Midori, sans liqueur.

…which reminds me, I really need to install them on my OS X machines. Here’s what’s up otherwise, world:

• I’m President, Co-Banquet, and Co-Choreographer for my sorority next year. Woo!
• My sorority’s banquet is on Friday ➜ I’m going to Boston in two days, and fxck it, I’m wearing a full length gown ‘cuz I can. 
• I got the job - Yay! ➜ I’m moving to San Francisco this weekend. Oh, and we’re moving in together. Yes, “we”. Ponder that pronoun for a bit.
• By the week’s end I will have gone from Marseille to Paris to London to Paris to NJ to SF to NJ to Boston to SF. And I’m oddly not at all tired like I usually am, so either I’m getting used to it or I’m getting delusional.
• I need a haircut, badly. I have a lion’s mane that is looking to be donated to Locks of Love (or similar org) - Recommend me some!
• I really, really miss having my weekly afternoon tea at Mariage Freres. I need to find a place in SF that will do a proper one ASAP. Bonus points if it’s cream tea.

It’s a gorgeous day today here in Paris, but I’ve just booked an impromptu getaway to the south of France tomorrow. 

Still love France, but looking forward to getting out of this city. I am craving something different.

I went shopping for gifts at the duty free Galleria today and found myself sandwiched between two United captains at the queue. Right before we got to the counter, the only register broke and we were told to wait 5 min for the repairman. I offered the captain behind me to go before me since he was only carrying a bottle of scotch vs. my shopping basket full of stuff, and he needs to board first. He waved me off, saying they can’t leave without him anyway (true) and we made small talk about United as awkward people stuck in a queue do.

30 minutes blew by with no sign of the register being fixed. The captain behind me gave up, saying he’d come back for his scotch if he had the time. The captain in front of me stayed longer than the other guy, holding just one bottle of French red wine. A few minutes later, he gave a sigh and said quietly, “I guess I have to board,” put the wine back on the shelf, and walked away.

They fixed the machine a bit later and I had a crazy thought: I’m not baller enough to buy an aged single malt scotch but a bottle of red wine is no pro (even good wine in France is cheap!) - I grabbed the captain’s wine off the shelf and added it to my pile.

But when I walked out with my bags, I regretted it: I felt certifiably cray and stalkerish. What if he wasn’t actually on my flight? What if he took it the wrong way? Especially since I didn’t get his buddy’s scotch? (I even texted Ben a small freak out about what I’d just done.) I considered keeping it for myself to save myself the embarrassment.

But something about his dejection had struck me. He didn’t leave with his fellow crew member and he’s someone who can afford to buy a nicer bottle in the States, yet he had waited til the last second like me - And if he was like me, this was a gift for someone back home, for someone important enough to stay til the last second for. Then I remembered the wedding band on his finger, nestled on the neck of the bottle and the small talk about their 24 hour layover in Paris - Meaning, they had missed Valentine’s Day while on the job.

I know perfectly what it’s like to always be away from loved ones, to always do your best to pick up little local gifts just to try to let the people back home know that you miss them, are thinking about them, and still care. And what if this bottle of wine was that? It was a wild assumption (and basically a projection of my own situation) that I used to justify my actions to myself, but even if it was just for him, I hated to see his patience go unrewarded. Whatever the reason for that quiet sigh, I hoped a 9€ surprise might make it that least bit better.

I boarded and gave the bag to a flight attendant and simply told her that I saw him leave it behind at the duty free (as if he bought it and left it). She rolled her eyes at someone up front and said, “Tony left something behind” - I was lucky that it seemed to be a habitual problem for him and not a stalker move on my part.

A few minutes later, he found me and thanked me profusely with a really bewildered look (I don’t blame him) and offered to pay me (which I refused). I just said that I would have hated if that happened to me, that I knew what it was like. He went back to the cockpit and I felt relieved that my awkward ordeal was over XD.

Mid flight, he came back again and gave me an amenity kit from first class. I said no need (he has NO idea how many of these I have at home) but he insisted so I thanked him and accepted it. I guess it was the least he could do, and I’m kind of glad that it was important enough to him that he’d come back and offer me the nearest non-monetary thing he could, haha. Needless to say, I’ll keep this in my non-donation pile with the historical Concorde, Northwest, Continental, and Pan-Am kits.

Here’s to less sad sighs :)