Chi City High

So I have not given ample time to the airports that take me on my little journeys here, there, and where ever. Given the amount of time I am enjoying at O’Hare in Chicago, I think today is just as good a day as any to change that.

My original plane looked all well and good to the naked eye.  But to think we were ready to go would be a mistake.  The window, the one the main pilot, not even the assistant pilot needed, was broken.  All agreed this was something that needed to be addressed, but I became concerned about the method when rags and things that looked like duck tape started coming out of the tool kit.  I have certain expectations for the planes that take me around, and windows secured in place with more than duck tape is now on the top of the list.

Mercifully, they cancelled this flight, but the mad dash was a ruckus and everyone has been fighting for standby seats ever sense.  Personally, I’m excited not to be on the duck taped plane, so I’ve been spending my time making new friends.

There was Donna, at standby gate number one who was waiting for her delayed fight to LaGuardia, NY.  She suggested that I punch the woman at the customer service desk to get some better customer service.  I’m not 100% sure if she really thought that would help my situation or had such a bad week that seeing someone fall to the ground knocked out was what she needed to get her back on the right track.  I love a true New Yorker.

Next was the young guy Mark who had been sitting next to me in the waiting area.  He had gone to get a piece of pizza when the cancellation was announced.  When he came back, every seat on every flight straight through Tuesday had already been taken and the standby list was 40 deep.  He reminds me of a guy I used to know and was having the cutest conversation with his girlfriend about how he was going to miss her when she went away next month.  It was warm and sweet and he navigated being honest and not a punk in an adorable way.  I wanted to give him a thumbs up and let him know he was doing a good job, but I’m sure that would have been crazy - so I just read my book.  He’s still down at customer service trying to get home on Wednesday.

Now I’m sitting across from Peter and junior.  It is like looking at one person with a photo of himself in his youth.  I always love it when sons look like their fathers; it makes you understand the pride of being a parent.  They share mannerisms and gestures; even the way they sit slumped in the seat is the same.  Those must be the moments that touch you in a complex way as a mom.  Looking at version 2.0 of the man you love and seeing all of those gestures that make you love him more everyday in another human being.

And my last friend was Marcus.  Who when he saw me looking quizzically at the departure board offered to be of help.  He works here at the airport but after explaining my details he admitted that he worked in a totally different area and could not help at all, but pretty girls should not be lost alone.  I let him know that I needed to get on one of the next and last flights out and he offered that I didn’t need to leave at all.  He would just keep me.  He’s been here at the airport for 16 years and has a pension...that was his response to me loosing my job for not returning to DC.

So there you have it.  Let’s hope I get on the next flight…your girl is a little bit tired and could use a hug.

Your Friendly Skies bgc

His Brother's Keeper

A work friend lost his brother today to a heart attack.  

I’ve never met him, but we were just talking about his brother last week.  Moments after he heard the news, the military officer in him kicked in.  He sent an email asking if I could cover a call for him.  Efficient and collected in a crisis.  Our country has trained him to be that way.  

I however, am still in shock and processing what this means for his family.  My heart aches and I can’t move my eyes from the email – family crisis.

I lost my brother suddenly too, some years ago.  The memories wash over me; being the person to keep things going.  I lack his training, his composure.  I run up to his office, but he is gone. I don’t know what I was expecting to do had he been there.  I wipe the tears from my eyes and head back to my desk.

That night, my mother and sister's hearts were broken into tiny grieving pieces that seemed to magnify the pain.  I have never been more afraid than I was looking at my mother in those moments.  I just knew the grief would press on her heart with such force that it would collapse under the weight and stop beating.  I kept checking constantly to make sure she was still breathing.

I took, in cash, all of the money we had between us and stuffed it into my back pocket.  $1800 from a 401K she had closed a few months before and the $750 I had set for the rent. I went to a funeral home on Broadway – I passed it a few times before. I had no idea  - were they good or bad? But a place with a sign seemed just as reasonable in that moment as looking up a name in the phone book - option B.

The owner was a gentle man with salt and pepper hair and pale skin. Empathetic without an agenda.

