|
Currently reading:
The view
|
|
|
Better than a mushroom
2002-12-07 - 11:03a.m. (Georgia Time)
I'm trying to get out of the habit of converting Georgia time to California time in my head. It's just too depressing. If I think that way then I got up this morning at 3am and was sitting in this meeting by 4:30am. No, I can't think about that.Well, this morning I went down to the free breakfast offered by my hotel, but it didn't start until 7. I had to get going so I just grabbed a muffin and some juice to go. After scraping the ice off my car this morning, I started on my way into the city. For some reason my internal compass is always haywire on the east coast. On the west coast I tend to have a really good sense of direction. I don't worry about getting lost. But here, for some reason east seems like west and north seems like south. That makes it really easy to get lost. I'm trying to get myself reoriented. I've got five days, I wonder if I'll make it. But this morning I didn't get lost. I found the Hyatt with no problems. I wish I had more time to explore in the daylight. The meeting I'm sitting through right now is supposed to last until 5 with a reception/poster session afterwards lasting until 7. So looks like I'll be driving back to the hotel in the dark.
The room I'm sitting in right now reminds me a lot of my grandfather's house in Quincy. He built it himself way back when. This house has a really awesome living room. It's a very large room two stories high. On one corner of the room is a flight of stairs leading up to a balcony overlooking the room. In the opposite corner of the room is another flight of stairs leading up to an open hallway from which you can look out over the room. The master bedroom as well as several other rooms are located off this hallway. But the cool thing about this hallway is the way it goes behind the huge rock chimney. The fireplace is on the ground level and the chimney goes all the way up through the room. It's made out of granite stones which Grampa collected from the Feather River Canyon and it's really the focus of the room. It's very beautiful--or at least I can imagine it is or once was. The whole house is very dirty and run down these days. It's very sad, really. But this room I'm in now reminds me of that room, minus the balcony, picture windows, and staircases...
1:11pm (Georgia Time)
Having recently discovered that the number of people I know of who read my journal has doubled or even tripled, I thought I'd take this opportunity to bore them to death. I'm still in the middle of the UHC meeting; I'm still sitting in the same room. But on the up side, I did eat a relatively nice hotel-catered lunch. It wasn't particularly great but I packed it away anyway. Tonight the Mole is taking us to a restaurant called "The Pleasant Pheasant." I'd really rather be released to do my own thing. Going to this meeting was actually a matter of considerable dispute. Looking at the agenda we, the residents, could see that it didn't apply to us. We brought this up to the Mole who is supposed to be our champion and I believe his response was, "So noted. You're going anyway." When pressed for a reason he said, "Because Cheesecake says so." Cheesecake being the diretor of pharmacy at our hospital. I'm sorry, but Cheesecake is not in charge of the pharmacy residency program, the Mole is. And if the Mole thinks something will be a waste of our time and money, then the Mole should work to make things right. The Mole's job is to keep our best interests at heart. Just minutes ago he said, "I anticipated you being bored to tears." Then why did you let this go down? And also he confirmed that attendance of this meeting is mandatory for us. And yet Thumbtack is not here. What are the consequences of that going to be? A slap on the wrist? Ugh. Fluffy and Slick were discussing this and other issues at lunch. I didn't realize how many grievances they had. I think maybe I bend a little too much when the wind blows. It would take quite a bit to make me snap. But I think that's because I don't pay enough attention. There is a lot of stuff I just don't care about. If those things don't work out just so, it doesn't really faze me. I know I should take more interest in things, but sometimes I just have trouble caring.10:45pm (Georgia Time)It's already 11 almost and I just got back to my hotel room. After the UHC meeting was over a bunch of us went out to dinner. The dinner was on the hospital so we didn't pull any punches. We took a taxi (my first taxi ever which was quite disappointing since it was a white minivan) down to the Pleasant Pheasant. It turned out to be a really nice little restaurant. I wasn't too enthused about going out to dinner with these guys, but hoo boy, that food made it all worthwhile. So it was me, the Mole, Cheesecake, Fluffy, and Kitty. I've never really talked to Kitty before. He seems to be perpetually embarrassed, like Bashful in Snow White. But I sat by him at dinner tonight and I really like the guy. He's about as non-threatening as they come. He grew up in Sac too and also has an interest in music. He said a bunch of people from the pharmacy sometimes take trips to go see operas and he would make sure I get invited next time they go.For starters we ordered shrimp southwestern, calamari, and escargot. I've never tried escargot before. Neither had Kitty or Fluffy. Fluffy has no sense of adventure but Kitty tried them with me. This was our original bonding experience. The escargot were already out of their shells. We each plopped one onto our plates and then shared inquiries about why they were so big and round. But I chopped off a bit of mine and, after a few aborted attempts, finally got over my reluctance to eat snails and stuck the thing in my mouth. It was pretty gross, but Kitty was looking expectantly at me for a verdict before he tried his and I didn't want to be too much of a spoil sport so I gagged it down and said "It's...all right..." in a way that implied I might be exaggerating its virtues. So he put his bit in his mouth and with a few faces, swallowed it. The he said, "if I didn't know better I would swear that was a mushroom." At that point, Cheesecake, Mr. Everything Officianado, overheard him and said, "That is a mushroom. The escargot is the little black thing in the middle." So after recovering from a quick bout of laughter, I tried the little black thing in the middle and it was much better than the mushroom. Did I ever mention mushrooms are one of my least favorite foods? Why yes I did! That's Eucalia Fact #36. But anyway, that's my official escargot review: better than a mushroom.After the appetizer they brought out my filet mignon which was so good I nearly groaned with pleasure at the first bite. And after thoroughly stuffing myself by eating the whole thing, we ordered dessert. I don't remember what it was called, but the description of my dessert was a chocolate pie with a chocolate brownie crust smothered in chocolate fudge sauce topped with chocolate espresso whipped cream. If you say the word "chocolate" once you've got me hooked, but saying it four times and then throwing in "espresso" for good measure is enough to put me in heaven. And this pie was heavenly. I was unable to finish the whole thing even though I gave it a valiant effort. I'd say tonight's dinner more than made up for last night's dinner of Delta Airline's snack mix. Back in my hotel room I tried to call Somnambulist but I only got a message saying he was out of service. Unless I made a typo entering his number into my phone, it looks like I won't be able to call him here which throws a bit of a loop in my plans. I called his home and left a message there in case for some reason he calls home to check, but most likely he won't and he'll receive that lovely message after he gets back home. So I guess the plan right now is to drive to his hotel and stand out in the parking lot and hope he recognizes me. Or else I suppose I could call the hotel and ask if they would be so kind as to put me through to his room. But some hotels won't do that for privacy reasons. For right now though, I think I'll go to bed and sleep in as long as I can.
One Good Thing:
Song of the Day:
One Year Ago Today:
8 weeks, 3 days
2012-04-05
8 weeks, 1 day
2012-04-03
6 weeks, 4 days
2012-03-23
6 weeks, 2 days
2012-03-21
5 weeks, 6 days
2012-03-18