i'm ba-aaaaack...
Jun. 6th, 2007 06:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swingchickieboston was a nice getaway. relaxing for two days, crazy for the other two, but fun nonetheless. i had to be up there for work monday and tuesday, so i decided to drive up early and see a few of the peeps... i'm glad i did, getting away forced me to sleep as long as i needed to rejuvenate. :)
drove up on friday night... didn't make it to J's place (i was crashing there), because i was so freakin' tired. i was running on 3 hours of sleep and a 12-hour workday, and 4 hours into the drive i was starting to get really sleepy. not good when it's 10:30pm and there are a million giant semi trucks on the road. so i found an econolodge in northern connecticut and called it a night.
saturday was a nice day -- lunch with J and L1, manis and pedis with L1 at the salon next door (where one of the nail gals, it turns out, used to work at one of my customer's offices and remembered me), then a long nap and some grillin' out on J's deck. i'd brought my travel hoop and put it together to practice a bit, but i was really mellow from the nap and decided no. :) then it was off to davis square to catch a band at johnny d's... the band was called "the funky white honkies", and they were about as good as their name. 14 middle-aged musicians (and i use that term loosely) playing off-key soul music to a crowd of rhythmless middle-aged white dancing drunk people. their fans were absolutely rabid, knew every word to every song (including their theme song, "hey hey we're the honkies"), so i did appreciate that they were having a blast. but we didn't really get into it. one backup "singer", in particular, reminded me of my former friend C -- up on stage grinning from ear to ear, having a total hoot of a time, but didn't know the words to half the songs and screamed off-key the ones she did know. too funny. we danced a few songs, then gave up after the first set and went to JP licks to get chocolate pudding ice cream at midnight. the sqaure was packed with people at that late hour, which made me really miss it. what i also missed was my ATM card, which i lost somewhere between my pre-bar cash run and leaving the bar at 12. grrrrrrr.
slept in sunday (and by "slept in", i mean 7:30am) and got some work done for a deadline while J continued to sleep upstairs. had smoothies and read the free boston weekly rags, then i drove into the city to check into my hotel... we were supposed to go swing dancing at copley, but J called and said he and M weren't up for it because it was so chilly (60 degrees, why the hell didn't i bring my jacket?), so we went to see "knocked up" instead (fun movie). spent the evening having anna's tacqeria and dessert at finale with my friend K, then back to the hotel for sleepies.
let's talk for a sec about the hotel. the taj used to be the ritz-carlton in boston, and i'd always wanted to stay at the ritz-carlton when i lived up there... i'd never even been in the hotel before, because it just screamed "old money" to me. (i mean, there's a chanel in the hotel, for pete's sake.) so when i had the chance to get a serious discount oin a room for this trip, i took it. it was certainly a nice hotel, but not really my "thing"... stuffy, a bit ornate, everyone shocked and appalled that i would want to wheel my own suitcase to my room. (i'm not kidding, 4 hotel employees stopped me to offer to take my bag. it's got WHEELS on it. if it didn't have wheels, i'd be handing it over to the first person i saw with a nametag. but come on, i can wheel the darn thing.) the employees were all very nice and the service was fantastic. there were a few extra "luxury touches" that cracked me up -- one was the bath menu in the bathroom. yes, for $30, a hotel employee will come in and draw a bath for you from what you've selected on the menu. my favorite consisted of a rubber duckie floating in the water, plus a pot of hot cocoa and a plate of fresh-from-the-oven cookies. hee. the room service menu also had a fun extra -- food from the restaurant especially for your cat or dog. for $40, your furry friend can have seared sea scallops served in a little doggie or kitty bowl. that's the life of the rich, i guess...
work on monday and tuesday were good, but boy can these people EAT. i've never worked directly with this team before, but man... we were in a conference room all day monday, and sitting in one place for 13 hours made them munchy... first it was bowls of candy before lunch, then mexican delivery for lunch... an hour after lunch, they ordered a delivery of smoothies... then the rest of the day was spent snacking on cookies and candy and those cracker packs with the little tub of cheese built in. we rolled out of there at 8pm and went to dinner at aquitaine, a french restaurant with american-sized portions. such rich food after all the crap i'd eaten all day was not sitting well in my stomach... i ended up leaving early while they were still enjoying their wine and dessert, and went back to the hotel to crash. urg.
it was really nice to get home last night and just veg out with angus. i got lots of purrs and head-butts from him, and then jack came over after a late workday to say hi for a bit. what a doll -- not only did he look in on angus while i was gone, he fixed my fridge too (my ice maker and water dispenser had never been hooked up 'cause i needed a special line), AND discovered some faulty wiring behind the fridge that could have burned my house down. i luff heem.
what i REALLY love him for, is that while i was gone, he learned to hoop! he grabbed my hoop last night and stepped into it, i thought as a joke... but *whish* -- the darn thing floated around his waist just like a pro! i was absolutely screaming: "OH MY GOD!!!!! YOU WATCHED MY HOOP VODEOS WHILE I WAS GONE!!!" him: "nope! i just watched you and saw how you did it, and took the hoop last night and tried it myself." he was perfect! i swear, it's going to kill me if this man doesn't try his hand at swing dancing... he's got too much rhythm not to.