"I have to bury my brother.  My mother can't be here, she can't actually talk at all.  We don't have enough money to cover it; this is all we have."

I pulled the wad of bills out of my back pocket and dropped them on the table. They had become crumpled and damp and landed in a mess on some papers.  It occurred to me in that moment when I noticed the papers that you may be expected to call beforehand.  That showing up randomly at funeral home might not be the way one goes about such things.  It didn’t matter really, I had no capacity to pretend I knew any better or would have had the strength to do anything differently if I did.  Nor did I have it in me to negotiate with him or pretend we had means beyond the truth.

He asked me to have a seat at the small desk, slid the pile dollars covered papers to the side, and waited until I looked him in the eye.

"Are you ok?"

The tears poured down my face.  It was the first time I had cried since it happened.  I couldn't cry at home.  Someone had to keep our family together.  Someone had to make sure my brother had a dignified service and that my mother kept breathing.

But with this man, in the random funeral home - the smell of death and attempts of preservation hanging in the air - I wept for more than an hour. I didn’t say a word and neither did he.

I thought of this moment in my life today as I cried for my friend. The Air Force Officer whose training I’m sure will help him stay strong with a broken heart.  

But no training in this world prepares you for the moment you realize that life is fragile.  We squander so much time with the hope for a tomorrow to get it right.  All the while with an ignorant disregard for the fact that tomorrow has never been promised and is not guaranteed.

Today has to be when you do what matters.

With her heart overwhelmed – your BCG.

The Good Girl

I got a text tonight that made me realize….

”I’m really good at THAT.”* 

It was a quite, pop my collar moment, maybe one or two drinks more into the night than I should have had. 

But I don’t care. 

I’m sitting on my balcony now, (safe and sound thanks for asking) and I’m still enjoying the moment.  Every woman has those things that make her special, that make men want them, that their husbands/ boyfriends brag about to the fellas on Saturdays after they leave the court from morning b-ball.  And this is mine.  It’s all me and I have perfected it like it is my purpose on this earth.  Lucky for me, there are not many women who are as good at it as me.  Some try, but few are truly skilled the way I am.

And that works just fine in my book. 

I’ll stay focused on my talents and you can stay focused on yours.  But of this, I am very certain…..I am amazingly, wonderfully, mesmerizingly good at THAT.

Your talented Big City Girl

* Get your mind out of the gutter.  RIGHT NOW!  You know what, I’m a little worried now because who knows what you will look up next after thinking that thought and I don’t want my blog associated with such naughty behavior.  Google tracks all of that stuff you know, Shame on you. What ever you are thinking….its NOT that!  Go look up some bible verses or something. Do something useful.

Thanks Belle

Over the last week, I’ve been devouring back posts from A Belle in Brooklyn (http://www.abelleinbrooklyn.com/).  Several people have told me I would enjoy her work and they were right.  She is a Maryland girl (from just outside of DC) living in New York and I’m a Jersey Girl (who stopped over in New York) living in DC.   Why wouldn’t I enjoy her work given the braiding of our paths?

She lays it all out on the page in a way that is admirable.  Her newer posts are good, a mix of efforts through her various major media blogging gigs and follow up after her recently published book.  But I’m more enjoying the older stuff.  From where when she was hungry and young working to figure out what love, life and the pursute of happiness meant to her.  When she’s mad, she says so, when she has a bad break up, she tells it. 

She writes something everyday; even if it’s to tell her readers she’s working too hard, or too upset from recent events to write.  It’s gritty and raw and pulls you in like the daytime soaps.  She changes the names to protect the sometimes not so innocent but tells her own stories completely naked. No spin to make herself seem more put together or flashier than she is.

Sometimes, when you can’t find the right words to express your state of mind, reading someone else’s works just as well.  It takes some courage to admit you don’t have it all figured out and even more to really stop trying and be at peace right were you are.  That Belle; she’s got me excited to throw a party right here – right were I am.  I can’t even see perfect from where I’m standing and I’m starting to kinda like it.

All yours - BCG

I heart...

Dear Washington, DC –

I have to tell the truth and shame the devil.  I am in love with New York. 

