Boomeresque:Definition
1. Adj.: Describing a person born between 1 Jan. 1946 and 31 Dec. 1964
2. Adj.: Description of a person, place or thing possessing Baby Boomer je ne sais quoi
3. See also, Boomer, Esq.: A Baby Boomer who is also a licensed attorney (See, e.g., About).

Zentangle Diva’s Challenge #244 – I Should Be Asleep (but I’m not) Edition

by Suzanne Fluhr on November 17, 2015 · 23 comments

French tri-color flag

[If you’re scratching your head about this Zentangle thing, start HERE.]

French tri-color flag

Vive la France.

I have managed to get myself pretty much day/night reversed. Since the rest of the people and the dog around me have normal circadian rhythms, this means I still have to try to function in the day time, sometimes on very little sleep. To make matters worse, today was also the day I designated to deal with some incredibly annoying must do tasks.

It was probably not the best idea to call the Federal Reserve Bank on four hours sleep to change the email address from 2005 that they have associated with my account. (PS: If you are still using an AOL email account not that there’s anything wrong with that, I can more or less guess your age cohort.) After answering no fewer than 14 security questions (“No, I do not remember that 10 years ago, I identified Peru as my dream trip destination”), they finally agreed to let me have access to my account.

Then, I moved on to trying to determine why American Airlines had disappeared our seat assignments from the flight record for our trip to Spain on November 30th. This meant having to intuit how to find their secret customer service telephone number. Several phone menus later, I was finally able to speak to a human being American Airlines customer service rep who confirmed that our seat assignments do not exist. She was nice or lazy enough to help me save $50 by disclosing that there were still some options and I could reserve the seats myself on-line. I managed to score some seats that I think will keep Mr. Excitement from becoming too the opposite of  excited about where he has to sit in a metal tube at 35,000 feet for 8 hours. (Wouldn’t it be cool if airplane seating charts disclosed those seats that will be occupied by screaming infants or toddlers intent on kicking the back of the seat in front of him—not to mention the guy who thinks it’s a good idea to clip his toe nails on board?)

Then, because I was still in too good of a mood for an exhausted person, I decided to try to book train tickets on line through Renfe—the Spanish version of Amtrak. Despite their byzantine on-line train reservation system, unlike Amtrak, they do actually have high speed trains.

I should continue my search for somewhere to stay in Cordoba, Spain, but I believe I have hit the proverbial fatigue wall, so that will have to wait. Instead, I will share my response to the Zentangle Diva’s challenge to use the official tangle, Tripoli. I should use it more often.

Zentangle Diva's Challenge using the tangle Tripoli

Before I leave you incredibly nice people who have read this far, I’d like to urge you to contribute to Passports with Purpose, a travel blogger group that’s helping the non-profit organization, Worldreader, to raise money for solar capable digital e-readers for 5 libraries in Kenya. If you do so before midnight (Eastern Standard Time) on November 18th, your donation will also give you the chance to win some incredibly cool prizes contributed by travel-related brands. (There are 40 prizes, so you actually do theoretically stand a chance of winning one.)

And finally, that’s all she wrote.

How has your travel karma been lately?

{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }

Annemarie November 17, 2015 at 2:37 am

Hope you are feeling better (more awake) now after some sleep 🙂
I don’t travel much, don’t like travelling however I LOVE being somewhere. Yes, I’m a weird person I fear 🙁 When I travel abroad it’s most of the time to visit my daughter who lives in Switzerland since 5 years and before that to UK when she lived there. Before Kees came to live with me, he also lived in UK and for some years I was travelling to him all the time.
Always by train, trough the Canal tunnel.
I like tour tile by the way!

