Update: And Then That Happened.

Hadi from Turkish Airlines finally called me around 12:45 this afternoon, just as I was beginning to tip into panic mode again.


They had my bag. Green-gray, not black. It had somehow appeared on the baggage carousel about ten minutes after we'd frantically run to catch our Delta flight. I have no idea why one piece of baggage would be pushed out of the aircraft a good hour and a half after everything else, and, quite frankly, I don't want to know.


Hadi was ready to ship my bag to Baltimore, but I explained that I was scheduled to leave early tomorrow morning to come back to New York. New Kid, who we are going to stay with this weekend, generously offered to act as guardian of my wandering suitcase, and Hadi said it was no problem to have the delivery service drop the bag off at her office in midtown Manhattan. At 2:30, I got a text from her saying that the delivery service had called to confirm the bag was on its way. Subsequently, I received an email from Hadi saying that the bag had been shipped out, and should be to New Kid before 6pm.


Relief doesn't even begin to describe it. To celebrate the fact that I would not have to purchase an entirely new wardrobe, at least at the moment, I went out and bought a pair of killer glitter stillettoes to wear with the little black dress I have for New Years. ON SALE. FROM MARSHALLS. LIVIN' THA LIFE, BITCHES. 


Around 7:30, I received a text from New Kid stating that she was still hanging around at work waiting for my bag, did I have any idea when it might be arriving, and that this hanging around was leading to unproductive behavior such as perusing oil tiki paintings online and should she buy one? I responded "No idea, and yes, of course you should."


A call to JFK's baggage claim delivery person (is there some sort of term for this area of work? Perhaps "Disorganizer?") revealed that there were 16 airlines with bags on board a van that was working its way through New York City, and if my bag hadn't arrived by 9pm to call them.


I felt guilty, as though I'd somehow foisted my bad Turkish Airlines juju off on my innocent, helpful friend. I also didn't want her waiting around at work until 9:30 for my bag, which by now should have its own hashtag. 


#lostbaggageglitterati


#the45_kilo_ulcer


#overpackingruinsgirlandendsallofherpersonalrelationships


Pick whichever one you like. They're all up for grabs, I believe.


So I bit the bullet and called the baggage claim delivery person (hereinafter referred to as "The Disorganizer") and explained the situation, asking if the address for the destination of the bag could be changed to New Kid's home address. Realizing that this could be a completely disastrous error, given that they lost the bag between the belly of TK0001 and the baggage carousel. Giving them too many directives didn't seem a wise idea at this point, but I couldn't have New Kid sitting around her office until 9pm.


It's a good thing I chose this course of action, because when New Kid called the dispatcher to confirm the change of address from one area of Manhattan (mid) to another (lower), they informed her that it should arrive "sometime before midnight."


How many bags, I ask you, are on a van that results in a ten hour tour of New York City?


Nevermind, I don't want to know.


So it's 9:30pm, we are scheduled to leave here at 7am. I am hingeing all my bets and bringing with me only my new shooo-ess, my black New Years dress, and a few pairs of clean underwear and socks. If I err in the wrong and my bag does not make it to New Kid's tonight, and somehow disappears again, I will be spending the weekend in one pair of jeans and inappropriate shoes for daytime. 


My internal clock is all whack and thinks it's time to go to bed ("IT'S 4:30AM!" it says), but I am trying to coax it into staying awake until at least ten, so that I can sleep past 3am. So far, the jet lag actually hasn't been too bad. My formula for heading off severe jet lag shall be revealed later. In tableau form. Be excited.


When I get my camera cord, that is. Out of the suitcase that, by now, must smell like a high school locker room with all of my dirty, dusty, sweaty clothes lumped into it for going on four days. 


Fingers crossed that thing is circling lower Manhattan as we speak, and that it's safely in New Kid's hands before I arrive tomorrow morning....


UPDATE ON THE UPDATE:
9:42pm - text from New Kid
"I have the suitcase."


You can all breathe now.

I Felt The Earth Move

I was all set to write a post about the crazy weekend I had last weekend (Legs's 30th birthday followed by a whirlwind 24-hour trip to New York that involved a bottle of champagne, a hired car, the best steak dinner I've ever had, a pair of Russian strippers, dancing at Bar St. Mark's [which does not have a dance floor, BTW], a very angry game of Super Mario Brothers at 4am, candied bacon for brunch at The Smith, and then eighteen dollar mimosas at the Garden Cafe at the Plaza...) and then it had to go and earthquake, and, as Jackal says, "I'M ALL ABOUT TRENDING," so I guess I have to write about the earthquake.

OK but seriously, all of the above is factual. I didn't know you could get Super Mario Brothers and a pair of Russian strippers (no way they were twins, as claimed...unless they were somehow twins with different mothers. Or different fathers. Or both.) in the same sentence, let alone the same night. I was glad that New Kid could come out and play with us, even gladder that she allowed me access to her vintage Nintendo system after 4am. She is truly a good friend.

I digress.

