I’m off again

I am leaving this freezing-cum-snowy-cum-seventy degree weather town for the the Palm Beaches of Florida tomorrow. I should be packing. I hate packing. I am not packing. I have a morning flight and it is approaching 10pm. I am very tired. Yet I am still not packing. In fact I am sitting here in clothing that should be making it’s way into a suitcase at this very moment. But here it is, on my person, not packed. I wish I had a person. Maybe that person would pack for me.

I wonder if I will ever discover the true root of my packing aversion.  I mean, there has to be a reason other than laziness. Doesn’t there?   It’s fairly obvious I have nothing to say and I am just using the blog to procrastinate.  As long as I am not just lying on the sofa watching “Desperate Housewives”, doing nothing, I am not a lazy sack of shit that isn’t packing. Right?

Gah! What am I going to wear next week?

Countless lattes later…

…I am still in the office, on a Friday evening, getting all my little ducks in a row for the big conference next week. Don’t cry for me though, the conference happens to be in Boca Raton, so it’s not like I can claim hardship or anything. But it’s Friday and I am still at work at nearly 8pm and I have so much stuff sitting here waiting for my attention that I’ll have to come in tomorrow too…waaaa.

Once I get all this crap together though my job is pretty much done. Aside from overseeing it all to making sure other people don’t fuck up my carefully constructed plans, I can sail through the next week with relative ease. It’ll be long hours and fake smiles, but at least I’ll have a vodka in my hand and warm breezes on my cheek.

Ciao darlings. Blog at you later–like, half way through the NCAA tourney since I won’t be back in town until after the first and second rounds are over.

Tradition is tradition damnit! Even if I have to resort to thievery.

“Why is it a tradition? Because we do it all the time!
Why do we do it all the time? Because it’s tradition!”
–My boxing coach, Tom Quinn

Last week was my fifth conference in Boca and for the four Boca conferences prior, I had come home with at least one bottle of (free) wine. It was two years ago that I finally deemed it tradition, and by golly, there wasn’t going to be anything that stopped me from continuing said ritual.

THE HISTORY
2002 ~ Being fairly new and wide-eyed (“The hotel, it’s pink!” “Those hyacinth are gorgeous!” “The yachts are huge!”) I followed the rest of the “cool” staff around during the non-working hours (by cool, I mean those that like to dance and drink). After one reception, and while we waited for the next one to start, they dragged me to Resort Bingo. Resort Bingo happens to be (generally) played by the Club Members, of which the youngest is probably 84. The Club Members did not look highly upon us hot, young things taking up valuable bingo cards, bringing in our not-to-be-shared plates of gulf shrimp and plastic tumblers full of wine. Not to mention the fact that someone outside of their group might actually win those resort logoed flip flops they were giving away as prizes. Well, outside of our wine-induced hyjinks, things were going well for the blue-hairs (meaning we hadn’t won anything). That is until the last round, and the most glorious prize of the bunch came up for grabs…a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the resort’s cellar. Marci don’t play when it comes to wine (or apparently she does play Bingo at least), and sure ’nuff that bottle went home with me. And you can be sure that I youthfully danced my way past the blue-hairs to collect my winnings. FREE BOCA WINE #1

2003 ~ For some reason this year I was deemed a VIP. Which basically meant special treatment upon check-in, a coolio little emblem on my resort charge card (cool for whom, I am not sure), and a big pretty amenity basket in my room. Complete with….you guessed it….a full bottle of wine. FREE BOCA WINE #2

2004 ~ With no bingo and no VIP status this year, I figured that wrapping a bottle of wine in hotel towels and stuffing it into my suitcase would not be an activity for me. Wrong! At our staff dinner, the sommelier set up a little game for us (well, we told him to do it). All the plates, glasses, silverware and linens were left in the center of the table and each person had to set their own place setting as perfectly as possible in order to get dinner. Ever so smart, yours truly won the competition — beating out my closest competitor by folding my napkin into a piece of art (if art means something that resembles a drunken swan) and thus, winning myself a bottle of wine. FREE BOCA WINE #3

