Up in The Air

I told the story earlier this year about how much I relate to 'Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs' well I now want to tell you how much Debra relates to 'Up in The Air'.

At the beginning of the year Debra and I were sat in the lounge at Heathrow Airport waiting having just arrived back from the US, waiting for the flight to Belfast. Not content with just my company she phoned a friend and started with the 'is this all my life is?' speech. It really annoyed me, people queue up to meet me, she gets to have me with her most of the time and yet it is not enough, I may be looking for a new keeper soon. Anyway the friend says 'have you seen 'Up in the Air'?'

If you haven't seen the film then I recommend it, if you are one of my friends in the ACE Program you will relate to the travel. In fact, Debra doesn't often go to the cinema, so she and I didn't see the film, until it was showing 'on a seat back near you' - her favourite movie house. We actually watched it on our flight out of Oslo after the volcano episode. Dan was on the same flight, and she and Debra kept swapping notes.

So let's have a look at the film and how it resonated with Debra.

So George Clooney (say that in the same sighing way that Debra does), travels all the time. First match.

He has great frequent flyer status (yep) and is not far off status for life (for Debra she needs 10 consecutive years, she is on year 8 or 9).

Home is where you pack for the next trip (yep again), he lives alone (oh dear) and counts the days there as pretty miserable. (Debra is now squirming as she reads this).

He lives in hotels and there was a lot of product placement for the Hilton (I love staying in those, I love the bath robes - oops, sorry, this is about Debra not me and yes she has status with Hilton).



But I think that is where the comparison ends. For instance his sister is getting married and she send him a cardboard cutout of herself and her husband to be and asks him to photograph them in the different places he travels to. THIS IS RIDICULOUS - who on earth would carry around something that was not real just to put them in photos? You wouldn't catch me doing something as daft as that. Who would be interested? I am so glad I don't know anyone quite that stupid. In fact in the film, he actually starts to bond with the cutouts, a kind of imaginary friend. If Debra developed an imaginary friend I would be out of here pretty damn fast.

Back to the film, he meets another traveller who shares the same lifestyle, loyalty programs and they start a casual affair. In the film, these two 'friends' go as far as to swap travel plans to see when they would next be able to meet up. Isn't that what TripIt is all about!

Well that is not Debra, all the people she meets when travelling are technical nerds or geeks and not a lot of romantic interest for her there. But she can live in hope she will meet someone special one day, over the security line, in the executive lounge or the hotel lift. (Apparently once Debra did spend a lot of time in a lift - or elevator, but it was a long before my time).

The film is about re-evaluating your life and I suppose I should help her. But I love this lifestyle and imagine if she stopped, I would be banished to some cupboard and just left there. Just like Dan did to me before Mogens started this 'hate the vest' campaign. Without my 3 keepers I would be a lonely person and I don't want that.