Thursday, April 24, 2014

#tbt: November 2000 - My Plane Crash Experience


I recalled the following memory vividly while I was writing up yesterday’s blog so I thought I would pull this one out of the archives for re-publishing.  During the fall of 2000 I had finished teaching English in Osaka, and traveled for about a month prior to returning to the States.  My travels first took me to Thailand, where I travelled by myself, then to Australia, where I stayed with friends, and then to Vietnam where I met with some friends for that leg of the trip.  When we left Vietnam, I was on a separate flight that took me back to Osaka by way of Bangkok, Thailand.  Upon landing in Bangkok, my flight crash-landed.  

Fortunately, it was not the type of crash where the plane broke apart, or anyone was badly hurt, but it was scarier than hell.   I learned from this experience that if I fly internationally, to always keep my passport with me at all times.  Not just in the overhead, but WITH me.  When you leave the plane in an emergency you are not supposed to take anything with you.  And, not all countries may treat passengers who crash-land with as much care as the US might.   When my plane ‘landed’, we were stuck out in the field for a long while before a bus finally came to get us to take us to the airport.  Then, we had to stand in the customs line just like anyone else and we had to wait for our bags to be unloaded, which was a particular challenge, as the plane was on its nose.  We just had to wait inside the airport until the bags came.  Fortunately I had taken my backpack and my passport with me when I left the plane, so I could get through customs without issue.  There was no special treatment, nor apologies from the airline.   I had called home to my parents, concerned that they might see this incident on TV and worry about me, but it was not that newsworthy.  It was only my call that really scared them. 
 
And, now, here’s what I wrote back in 2000 in an email back to my friends and family:

Mon. November 27, 2000:
I was writing in my travel diary on the plane, and I wrote the following to quote: “Having no problems with flights except for waiting. (knock on wood, not home yet!)

Not 45 minutes later, my plane crash-landed!  I’m not kidding at all – this was the scariest experience of my life.  We hit the runway hard and bounced all over, we stopped bouncing and shaking but then I saw what looked like flames and smoke coming from the side of the plane.  When the plane finally came to a halt the lights went dead and a pilot came running out with a flashlight.
“Is everyone alright??” he yelled,
“Stay in your seats!!!”
I was shaking like a leaf and frantically searching for my passport (it had flown across the aisle during the landing). [It turns out the passport had landed in someone's lap across the aisle and he was able to pass it back to me] I then heard the back doors open and the chutes inflate.
“Everybody get of the plane! Go, go, go!!”
People were panicking and pushing but not excessively so, and when I got to the back of the plane they said, “go right!”
I turned right, looked out the door at about a 30 feet drop, and I was scared.  I saw the chute [which was actually dark grey, not yellow as the pictures always show, and blended into the tarmac at night] and realized I had no choice but to jump,  I slid down quickly and was caught at the bottom and then went into the field next to the runway.  [They really mean it when they tell you to lift up your arms and point them to the sky if you ever come down those emergency chutes.  I had a small backpack in my arms and did not do this and came away with some long-lasting elbow burns.] I looked back to see what really happened: the front landing gear had collapsed and we had come to a halt by skidding in on the bottom of the front of the plane and the back wheels.  The smoke and flames (sparks) I had seen were a result of the plane’s friction on the runway.

This was the day after Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, I am Thankful.  As far as I know, no one was inured in the landing, and as for me, I left with all my luggage intact. (an hour and half later).

I didn’t enjoy my last flight from Bangkok to Osaka and really sweated the landing.  [This was the morning after the bad landing experience and I physically started to tear up and cry when we began to descend]  But, I made it home safely and Maja and George were there to meet me at the airport.  I only have one flight left and that’s to San Francisco on Dec. 5 and trust me, I will be SO happy when I land there.

To this day my palms sweat each time I land, even though I try to tell myself I’m not scared anymore.   I also feel like since I had that one horrific flying experience then it should never happen to me again.  Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. 