2005 ~ The situation was dire — Meg (then, a co-worker of mine) and I had decided to stay the weekend to sleep, sun and spa — the conference was now over and I had yet to procure my free bottle of wine. Being completelty exhausted, Meg and I debated staying in and vegging in front of the TV our last evening in town. But, not wanting to waste time in Florida lying around on the sofa, we forced ourselves downstairs to the bar. We s-l-o-w-l-y proceed to have a raucous time (“name-badge free zone!”), it just happened to turn out that the restaurant manager and sommelier were bored next door and decided to use us for amusement. Amusing we were, because before the sommelier left for the evening he pulled a bottle of wine off the wall of the bar, signed it, and gave it to me. Crisis averted! FREE BOCA WINE #4

CUT TO: LAST WEEK
No bingo. No uber friendly sommelier. No VIP status (although I did get a 1/2 bottle of merlot from the hotel…but halfsies don’t count). By this time, it’s a full-fledged tradition and I had told others about it. I cannot go home without my wine! So I set my sights on the Tuscan wine tasting late in the week. The wines were beautiful and oh so tasty. I almost forgot about my mission, but when the Banquet Captain came up to me desperately whispering “We have to break down now, we have another group moving in this same space in 45 minutes.”, I figured this was my chance. After asking about the time and realizing we are 30 minutes past the printed hours, I tell him that we are safe to tear down and kick people out. As they start to clear the items away, I see a wine station with open bottles — prepped to pour, but completely full. Meaning they are paid for, regardless if they get imbibed or not. Guess what came home with me? FREE BOCA WINE #5 (a nice Tuscan red by the way)

All is right with the world and my tradition lives on.

Buggie, are you proud? I totally (kinda) used your banquet alcohol stealing (BAS) tactics to score this one.

Feverishly blushed with a raspy voice…

…hot or not?

Well, maybe it would be hot if it wasn’t induced from the Being-in-Boca-Under-Too-Close-Quarters-With-Overtly-Sick-Coworkers-Disease. At least I didn’t start exhibiting symptoms until I was getting off the plane at National, cuz being sick onsite just sucks balls. I think I am all better now, although I have been exhibiting flushed cheeks, chills and the tail-end of a lost voice all day — so on second thought, perhaps I am not entirely cured. My only medicine was sleep, sleep and more sleep (and Edy’s Whole Fruit popsicles). I am now on a more than a first name basis with Troy, my sofa. We are actually quite the intimate couple. Ever noticed how a few intense days together will do that to a relationship? (Unless it drives you apart first). Well ours lasted, and I predict a happy future together.

Boca was pretty exhausting. I was lucky to get a couple days of 4 hours of sleep. The rest of the time I made due with about 2 and a half. There was so much booze being imbibed that I actually had to STOP DRINKING BY FRIDAY! Just so you realize, by “stop drinking” I mean, I had 3 glasses of wine at a wine tasting and then stopped. An hour or so later I had a glass of wine and then a vodka with dinner and stopped. I then stayed out at the bar and drank only water! That is, until the wee hours of the evening when I had a beer. I mean, it was St.Patty’s day, after all (well 2am still counts, right?). This was my recovery night, I will spare you the details of the party nights (mostly because they are fuzzy).

But damn, we couldn’t have BOUGHT better weather. Seriously, it was amazingly beautiful and not humid (and I don’t know if it’s ever NOT humid in Florida–I am thinking someone’s soul now belongs to the devil). As I was leaving the perfect 83 degree sunshine, I regretted my decision not to stay an extra few days to soak up the vitamin D rays, although if I had been down there and sick – with only resort food to eat – I probably would have cried. I even had a lovely fellow offer to pay the change fee on my flight to stay down there a little while longer. Damn my conscious for saying “no, thanks”.

It’s cold here. I am ready to go back. I am so over the sweater thing. But I do look cute in orange.

It’s Easy Like Sunday Morning?

Well after all this, I am a little tired today…

These guys rocked the (Boca) house last night:

Except for minus this guy:

And with a lot of these:

You get pictures like this:

I’m just sayin…