No, not that heaven.
Not oyster heaven.

And I know what you’re thinking: TWO heavens in one week!?!? How f**king lucky is this woman!?

Me pretending to sleep for blog purposes and while being laughed at by the flight attendant

And I know.

I’m with you.

I’m blessed.

However, it just seems to be that way lately. Or maybe it’s just me. Like I’ve turned unblinkingly optimistic or wildly positive or Japanese or something.

But either way, much like Dante’s seven layers of Hell, there are now a veritable blooming, unfolding, revealing themselves before our very eyes: Vanessa’s Seven Layers of Heaven.

Layer one = oysters lying about on the shore (the slight catch being that shucking them is, in a word, a serious bitch. But once you get in [and shake off the Hannibal Lecter-esque guilt, if he has guilt] the eating is FINE. Better than fine: Nirvana.)

Layer two = NW46 from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. Business class. That’s right, bitches. BUSINESS CLASS.

I love you, Northwest/Delta. I love how you upgraded me to first even though I have a Q-level ticket.

I love that the lady who checked me in this morning said it would cost thousands of dollars PLUS thousands of miles to upgrade to first class, and you did it for your Gold Elite servant and unblinking loyal subject for FREE.

Doing a little self-dental hygeine while 37,000 feet in the air.

Marry me, Northwest/Delta.

Marry me, and let’s live happily ever after.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about business class:

I want to be rich. This settles it. I want the rest of the world to prosper, too, and I never want to live above my means or indulge in unnecessary excess or own a purse worth $2000 or drink anything worth more than $1 a sip (if that) or  turn down a charity (the bulk of my monthly expenses are charities I can’t bare to stop funding – like my sponsored kids in Burkina Faso and Vietnam and saving some varied and sundry wildlife)…BUT I never, ever, ever want to fly international in anything less than a chair that turns into a bed and looks like a space pod out of Alien or A Clockwork Orange. Space pods rock. I think I’ll just mosey up to the milk bar and have a little nap in my space pod…

And the food?

Appetizers: Shrimp on a skewer, some kind of beef thing, champagne. Oh, baby.

Salad: Lettuce and goat cheese, but still.

Dinner: Short rib with mashed potatoes and a nice Meritage blend.

Dessert: Cheese plate and port. Oh yeah. (The guttural Oh Yeah that goes with that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off “Mmmm Mow Mow. OH YEAH” song.)

And then some Courvoisier if that’s how you roll.

And in addition to the high-tech bed/chair/pod thing that I don’t quite understand and would really appreciate an owners manual to operate, there’s a little TV with recent movies and very nice flight attendants and surprisingly swanky headphones and REAL, FULL-SIZED pillows and cozy beige comforters and Yes Man (funny! And Jim Carrey’s nonsense usually irritates me, but I liked this one. I did.) on the TV, eye masks, and black socks, and Aveda face mist in the bathroom and….

Excuse me while I regain my composure.

Minus the spreading numbness in my butt cheeks, I could very well spend a week here.

That stated, in addition to said gluteus maximus rigor mortis, the only flaw to be noted in Heaven layer #2 is that the on demand movie system is a bit whacked. I selected Slumdog Millionare and got something featuring a young Asian boy playing with a horrifyingly large collection of dung beetles. Are there Japanese kids in Slumdog Millionaire? Hmmm…

And then I picked Marley and Me (with full intentions to bail before Marley gets old. I own the book. I know.), and something about:

1928

Karakoram Mountains, India

And a seriously ugly snowstorm flashed up on the screen.

Is that Keanu Reeves?
Is he in Marley and Me?

Why is Marley in India?
In 1928?

Is there a reincarnation angle that wasn’t in the book?

It’s all too complicated for my small brain, so I suppose I’ll just go into hyper sleep here on the Nostromo and hope I don’t wake up bald and with any overgrown dung beetles stalking and killing me when I wake up…

Because, as we all know, Ash is a godd@mn robot.

p.s.

It’s been about 18 hours since I wrote the above blog post. It’s 10:45pm here in Barcelona. I have gotten about eight hours sleep in the last two days, and I’m about the lamest person you will ever meet while suffering from a sleep deficit.

In fact, I think I’m having auditory hallucinations right now.

Do you hear that?
It sounds like the sound of one hand clapping.

Or crickets.

Or the air conditioner.

Or someone in the hallway.

I don’t know.

I’d be lucky to spell my own name at this point.