This was from my scrapbook of the trip and the only picture I could capture while in the field.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

So Many Teeth


If you are in a crisis situation, I believe I’m a person you would want with you.  I remain calm and keep my head on straight – always looking for solutions, or a way out of the problem.   I believe I speak from experience as I’ve been in a couple of life-death situations, one with a car, and one with a faulty plane landing, and  I experienced multiple crises at work related to money movement.  (Let me tell you, if money STOPS moving, people get MAD.)

If however, you have a loose tooth that wants to jiggle free, I am not the person to seek out.  This is a rather difficult problem as I’m a mother of two, one of whom is 5 and starting to loose teeth.   One of Jingle’s top teeth is about to come out and he’s constantly wiggling it.  “Look Mom!”   Each and every time, I have to control that look on my face – the one that looks as if I’ve swallowed a lemon – and say something like “yep, almost out” [oh dear god, please let it come out soon by itself].   Occasionally, there’s a little blood too and then it becomes even more difficult for me not to FREAK OUT.   Yesterday I was sitting with my son in his room and I looked up to notice his offending tooth had a little blood.   I left the room but unfortunately, not before I could control the panic on my face.  I tried to yell pacifying things from the other room, but my poor boy got scared.  And I know, I KNOW, there was nothing to be scared of and I don’t know why it grosses me out so much, but it does.   I don’t know what the female equivalent to “Man Up” is, but this is what I’m going to have to do for many years to come until my children have lost all of their teeth.   I sure hope it gets easier.

And, it doesn’t stop with my own children’s teeth.   I was on a field trip a couple of weeks ago and this one boy kept fiddling with his tooth.  I know him, and he seemed unusually quiet, so I asked him what was going on….”My tooth is really wiggly! [and there is blood]” UGH.    “Oh, yeah, that’s exciting… but I think you should probably not wiggle it so much… no, seriously that is a A LOT of wiggling… please stop…[and I’m saying these things as I’m slowly backing away from him.]”    I saw the boy today and he proudly showed me the gaping hole in his mouth from his tooth that finally fell out.  Yeah.  And then there are the parents who post those up-close pictures of their children losing their first tooth – sometimes with a bloody gaping hole.  If you are my FB friend, and you have done this, please imagine my lemon-sucking face as I scroll through my feed….  I’m happy for your children and I bless them with a generous tooth fairy, but I don’t need to be a first hand witness.

My children have had some falls that involved some blood and scrapes but nothing too major (yet..).   And, it’s not like I freak out with all blood – I think, THINK, I’d still be pretty calm in situations if they got really hurt.   But man, when it involves teeth…yuck, yuck, yuck!  I have never liked going to the dentist  and always hated it when they start sticking tools in my mouth.    So, the first time I took my son to the dentist I immediately thought he would be scared too.   But fortunately I kept my mouth shut with my own fears, and he wasn’t scared at all.  Plus, his dentist is awesome and shows movies and gives toys so it has become a visit to look forward to.  I sure wish I could go to his dentist, but they only take kids. (I asked).

My daughter is also braver than I am at the dentist
 Jingle is at school right now, and I hope the tooth is gone by the time he gets home because otherwise, it is going to be a very long afternoon.   But, after school, there will be snack time, and soccer practice, so it’s bound to come out with one of those two activities right? RIGHT?!

Friday, April 18, 2014

My Candy Crush Addiction and Dragging the Hubby Down with Me

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Oh no, am I really writing a blog about Video Games?!   Yes, yes I am.   I don’t actually like video games that much, and I’ve never gotten very addicted for too long to any game.  Back in the “old” days, my parents did not get the ever-popular Atari, they bought Intellivision.   And, I think we had 4 games total.  The only ones I remember playing regularly were Donkey Kong and some space game.  It was not uncommon for my mother to beat me at these games regularly as she had some crazy good hand-eye coordination that would frustrate both my dad and I.

Later, in High School, I got the popular Nintendo Game Boy, and my game of choice then was Tetris.  I loved Tetris and spent hours playing it on long bus rides for band and drum corp trips.   During my last year of Drum Corps, my “bus seat partner” was a guy who I think asked me to sit next to him, not for my witty personality, but for my Game Boy.  He took it over that summer.

