Relaxin' at Rosie's

I had a conference today. Just a one-day thing, but I was looking forward to it, seeing as how it was about traumatic brain injury. I just love the blood & guts, doncha know.

I could NOT wait for the thing to end. It was the most boring seminar I have been to in a long time. But that's not the whole story. The site of the seminar was the nastiest hotel in Norfolk. This hotel has changed ownership & management probably a dozen times since I moved here in 1970. And gee, I wonder why it has never done well? Could it be that the builders paid no attention to the old addage "location, location, location"? When you look out the big picture windows on 1 side, you have a nice view of the projects. Go to the other side and you get to see the Greyhound bus station (do I have to paint that picture for you?) and the blood bank where you can go hawk your blood when you are desperate for drug money.

The hotel was closed for renovations (except for workshops, I guess) and workmen were everywhere. The decor made me want to puke - glass & chrome & black & white & brown & beige & angular furniture & black & white paisley wallpaper over the brown & beige carpet with giant circles all over it. Gak!

The only rooms that were air conditioned were our conference room & the main lobby. This means, sadly that the bathrooms had NO VENTILATION. They were hot, muggy & smelly. Why smelly? That would be because the toilets wouldn't flush.

Nothing is too good for their customers.

At lunchtime I went a couple blocks down to one of our landmarks here (who shall be unnamed for reasons you will soon see), one of the claimers of the original ice cream cone.

As I sat at the counter, enjoying my minced pork barbecue (that's for you Buckykatt), a giant cockroach came crawling down the wall, dangled off a shelf, dropped to the counter, then jumped to the floor. Aaaaack! Somehow, the barbecue didn't taste so good anymore. Now, I know even the best of kitchens can't eliminate the critters altogether. I just don't want to see them so near my lunch, thank you so much.

Then back to the hotel-of-doom for the afternoon session, whence commenced drilling through what sounded like concrete in the room next to us. And 3 peoples' cell phones went off. I could. not. wait. to. leave.

The bright spot in all this? This evening I came down to the NC Outer Banks to visit with my good friend Rosie Hawthorne, of blogdom fame. She had invited me for a Tropical Storm Danny par-tay.

We met online. We are internet stalkers.

I knew I could forget about the horrible day with my buddies & a giant margarita & homemade pizza - crust courtesy of Rosie & toppings courtesy of Mr. Hawthorne.

Speaking of Mr. Hawthorne, his birthday is Monday, so I got him a bitty gift. If you have ever read Rosie's blog, you will know that they do love their pizza. Just search the term "pizza" and 847 posts about pizza will come up, so when I saw this, I knew Mr. Hawthorne had to have it.

Trouble is, he saw a different use for it.

But Rosie was able to convince him of it's true calling in life through the selective use of colorful metaphors. There may have even been painful retaliation involved. I don't know. I averted mah eyes.

Then she wanted to know if the picture made her ass look big.

By that time, our pizza & Caesar salad with homemade dressing (also courtesy of Mr. Hawthorne) & 2 giant margaritas had made me forget about the misery of that hotel & the cockroach. Hic.