I happened to be in a meeting leading a discussion on current goings-on in the organization when I noticed everyone staring oddly out of the windows (which comprised the entire south-facing wall of the room we were in). And then I saw the trees ripple, and my first thought was that Hurricane Irene had somehow jetted up from where it was around the Bahamas at 6am that morning and reached Baltimore at the speed of sound. It looked like wind outside, the way everything suddenly tipped sideways. It sounded like wind. And then, and even I thought it was cliche at the time, I saw the ground literally roll. Like waves. It rolled and the entire room pitched from one side to another. It looked as though the panes of glass separated briefly from the window frames. For a moment, everything was separate from the thing it was supposed to be a part of. My feet were on the floor, but the floor I was standing on was somehow different from the floor the people across the room were standing on. Some people actually fell slightly over, and everyone got up out of their chairs and instinctively away from the wall of windows. But it's not as though they had a choice: it was as though the room were jaggedly propelling them out of their chairs and away from the windows.

I wasn't scared at first because I thought it was the wind. I genuinely thought it was the wind. Maybe a tornado. And I thought, OK, whatever it was has passed. And then someone said, earthquake. And then I was scared. Was it the first wave? Was there another coming? Were we in danger? Should we get out of the building? Later, someone would tell me that she feared a tsunami. I hadn't thought of that at the time, but I'm sure as hell thinking about it now.

I'm born and raised in Maryland. I spent three years in Florida. Storms and wind I can handle. They come, and go just as quickly. I know all the drills, I know where to stand, I know what and what not to do.

But an earthquake? It was my first. It was the first time the earth underneath me has failed to be stable. I can envision floods, I can understand wind. But seismic activity...I have no bearing for that. For an hour after the earthquake, I couldn't get my sea legs.

Like any other national disaster, text messaging and phones were down. Thankfully, I have Gchat on my phone and was quickly able to ascertain that most of my friends and family were OK, just surprised, and still in a state of wonder of it. It will become one of those "where were you when..." Zeitgeists. There are already hash tags, Facebook pages, "likes." It's way trending.

And damn. I totally could have made some "Russian Twins and Mario Brothers!" hashtag and been ALL OVER the INTERWEBS. Ah, well. This shall have to suffice. Shiggity shiggity shwa. And, you know, #earthquakes. #EARTHQUAKES. #EARRRRTTHHQUUAAAAKES.

No, but seriously, I am sort of endlessly grateful it was as minor as it was. No lie, that was scary. We East Coasters are not used to such things.

NYSEP10=HEART

Empire State of Mind

Stupid is coming tomorrow.

As if that weren't enough, we are heading up to NYC for the weekend.

I should mention here that Stupid is, of course, one of my Most Favorite People. We met in Florida when I was in grad school, and then she broke both of our hearts when she moved back home to Kansas City. A year or so later, I moved to Baltimore. And every year since, we have seen each other at least once. If not twice, like last summer. She flew out for my birthday, I flew out to surprise her for hers.

This year, we decided to eschew our home cities in favor of a bigger one: my favorite and her first time.

I'm not sure if there's anything better in the world then this formula:
(Excellent/Hilarious/Adventurous Company) + (Travel To A Favorite City)

Oh, wait.

We're staying with New Kid for a night. Who is also a Florida friend, who is also on my Most Favorite People List.

So

(Excellent/Hilarious/Adventurous Company)x2 + (Travel To A Favorite City)

= Glitterati is one happy girl right about now.

(I have no idea what this is...but I saw it in a store the last time I was in NYC and it said "Glitterati" on it. So, it's mine. Whatever it is. Some sort of....froufy, sparkly thing. Excellent.)

My Country 'Tis Of Thee

Can it, Palin:

We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We’ve come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever – this is the freest City in the world. That’s what makes New York special and different and strong.

Our doors are open to everyone – everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants – by people from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than two hundred different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.

We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life and it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.

On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn’t want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.

Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that, even here in a City that is rooted in Dutch tolerance, was hard-won over many years. In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in Lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue – and they were turned down.

In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal, political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies – and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion – and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780’s – St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.

This morning, the City’s Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted not to extend landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building. The simple fact is this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship.

The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.

The World Trade Center Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans – if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.

For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime – as important a test – and it is critically important that we get it right.

On September 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked ‘What God do you pray to?’ ‘What beliefs do you hold?’

The attack was an act of war – and our first responders defended not only our City but also our country and our Constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very Constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights – and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.

Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation – and in fact, their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. By doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our City even closer together and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam. Muslims are as much a part of our City and our country as the people of any faith and they are as welcome to worship in Lower Manhattan as any other group. In fact, they have been worshipping at the site for the better part of a year, as is their right.

The local community board in Lower Manhattan voted overwhelming to support the proposal and if it moves forward, I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire City.

Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure – and there is no neighborhood in this City that is off limits to God’s love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us today can attest.

-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Landmarks Preservation Commission Vote, August 3, 2010, Governor' s Island.