Since then, I dabbled in games here and there if friends had systems, but I never had much patience or love for them.   But, if I did get involved in a game for awhile, I would grow bored of it after a bit.   The same is true for all the apps on the Smart Phone.   I’ll play games here and there, but I have never become that addicted and tend to go for games like Sudoku and Word Scramble, but then came Candy Crush….

I began playing Candy Crush about a year ago, and when I first started I thought to myself, “this is just like Bejeweled. Not sure what the attraction is…” But, then I kept playing, and I kept playing some more.   During the last year, while still working, I also had a lot of business trips, and let me tell you, you can play A LOT of Candy Crush when you are alone in hotel rooms, and on airplanes…   There is no doubt, I was addicted (and still am).  As those who play Candy Crush know – there are ups and downs.  You get stuck on some levels for a while and just have to stop playing for a few days.  But, then eventually you pass it, and hey! Look at that!  There’s a new level afterwards that seems easier  - and perhaps you whiz through a few levels.  And, then you get stuck again…   You get rewarded with stars on each game depending upon the number of points you get, and each game gives you the chance to win High Score.  Thanks to the connection via Facebook, you can see what levels your friends are on, and if they got previous high scores on the level you are currently playing.    For the last year I have been following an entire family that I knew from High School through the Candy Crush board.  One of the four of them was always in the top three, and it wasn’t uncommon to see all four of them sitting in the top 4 spots.  A couple of other girls from High School, and old coworkers also graced the top spots as I came through behind them.

Throughout this entire time,  and for at least a year prior, my husband has been a staunch Angry Birds player.  He passed all the levels, and there were additional goals to complete.  He would give me regular updates on his game playing, and before I started playing my own Candy Crush, I would secretly roll my eyes when he started getting Angry Bird geek on me.  (Or, maybe it wasn’t so secret).   But, then when I started playing Candy Crush, and it randomly posts on Facebook to tell people I’ve passed a level, my husband was at the ready to make some witty (smartass) comment about my Candy Crush exploits.  What made this worse, was that no matter how high I get on the Crush gameboard, Facebook always seemed to post that I passed either Level 2 or Level 8.   And my husband never failed to point that out.  He’s a gem isn’t he?

Well… a few weeks ago, he finally beat all that he could at Angry Birds and posted about it.  So I couldn’t resist jumping in to see what he was moving on to.  And, sure enough, he has decided to take up Candy Crush.  AND MY TIME HAS COME FOR REVENGE.


Mr. Mingle now geeks out on Candy Crush (and he is finding it very difficult).  Suddenly, I’m getting nightly questions like “what’s this candy for? How do you get that Candy? Level 23 is hard… What happens when you get 5 in a row? 4? …”   I even got a mid-day text about this (to be shared below).

While he’s just started, I think that I’m nearing the end.  I have no idea how many levels there actually are, but I’m now on level 350, and I’ve noticed that three out of four of the family that I mentioned earlier all stopped on level 350.  Why? Why??  Did you collectively decide you would give it up once you reached that magic number, or do you know something that I don’t about what’s beyond 350…. Do you go into Candy Crush Hell after that where the dentist comes to rip out all your cavities without Novocain?  Please tell me, why did you stop??

And now, for the texts shared between a husband who gets obsessed with games, currently Candy Crush, and a wife at home who is happy to answer…

Mr. Mingle texts are in grey and my texts are in blue:

Poor guy is now "bothered" by Candy Crush
For the (blog) record, I have never drawn a diagram for Candy Crush
And bigger... for the full effect of what this guy does at work.



Thursday, April 17, 2014

#tbt: Easters Gone By

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I remember Easter holidays from my childhood being a very fun occasion.  It was the only day of the year that I recall still wearing pretty dresses even at an age when I still can remember wearing those pretty dresses…   My grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles would throw big parties where the focal point was an Easter Egg Hunt.  At least that was my cousins and my focal point of the parties.   As I got a little older, we decided to have the Easter parties at Grandma and Grandpa’s house on Saturdays instead of on Sunday so that nobody had to worry about going to work the next day.   For a period of time, they had a house that had a swimming pool, a pool table and a ping pong table and those were the best times.  There were so many fun things to play.  It didn’t matter if Easter fell in March or April, Grandma would heat up that pool so much that it could have been summer time.   One of the favorite Easters that I can remember was when my uncle made all my cousins and I stilts.  Wooden Stilts.   We had an egg hunt (where at least one egg was always hidden in the pool), went swimming and walked on stilts.  I don’t remember the year, or what age I was, but boy was that fun. (I wish I still had those stilts…).  