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Yorkshire Tortoise November 17, 2015 at 3:27 am

Lovely tile, almost a heart shape. You seem to have had fun thinking about your coming travels, even if booking was a bit hairy. Travel for me nowadays really means anywhere I can transport myself, i.e. anywhere in my own country. I can’t be bothered with all the hassle of airports, it is half an hour to fly to England from here and yet you have to be at the airport two hours before departure, hanging around, can’t take this, can’t take that, I wonder if the bag is the right size. No I have given up flying! Anyway there is so much beauty in our own countries to explore 🙂

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Ilse November 17, 2015 at 4:42 am

Beautiful tile!

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Anja November 17, 2015 at 7:18 am

Wonderful tile!

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1 Art Lady Kate Tangles November 17, 2015 at 8:42 am

Love your tile and the ramblings of your mind!

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Dudley Bacon November 17, 2015 at 9:09 am

I don’t know from elegant, but I think this is it.

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Roz Warren November 17, 2015 at 11:17 am

That new tile looks alive. I hope it’s friendly.

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Ulrike B November 17, 2015 at 2:20 pm

very nice tile

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Judy Freedman November 17, 2015 at 5:04 pm

That tile is beautiful. I’ve thought of buying one of those mandala coloring books to de-stress.

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Maggibee November 17, 2015 at 5:38 pm

Hi Suzanne, get some sleep but don’t worry too much about your circadian rhythm, remember you’ll probably be just about right for Spain! And your tile? I really like it. There’s something fun fair -ish about it in my admittedly vague thinking.

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Neva November 17, 2015 at 5:46 pm

I love your tangles and your orderly way of displaying each line. My latest craft was making catapults and flying turkeys/pompoms with the grandsons. When we did the craft on a local television show recently, we heard from parents that decided to try this too. Made my day to know someone else enjoyed non-electronic toys for a day.

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Annie November 18, 2015 at 6:15 am

A great read, Suzanne, and a lovely tile to boot! Hope you have success in finding a nice place to stay in Cordoba and don’t forget to get in touch! I will pm on you on fb.
Axxx

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Pat November 18, 2015 at 11:33 am

Like your tile. But your travel woes – oh my!

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Suzanne Fluhr November 18, 2015 at 2:15 pm

Not really travel woes. Just a little overtired and overwhelmed travel planning. A good night’s sleep would help.

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Jean Chaney November 18, 2015 at 3:42 pm

You make me feel so lucky that I am a homebody and don’t like to go anywhere LOL! You really do a nice and tidy Tripoli, and that’s not easy to do!

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Patti November 18, 2015 at 10:13 pm

I’m still laughing… but only because I’ve been there so I’m laughing with you. You know, isn’t it enough that we are aging sooner than we’d prefer, but just to make it interesting our sleep patterns suck? What the hell?! By the way, don’t you know a doctor who could help you with that? 😉

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Suzanne Fluhr November 21, 2015 at 3:14 pm

The doctor I know—the one I’m supposed to be sleeping with—-is asleep and won’t be in a good mood if I wake him up to tell him I can’t sleep.

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Laurel Regan November 19, 2015 at 1:16 pm

Your tile is beautiful and delicate. Love it.

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Donald W November 20, 2015 at 6:26 pm

Like the combination of tangles that you used. Interesting to just use a broader line on one leg of the triangle instead of using a pattern. Glad you were able to work some things out and hope your trip results in much less drama than this.

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Devin November 21, 2015 at 7:15 pm

Very original and lovely.

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Jennifer Sparrow November 22, 2015 at 12:21 pm

Lovely tile! Good luck with your travels!

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nan @ lbddiaries November 24, 2015 at 12:14 pm

HEY! Why did you line through “incredibly” because you KNOW we are incredibly nice people. Great post – I smiled because I often get my night-day turned around and I hate it only because dealing with stuff during the day is not as easy when you’d rather be sleeping!! I’m also still wondering why they disappeared your seats. Strange goings-on!!

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Diane Clancy November 29, 2015 at 10:59 am

Suzanne, what a maze of a day!! Glad you made it through somehow. 🙂 And what a lovely Diva – so beautiful!! 🙂

~ Diane Clancy
http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog/2015/11/my-diva-tripoli-triptastic-challenge-entry

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