by Farai Chideya

I'm going to be away for a couple of days and we have NPR's lovely Audie Cornish — who covered Katrina, among other things — hosting.

Loretta Rucker of the African American Public Radio Consortium has also been visiting.

Both have given me a chance to step back and take another look at what we do ... like put out fires.

Today, one set of guests was late being seated. Until about 20 seconds to air, we had no idea if they would arrive on time. And that meant I was prepared to vamp.

"Vamp" is lingo for us filling time due to technical errors, breaking news, etc. And we don't just want to fill it with dreck ... we want quality!

So I looked down at my briefing materials (I often bring articles and summaries into the studio) and took a deep breath.

Then our guests were confirmed as there.

Whew!

My background in live radio and TV helps me not to freak out when this or other mishaps occur.

Other things that have happened:
A guest was delayed so we flipped two elements of the show to give the person time to arrive.
We had a guest who was stuck in traffic so we took him by cell phone instead of having him in the studio.
And, of course, we have to reschedule shows when a bigshot (often a politician) reschedules on us.

Usually, it's all good. But even when it's hairy, everyone here pulls together to make things work.

Just a shout out to the News and Notes staff ... I love y'all!