I tried to find pictures from that Easter, but couldn’t locate them just now.  I did however find a couple of pictures from Easter in the 70s.   A time when I was too young to recall the days myself, but I sure love seeing the pictures.

Happy Easter to All!

1978 - Wasn't my mom's outfit awesome?

1979 - My Cousin and I holding our Easter Loot

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

My Daughter Ran Out of Pants

Yesterday my daughter ran out of clean pants to wear.   I could blame the fact that she wore 3 pairs of pants and one skirt yesterday alone, but technically one of the pairs came from the daycare.  And, of the 3 pairs, two of them were actually too small for her.  So, I can't blame her for that.

I blame this: 

So, she really did have a lot of pants, but they were all buried in this mountain of clean laundry.  I've written about folding laundry before on this blog, and I realize it is not the most glamorous of topics, but that just shows what an ever present impact (plague?) it has on my life.   This week was even more out of control because I've been out of town the last two weekends when we usually get some laundry done.  So, yesterday, I washed clothes all day and dedicated my evening last night to folding.   Two TV shows and two beers later - I had this:

Can you find the cat on the table too?


The truly sad part about all of this is, as I folded clothes that were piled on the chair I discovered piles of already folded clothes below it.  It was like an archeological dig.  Beneath the rubble there were already folded pairs of pants for both children.  Likely folded by my helpful mother last week when she was here.

There is such a massive sense of accomplishment when finishing folding a laundry pile this big, but the feeling immediately diminishes with the next step of having to put the clothes away.  I hate putting them away.  But, no excuses this time - we needed to get this done and it was so nice to see what our furniture actually looks like for a change.   But, there is one final step, and one which I'm about to tackle now... the socks.   Any guesses on how many miss-matches I'll have when I'm finished folding all of them?  Based on past experiences, I'm guessing between 20-30 singles will be leftover.

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

A Funky Facebook Post

Last night I was feeling in a 'funk'.  I'm not exactly sure why since I actually had quite a good day.  I had met with some recruiters in the morning and then in the afternoon the kids and I met up with a very good friend of mine visiting from England.  From there Mr. Mingle met us and we had dinner.   But, then we got home, fought the kids to bed, and I thought, "now what?".   I didn't know what to do with myself so I blindly watched a little TV.  I was upstairs and my husband was downstairs on the computer.  TV was not satisfying me so I thought I'd check in on FB via my phone.  I was surprised to find I had 9 notifications.   What was everyone commenting on??  I clicked on the notifications and found they were all commenting on my status.  What status? I hadn't posted any status recently.  And then I saw it....  grand old hubby had logged in as me and posted on my behalf.  Not only that, but he was then continuing to have a conversation between his FB login and my FB login.   Friends who I hadn't heard from in years were commenting, others were sending private messages...   I quickly posted something, but then realized he was still downstairs having this FB conversation between two IDs.   And every time I thought to post something, he already had, as "me".   I just started laughing almost to tears watching this unfurl in front of me.  I did chime in a couple of times, but overall, he was doing a pretty good job on his own.   Finally though, scared of where this might lead, I came downstairs to make him stop.  He too was laughing himself to tears.   It's rare when we do something to crack ourselves up to that point.   From there, friends continued to comment and send messages..

I have to say, the whole thing certainly worked to get me out of my funk!   Now I'm thinking of old marching instructors thanks to Derek, 8th grade Hawaii trip thanks to Kate, many virtual hugs, and an offer of a beer.   Oh, and some pick-me-ups in Japanese and Spanish as well.  Thanks friends!  And, most of all, thanks Mr. Mingle!  