drove up on friday night... didn't make it to J's place (i was crashing there), because i was so freakin' tired. i was running on 3 hours of sleep and a 12-hour workday, and 4 hours into the drive i was starting to get really sleepy. not good when it's 10:30pm and there are a million giant semi trucks on the road. so i found an econolodge in northern connecticut and called it a night.
saturday was a nice day -- lunch with J and L1, manis and pedis with L1 at the salon next door (where one of the nail gals, it turns out, used to work at one of my customer's offices and remembered me), then a long nap and some grillin' out on J's deck. i'd brought my travel hoop and put it together to practice a bit, but i was really mellow from the nap and decided no. :) then it was off to davis square to catch a band at johnny d's... the band was called "the funky white honkies", and they were about as good as their name. 14 middle-aged musicians (and i use that term loosely) playing off-key soul music to a crowd of rhythmless middle-aged white dancing drunk people. their fans were absolutely rabid, knew every word to every song (including their theme song, "hey hey we're the honkies"), so i did appreciate that they were having a blast. but we didn't really get into it. one backup "singer", in particular, reminded me of my former friend C -- up on stage grinning from ear to ear, having a total hoot of a time, but didn't know the words to half the songs and screamed off-key the ones she did know. too funny. we danced a few songs, then gave up after the first set and went to JP licks to get chocolate pudding ice cream at midnight. the sqaure was packed with people at that late hour, which made me really miss it. what i also missed was my ATM card, which i lost somewhere between my pre-bar cash run and leaving the bar at 12. grrrrrrr.
slept in sunday (and by "slept in", i mean 7:30am) and got some work done for a deadline while J continued to sleep upstairs. had smoothies and read the free boston weekly rags, then i drove into the city to check into my hotel... we were supposed to go swing dancing at copley, but J called and said he and M weren't up for it because it was so chilly (60 degrees, why the hell didn't i bring my jacket?), so we went to see "knocked up" instead (fun movie). spent the evening having anna's tacqeria and dessert at finale with my friend K, then back to the hotel for sleepies.
let's talk for a sec about the hotel. the taj used to be the ritz-carlton in boston, and i'd always wanted to stay at the ritz-carlton when i lived up there... i'd never even been in the hotel before, because it just screamed "old money" to me. (i mean, there's a chanel in the hotel, for pete's sake.) so when i had the chance to get a serious discount oin a room for this trip, i took it. it was certainly a nice hotel, but not really my "thing"... stuffy, a bit ornate, everyone shocked and appalled that i would want to wheel my own suitcase to my room. (i'm not kidding, 4 hotel employees stopped me to offer to take my bag. it's got WHEELS on it. if it didn't have wheels, i'd be handing it over to the first person i saw with a nametag. but come on, i can wheel the darn thing.) the employees were all very nice and the service was fantastic. there were a few extra "luxury touches" that cracked me up -- one was the bath menu in the bathroom. yes, for $30, a hotel employee will come in and draw a bath for you from what you've selected on the menu. my favorite consisted of a rubber duckie floating in the water, plus a pot of hot cocoa and a plate of fresh-from-the-oven cookies. hee. the room service menu also had a fun extra -- food from the restaurant especially for your cat or dog. for $40, your furry friend can have seared sea scallops served in a little doggie or kitty bowl. that's the life of the rich, i guess...
work on monday and tuesday were good, but boy can these people EAT. i've never worked directly with this team before, but man... we were in a conference room all day monday, and sitting in one place for 13 hours made them munchy... first it was bowls of candy before lunch, then mexican delivery for lunch... an hour after lunch, they ordered a delivery of smoothies... then the rest of the day was spent snacking on cookies and candy and those cracker packs with the little tub of cheese built in. we rolled out of there at 8pm and went to dinner at aquitaine, a french restaurant with american-sized portions. such rich food after all the crap i'd eaten all day was not sitting well in my stomach... i ended up leaving early while they were still enjoying their wine and dessert, and went back to the hotel to crash. urg.
it was really nice to get home last night and just veg out with angus. i got lots of purrs and head-butts from him, and then jack came over after a late workday to say hi for a bit. what a doll -- not only did he look in on angus while i was gone, he fixed my fridge too (my ice maker and water dispenser had never been hooked up 'cause i needed a special line), AND discovered some faulty wiring behind the fridge that could have burned my house down. i luff heem.
what i REALLY love him for, is that while i was gone, he learned to hoop! he grabbed my hoop last night and stepped into it, i thought as a joke... but *whish* -- the darn thing floated around his waist just like a pro! i was absolutely screaming: "OH MY GOD!!!!! YOU WATCHED MY HOOP VODEOS WHILE I WAS GONE!!!" him: "nope! i just watched you and saw how you did it, and took the hoop last night and tried it myself." he was perfect! i swear, it's going to kill me if this man doesn't try his hand at swing dancing... he's got too much rhythm not to.
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Date: 2007-06-06 07:41 pm (UTC)