high·fli·er
/ˈhīflīər/
noun
a person who is or has the potential to be very successful, especially academically or in business.
"the company cannot expect to recruit many highfliers"
Besides realizing my literary and entertainment dreams through committed action even just starting in midlife, my favorite part of being a critic is jet-setting for junkets.
Traveling to enchanting locales to talk to celebrities, producers and fellow critics about their hard work is a top notch pleasure and blessing.
Top L clockwise: Lonita with world-renowned entertainment critic, Shawn Edwards; Lonita with James Marsden (Sonic the Hedgehog) at Critics Choice Awards; Lonita stops to cuddle the Shrek fixture on the Dreamworks campus; and Lonita overlooks The Thames River in London
The company may not be able to find many highfliers but that's because you're all here joined together in Cookie's Highflier Crew.
I think cliches are cliches for a reason. It is true that it is never too late to start. As long as there is a dream and some will in you, you can get exactly the life you long for. We're here with hands up for your support. Come in.
Becoming your best success and embarking a journey of a lifetime begins at the exact moment of self-acceptance.
About seven years ago, I was invited for a trip to London. It made sense, we were already in Braunschweig, but I said no. We went to Paris instead. Not too shabby.
See, when I was about six years old, I found myself obsessed with London. I don't remember exactly what happened but I remember that from that moment on whenever I was having fun and living in my imagination, I'd slide my feet into my mother's T-strap heels, wrap myself in her London Fog trench and speak with a fake British accent, while acting out some of my favorite childhood fantasies.
Whatever it was that I encountered, it must have been romantic because I dreamed from that moment on that I would be in London with my true love.
So, seven years ago when when I got the offer, I declined. Because I was not in relation with my true love.
But then, a year after losing my mother, it donned on me that God and Lonita is my true love. The very next day, and I mean the very next day, I was invited by Paramount on the junket for Bob Marley: One Love in London!
Top L clockwise: Lonita boards plane in Amsterdam headed to London; Lonita in the greenroom after interviewing Ben Kingley-Adir and before Lashana Lynch; on her night stroll around London that took her to Buckingham Palace; and her photo with a London custodian cop
Lonita in Las Vegas for The Family Plan red carpet right before chatting with Mr. Mark Wahlberg
In Los Angeles with Las Vegas superstar journalist, Rachel Smith after our The Glass Onion blue carpet
D.C. was rainy, but fabulous for Netflix's Rustin junket as we toured The National Mall
Over breakfast in Los Angeles at my very first junket ever with seasoned global critic Ruben Peralta Rigaud
They went all out for The Maestro junket in NYC. Here I stand in the auditorium of Carnegie Hall
The best part? Breaking bread with my colleagues-turned-friends in Los Angeles