The following is the conversation that occurred with my follow-up comments. (Last names deleted)

Facebook Post from the evening of April 8:
Feeling in a funk, could use some love.
Like · · Share    14 others like this.
  • Robyn Love.

  • Derrek I love you Meghan! Think about Gino! It works for me. [So nice.. I probably haven't talked to Derrek since 1992]

  • Robyn When the dog bites. When the bee stings. When I'm feeling sad I think of ...well, I think about strong drinks and Indian food. [I would have "liked" this, but Matthew already did, on my behalf]

  • Meghan Thanks guys, I'm fine. My husband got into my account and posted. I'm fine, appreciate the love. [this is still not me posting]

  • Matthew What a weird thing to post. [yes, MATTHEW, I agree, what a WEIRD thing to post.]

  • Robyn Boo Matt

  • Meghan Yeah, not very nice.

  • Susan aishiteru [Japanese]

  • Meghan  Thanks Robin, he's my third child! [This was posted by Matt, who wrote back to a different Robin, then the friend from above, but yes, he's my third child]

  • Matthew Sorry honey, you just seemed down. Wanted to send some love your way.

  • Nilanjan The subtlety of the trolling is what made it a success! [Don't encourage him]

  • Meghan Goofball.

    [At this point is the first time I logged into my account to see what was going on.  All Meghan posts above were done by Matt]

  • Derrek At least I got to say Gino.

  • Susan I still love you

  • Meghan  Thanks guys. Good to know, whatever my husband does, I still have friends.

  • Meghan  Omg Matthew, log out of my account [This was my first comment as myself]

  • Matthew  Right?

  • Susan  Lol

  • Meghan Seriously.

  • Meghan How are we married?

  • Matthew  That's a little harsh.

  • Meghan But hey, now I'm thinking of Gino. Thanks Derrek! Lol [The second comment as myself.  Notice how Matt continues to converse between the "Matthew" and "Meghan" IDs.]

  • Leslie  #facejack

  • Meghan And no, Matthew, not at all harsh. Get off.

  • Derrek Told you it works

  • Matthew  Total Mrs. Doubtfire situation going one here. Whose wig slips first?

  • Meghan Not cool. My friends not amused.

  • Meghan  Matthew !!! Get OFF [This was me too.  I didn't know how or what to say since he was already posting as me.   A FB Monster was born]

  • Meghan I'm not forgiving you for bringing the petting zoo to our son's birhday party!

  • Matthew  "birhday party"? your sub-trolling is no very successful. I am, if anything, anal about my spelling!
     
  • Meghan Enough! I just posted about feeling bad and then my whole feed gets highjacked.

  • Meghan I don't even know how to combat this. You're using two FB accounts to argue with yourself Matthew. Goofball. Oh wait - you already called yourself that earlier [This was me, but not the above few.  I don't even need to be a part of the conversations.  He'll just converse for me]

  • Meghan Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? [This was me]

  • Derrek Maybe y'all should go on a date.

  • Matthew  They may take our lives, but they'll never take our... FREEDOM! [Now I'm afraid he's really going off the deep-end...]

  • Matthew   Gross. [No date for you]

  • Jessica  Sending you a hug Meghan [comments continue to come...]

  • Rick  time to change the password. [He knows both of us too well]

  • Donna  Sending you a big hug!!

  • Matthew  Ultimately, we'll never know the full story of what went on tonight. That. Is lost to the ages. What we do know is that [Sorry Dear, the secret is out]

  • Steve  ...and we don't even know that

  • Paula  I love this post [you clearly read all the comments]

  • Chelsea  [she sent hearts (thanks!) but they don't copy and paste]

  • Allison  Abrazos de Varsovia! [I don't know what this means, but I'll take it!]

  • Kate  Thinking about our Hawaii trip always makes me smile. ; ) [Be careful... I do still have videos from those days... ;)]

  • Kristen  Funny. Glad you are feeling up

  • Lori  always got somelove for tool time!

  • Armando  I've been, too. let me know if you want to have a beer after work. [yes, PLEASE]