Woo! Word play!
I’m in Plano for the week, at a conference. I’m staying in a depressing extended stay hotel, which reminds me of my 2011 summer at my firm, when I also stayed in a depressing extended stay hotel. The difference then was that I had a CAR. Here, I have no car – I am at the mercy of the hotel shuttle and its random schedule. I will probably break records for the smallest meal reimbursement request of all time – just $38 for the week, consisting entirely of Wal Mart groceries. This has been a week of mac and cheese, omelettes, and red wine from a screw top bottle poured into a juice glass.
It’s also been a week of long runs. One thing I do enjoy when the children are out of my hair is a good long workout, and I did a five mile run today and yesterday, exploring the pleasantly boring suburban streets filled with foreign engineers and their families. (Seriously. This is, like, Little India.) I have been watching bad tv, doing some work at night, and drinking too much coffee in an attempt to stay awake through the looooong days of Power Point presentations. I don’t sleep well in hotels, either, so I’m getting to the point of Majorly Sleepy, on this, my fourth night away from home.
I prefer my weeklong conferences to be in exciting cities, where I can walk around and sight see and try different delicious foods and eat alone in restaurants like a brave girl. If I’ve got to be away from the boys, I prefer it to be somewhere cool. But . . . eh. You take what you get, right? In the absence of a cool city, this week I’ve enjoyed some amazing bad television – including The Office (abominable these days, not interesting since Season 3), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and some sort of criminal show with Kevin Bacon. I’ve savored some bad red wine. I have eaten a box of Great Value macaroni and cheese. I have slept in until as late as 7am. The only thing better than a vacation is a change, right?
You’re so close to my old stomping grounds! But yeah, you can’t get around Texas without a car. And Plano is super dull. I was always struck by how new the (few) trees were. I’m sorry you couldn’t drive around and explore Dallas. There are some amazing restaurants, great shopping, and the Kennedy assassination area is pretty cool. I’d have even sent you to my old neighborhood so you could see how crazy it is. Alas. Hope you have enjoyed the peace and quiet, at least.
I like Dallas a lot! I dated a guy who, though not American, was for some reason totally into the Kennedy assassination and once dragged me all over the city checking that stuff out. We even sprawled out on the grassy knoll at one point. Plano is probably nice too – but I was stranded in the middle of a no sidewalk, 6 lanes-of-traffic no-man’s-land from whence I could walk to nowhere except a few very small subdivisions, bordered by the same no-sidewalk traffic nightmares. Blerg. It was quiet, but majorly boring.
I take issue with your qualifying “The Following” as bad TV. Please take it back so we can continue to be friends.