Mine! Mine! Mine!

Remember the Aussie seagulls from Disney's FINDING NEMO and how they shouted: "Mine! Mine! Mine!"? It's not fiction.

All month I'd looked forward to visiting the fabulous Fisherman's Market in Sydney for some fresh seafood, namely salmon sashimi, which is so much fresher and cheaper there than at any of the restaurants at home. I dreamed of it, even. (I know, sad and strange...) So, as soon as I arrived, I took a nice, long brisk walk to the pier, purchased a box of sashimi, wasabi, soy sauce, some barbequed octopus and prawns (not to be missed in Sydney), and a bottle of wine (a delicious Hunter Valley Chardonnay with a screw top so I could carry the extra back to the hotel room for later).

Sigh...isn't it beautiful? The perfect lunch...



(The view of these barefoot Aussie men readying their sailboat for a sail was quite nice, too, I must say):


However, it looked like the rest of my lunch was trying to escape its box one tentative tentacle at a time:

Yet, my biggest concern was with the gulls
who are very aggressive stealing food at the market. They were all over the tables when I walked outside. This one and his friend had already landed when I sat down. Ha. Think again, boys! To my shock, all it took was one look to scatter them. Maybe it was because that one look was so deadly and so cold, an assassin's stare, that they didn't dare try a second time to steal a nibble of MY lunch, not if they didn't want their greedy little beaks squished in a blob of wasabi! So, for this one day, I claimed my spot at the top of the food chain and held on with everything I had. "Mine, mine, mine!"

Skirt Trouble

Twice a year, pilots who fly the 777 and 747 aircraft must return to Denver for a checkride. I’ve posted about it previously here. The mid-year proficiency training, called a PT, is two fun-filled (snort) days. It starts out with a 2-hour review of procedures, followed by about 6 hours of annual emergency procedures training/review, followed by four hours in the torture chamber, um, I mean the simulator the next day. Doesn’t it sound like fun? One thing about the inquisitors, er, the training folks at United, they really know how to show the pilots a great time!

So. Every once in a while, I make a fashion decision that I end up regretting. Call this one of those times. After all these years at United, I thought it was high time I wore a skirt to training, seeing that it’s oh-so girly and something I never get to do on the job.

It's not like I didn't think it out, okay? The skirt was long and flowy, so I figured I’d have no problem moving the fabric where I needed to accommodate the steering yoke while flying the sim and still hiding my panties. But little did I know the sim wasn’t the issue--the formerly low-key afternoon spent reviewing emergency procedures was. They’d altered the emergency training portion of the PT to include...personal combat--yes, self defense--which totally caught me off guard.

I mean, we've TALKED about self-defense since 9-11, sure, only we've never actually done it. But now United feels we pilots must join the flight attendants in the air-born version of Kill Bill. Maybe it'd would have been nice to have some advance notice of the curriculum change, but hey, that’s water under the bridge now--or, more accurately, wind under the skirt, which I so memorably got to experience while playing the game of...terrorists storming-the cockpit door!

Oh! Then we got to do Gilligan’s Island when the instructor made all fifteen of us pile into a life raft. (Always fun watching the boys play with the radios and the survival kits.) All in all, it was great training and a good refresher...just not skirt friendly.

Next time I’m wearing pants. Leather pants...with studs and steel-toed boots.

Before I go, I wanted to step up on a soapbox. Publishers make ARCs (or advance review copies) of novels to give to reviewers and booksellers before a book’s release. They are labeled not for sale. To do so is like stealing from the author because we receive no money from the transaction, and no compensation for all our hard work. I recently learned of several ARCs for sale on E-Bay for my upcoming quirky, sexy anthology MYSTERIA. You can read more about it at PC’s blog. Authors everywhere hope that if you see an ARC for sale, you won't buy it. Better yet, report it as you would any stolen property.

For A Great Cause...

Author Brenda Novak is hosting a nationwide auction to raise money to combat juvenile diabetes from which her son suffers. There are many fabulous items, and I wanted to point out the gift I have donated. Please consider bidding on it or the other items. Thank you so much!

Come Fly With Me: Bestselling author and pilot Susan Grant’s entire backlist and travel coupons:










To see this item go to:

Come Fly With Me Gift Set

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/