Tag Team

So what's it really like when both you and your spouse are in the airline industry?  This is a great example of our tag team day(s).  We are extremely lucky that my mom watches our dogs/cats and even horses, but we don't want to burn her out, so when we can we do "tag teaming."

My day started at 0200 (2am).  Surprisingly I woke up feeling decent, super early shows are always hit or miss depending on how well I sleep the night before, we'd gone to bed at 9 and it seemed to have paid off.  I leave dh sleeping as he is on reserve and starts at 0800 (8am).  I go out to feed the horses (yes they hate me) sometimes breakfast is at 2 sometimes its at 9. Since I need to leave the house about 3ish I won't be turning the horses out before I leave, I'll let dh learn that fun chore is for him later.  So I go slogging (because all it has done is rain the last few days) through my mud soaked horse field throwing flakes of hay out for them to eat once dh turns them out.  I take about 6 steps carrying half a bale of hay when I realize my boot got stuck in the mud somewhere behind me and I'm bootless.  Perfect way to start the day as I stagger back to get it I fall over sideways because my one remaining boot has falling victim to what I am coining "quick mud."  At any rate I manage to get the hay out and get back to the house.  Getting ready to go,  let the dogs out, throw my stuff in the car, at this point dh is kind of awake so I tell him he has to let the horses out before he leaves, hope he has fun!

Driving to work I decide to skip DD (dunkin donuts) this is clearly the downward tuning point of my day.  Stupid me at 3:30 in the morning thinking, I can wait to get some coffee on the plane.  At any rate I still feel pretty awake by the time I check in.  As I sit there updating some app on my ipad I've never used but someone thinks I need, I begin to think skipping the coffee was a bad idea.  I feel like this update is taking forever, my email says it should take 10 min, last time it said that it took 30.  While I am desperately waiting for the update, I decide to stop at McDonalds to grab coffee because I'd clearly done something bad in my last life and my flight leaves out of the gate as far away as possible.  I try to turn this into a positive because now I have to walk by a McDonalds so I could still salvage this with coffee.  Stand in line for 10 min and still get to the gate early.  From here on things run ok, boarding, take off, etc.  I get to the back and go to grab my coffee, only to find that its fallen over in the cubby and the cup is floating in the coffee that it once contained. For the second time before dawn I regret my decision not to stop and DD.

My first flight of the morning reminded me of being in a washing machine, for 2+ hours, this did not bode well for the rest of the day, since the next two flights were basically along the same path we were on now. Perfect.  We land late, I check my texts see that dh is headed to the airport for an 1100 flight, which will work out great.  He texts me he let the dogs out about 0830 so they will be fine until I get home about 1430 (2:30pm).

On my next flight I realize that I didn't eat my yogurt that I threw in a ziplock with ice.  Which is great, I'm glad I have it! Until I open it, when realize its 8 hours after I put in the ziplock which now has warm water in it, blah!  Oh well I can stand to skip a meal, into the trash my breakfast goes apparently it wanted to join my coffee.  Other than that the flights are uneventful (besides being bumpy) and we land early!  I even manage to run and get catch the bus to my car right before it leaves.  Then I get to my car, and I can't find my keys, of course.  So I proceed to pull everything out of my huge tote to dig for the keys, which I finally find after I dump everything out...on the wet grass.  At least I found them right?

On the way home I stop and grab some food for lunch, since I've now been up for 12 hours and haven't had anything to eat. As I turn on the street my house is on I realize its Saturday, and I start swearing, a lot.  Saturday is dumpster day, and unless a miracle occurred I was betting dh hadn't realized  that either.  I pull in the garage and look out back to make sure dh actually did let the horses out, change, and inhale my lunch.  I check dh's schedule to see where he is and what he's doing.  Turns out he has a two day and gets back at midnight (actually  0100) the next day.  I immediately start digging through his contract because that trip then runs into his day off, I'm trying to see what the options are or if its legal (at my airline its not).  But apparently someone was smoking crack when they wrote the last contract because there's some weird caveat that actually 0200 is considered the next day not midnight, say what??

Anyway I figure since dh is gone it's time to finish putting the Christmas decorations away, if I wait for him to do it, it will never get done, and if we do it together I might kill him. I happily put decorations away (not really I hate it) but since I'm trying to decide if I want to pick up a turn in the morning no booze for me.  This fact is making me more sad as I drag Christmas boxes to the basement, you see we have baby gates that I can't get the stupid big boxes through so I have to drag them out the front door, through the garage, back into the house and down to the basement, starting to think a glass of bubbly would be great right now!  After this fun I go let the horses in and face my fate of a full dumpster.  Then a miracle occurred, I opened the dumpster and it was empty!  My awesome garbageman had rolled my dumpster out, emptied it and rolled it back, I was so happy I could cry.

By the time I get back inside dh has called me, and he's now 2-3? hrs late and stuck in an airport I'm very familiar with.  So I excitedly tell him where to eat because a new restaurant had opened that day which was the highlight of everyone I know that is based there.  And this, this is our excitement. He finally leaves on his last leg while I clean the house.  Its a lot of give and take and planning sometimes to make our schedules work but totally worth it!