I’ve tried to hide it; say I’ve moved on.  Tried to bring my heart along to where my mail goes.  But there I was, outside of Radio City Music Hall for my niece’s NYU graduation and I could not deny the flutter in my chest. I could hear the soothing water fountain across the street even with the rush of midtown traffic.  The McGraw Hill building winked at me over the tops of the city buses.  There is now a Rain bath store right in Rockefeller Center. When did she do that? I spent two years trying to get more of the damn Rain bath salts I bought from South Africa to no avail.  There she goes, showing off, making it so that I can buy them whenever I want now on 49^th street.

I know, I know, I am supposed to love you, DC, just as much or even more.  I’ve now lived in the district longer than NYC and I were together.  I really should be all-in by now.  But the heart does not answer to time.   

I’ve tried, I promise I have.  I eat at every new district restaurant that pops up – I have the extra 15 pounds to prove it. I went to the Cherry Blossom festival this year and watched the whole parade.  OK, I didn’t watch the whole thing, or anything close, but I watched some.  The part with the tumblers and the flowers, that was great.

I saw Chuck Brown 7 times (may he rest in peace).  I even have a go-go song that I like.

Yes, its true, I adore how intellectual everyone is and that I learn something new at happy hour on a random Tuesday. And I now have a whole new respect for the art that is Sunday brunch. All of those things are nice, but they just aren’t enough.

Washington, sweet dear Washington. You have been good to me. The jobs, the friends, the experiences, you have given it your all.  You are that warm comfy sweater; a safe place to be.  I wish there was more between us, I do. 

DC, I love you, but I’m not IN love with you.

In New York, I am free.  She understands me and there is no box to fit into, no uniform, no pretending. It is comfortable and right and the chaos makes sense with me in the middle of it.  New York brings out the best me.  And I love her for it.

"True love cannot be found where it truly does not exist, 
Nor can it be hidden where it truly does."   

Standing in Time Square, H&H bagels, ice skating in Bryant Park – these things warm my heart.  I still get excited walking up to Madison Square Garden.  I just don’t feel the same walking by the White House or the Capitol. 

I hope that we can still be friends, DC.  I know you are going to be a little upset for awhile after reading this; you’ve given all you have to this relationship.  We are just so different, I don’t know that it was ever really destined to work out.  Please trust that you are lovely and it’s not you, its me.

Eventually, you will forgive me, and realize there are tons of girls that will love you the way you should be loved.  Hopefully one day soon, we can sit on the mall, enjoy a Georgetown Cupcake and a glass of Virginia wine laughing about the good times we have shared.  You can explain to me why DC guys all wear that kaki pants, blue blazer with gold buttons, blue shirt, red tie uniform around town.  We can joke and make fun of Maryland and West Virginia.  Yup, we will be great friends you and me DC, now that we can both admit that my heart belongs somewhere else.

Your Big "NY is really my City" Girl

Nope, I don't want your leftovers

For the last few days I have been taking part in a nation-wide fundraiser to help bring awareness to poverty throughout the world.  For this week, everyday people and celebrities alike (with me included…in the every day people category J) agree to feed themselves below the global poverty line of $1.50 a day.  It has been an interesting, eye-opening experience to say the least.  I wasn’t expecting to get so much out of it.

·      You can eat and not go hungry on $1.50 a day, but it is not healthy and it is boring as hell.  I won’t be eating rice and beans for a little while.  You can’t afford fresh fruits, healthy cuts of meats, or really anything more than commodities like beans or carbs like rice.  I’m sure I could have had more actual food but after the great lent ordeal of 2012 I was allotting part of my $1.50 a day to a bulk purchased can of diet soda.  I know…judge all you will, I’m fine with it.

·      You have a lot of time to think when you aren’t focused on meals.  I found myself contemplating what I value a lot.  What would a sacrifice like this mean in a long-term commitment?  How could I live my life differently and help other people if I were willing to sacrifice some of the luxuries I have come to believe were staples?  When I told a work friend what I was doing, she told me the story of a man she knows who contributes 60% of his salary to a food bank in DC.  He has donated over $1 million to this charity to date.  It go me thinking about the small changes I could make that would add up.  What if I survived on $5 a day, what are the possibilities?

