are barely capable of being categorized as food. I've tried yellow cornmeal, white cornmeal, medium grind, fine grind, recipes with buttermilk, sugar, no sugar, honey, cheese, jalapeno peppers, and in one particularly unfortunate batch, corn kernels. I have tried every conceivable ratio of flour to cornmeal. I've heated butter in a cast iron skillet and then fastidiously poured in the batter. I've kept copious notes on attempts since I got my first apartment in 1995 - always with optimistic suggestion for future trials (add an egg! increase sugar to 1/2 cup!) confident that the next try will yield results.

What is so irritating about this predicament is that I consider myself a fairly accomplished home cook. I can make baklava and chicken cordon bleu for crying out loud! Why the perfect (or even the marginal) cornbread continues to elude me is a complete mystery. I guess I'll just keep making biscuits.

Amy's Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda 2 Tbsp flax meal*
1 tsp kosher salt
6 Tbsp cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Grate the cold butter into the flour mixture using a course kitchen grater. Rub the butter into the flour until evenly distributed. Do this quickly so your finger warmth doesn't melt the butter. Add most of the butter milk and stir with a wooden spoon until a stiff dough forms. You may or may not need the rest of the buttermilk. Pat the dough into a 6 to 8 inch square and wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Let rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes while the oven continues to preheat .

Unwrap the dough and place on a cookie sheet. Using a very sharp, non-serrated knife and even downward pressure, cut the dough into nine squares. Resist the urge to use a sawing motion - just go up and down, guillotine style. Do not separate the biscuits.

Bake for 10 minutes, then eparate the biscuits by about two inches (I usually burn myself at least twice doing this maneuver) and continue to bake until they are golden and the sides no longer look moist. About three more minutes. Serve piping hot with butter and honey. Who needs cornbread anyway?

*Optional. To offset the guilt of using white flour. You can also replace up to half the white flour with whole wheat pastry flour if you prefer, but the biscuits will be somewhat heavy.