·      I thought about my circle of friends and family.  If I am willing to do this for strangers I have never met, what more could I be doing for the people I love and cherish?  It made me think about my pride and those people in my life that I love but who are presently at a distance because I am too proud to know how to fix it.  And those that have just drifted away who I could easily just call or go see.  Why is it sometimes easier to try and fix the world’s problems rather than those right at home?

·      It opened me up to unexpected conversations.  The seeds of a plan have been sown for me and a family member to do a missionary building trip to Haiti.  There have been so many ways people I care about have come to me and I have gone to them for help and support over the last days.  I don’t know if that would have happened under other circumstances.

·      And finally, people are quick to loose their minds.  I have had several friends offer to buy me meals (If you don’t have to pay, it doesn’t count, right?)  And for those people I say thanks for trying to be supportive.  But I wanted to stay true to the cause and taking a $6 sandwich would be cheating. I’m not actually (at this moment) broke.  (I really think they forgot).  Yet still there were others who offered to allow me to eat after their leftovers.  As if I really was a child living in the streets of an Indian slum. (I won’t be eating all of this potato, so if you want to come by my desk and “find it” I would be ok with that). I don’t know what to do with those folks.  I’ll chalk it up to good intentions.

Overall, it made me think about what I value.  What I am willing to give up, and what I don’t, won’t, or can’t live without.  Amazingly, the live without column ended up being a lot shorter that I realized it could be.  And I was surprised by what was actually on that list.

If you haven’t yet, please consider making a donation to my page at:

https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/cherigriffin

Your BC Girl – below the line

Check Yes, No, Maybe

The evening was winding down at the scholarship gala. I was one of the few souls out on the dance floor enjoying the DJ’s 90’s “remember college” throwback music.  I was a little irritated that the bar closed an hour before the event was over.  THAT to me is a disaster.

Sorry, let me get back to the story.

So, I’m dancing around enjoying myself when two women walk up to me.

"We just wanted to let you know that we are teachers of the students that were given scholarships tonight and one of them has been mesmerized by you all night. He keeps calling you his dream girl in a purple dress.  Would you be willing to talk to him?  It would make his night to have you say hello.”

1 – I love schoolteachers, they use sentences like “Mesmerized by you all night.”

And 2 – How cute was that???

Marcus was his name and he is in the 10^th grade.  He couldn’t looked me in the eye and kept playing with the sleeve on his new, slightly over sized suit jacket. I gave him a hug, told him how handsome he looked, and he returned with the biggest smile ever.

The whole thing was adorable; it reminded me of getting a note from a friend that a boy had passed to her in middle school. 

I like you.  Do you like me?  Check one box:

☐ Yes

☐ No

☐ Maybe

Can we go there again?  When relationships were simple like that?  You check the yes box and two days later you’re “going together” and wearing his varsity jacket.  It was pure and honest.  When you weren’t clicking, you gave back the jacket and a few weeks later someone else passed you a note. 

Now, there are a million ways to communicate in dating, all of it meaning different things.  Messages through texts, emails, Facebook, Twitter, Voxer, Skype… it never ends. 

I liked it when there were less options. Staying up all night on the phone with my boyfriend in high school until we finally fell asleep.  We would wake up in the morning excited to be the first voice the other heard.  It was pure…and yes I know a little silly.  But I think we could all stand to be a little silly now and then.

I went on a date once with a guy who texted me the next day and I have yet to hear from him again.  But he constantly flirts with me on face book.  Can someone please explain what the point is of that?  We had one whack date, can’t we just say that and I give back the jacket?

Drew Barrymore’s character in “He’s Just not That into You” said something that I always loved.  How she misses the days when we had one phone number that was connected to an answering machine with one tape.  And when you came home that tape either had a message from a guy or it didn’t.  You knew where you stood and if you called back, so did he.

I’d like to go back to that, when we had fewer ways to cyber stalk each other.  If you want to talk to me and get to know me, don’t send off a dozen electronic smoke signals.  Just say so when you call. 

Or pass a girl a note with a couple of options.

Checking the box – your BC girl