I’m here for a work conference. Arrived last night from the airport, sniffling, sneezing, coughing up my lungs, sporting a croaky voice and a red Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer nose. I made a lot of friends on the plane with my wheezing as you can imagine. I was as much fun as a shrieking 15 month old baby.
You walk in the door at Alderbrook and it looks like a ski lodge. Big open beam room with a fireplace and there are two kittens playing. Kittens! One was white with ginger spots and the other was white with grey spots and they both don’t have a tail so they looked like little bunnies running after the toy over the tile. Their names? Alder and Brook. One of the managers in my Department who has a reputation for being very type A but has cats with her husband was gleefully playing with them. There are two types of people. People like me that say “Kittens!” and get all gooey and people that say “Kittens” and start plotting how they can turn them into a pair of gloves and ear muffs.
Walk in my room and I am certain I will not want to leave. It’s in the main part of the resort and the tub is big enough for four people to have an orgy. The balcony has a view of the water. I have a reading bench sitting thingy under the window. There is a kettle and a french press for making coffee. A few years in the UK and a kettle is the sign of civilization for me. . .
The goodie basket is very posh. Gummy bears in a little glass bear jar and tucked between the Pringles and the chocolate covered cherries an ‘Intimacy Kit’ which includes: 2 prophylactics, 1 package lubricating jelly and 2 obstetrical towelettes- A touch which is thoughtful and yet disconcerting all at once.
Other people are in cabins that have kitchens and fireplaces. Met my colleagues in one cabin that they have dubbed ‘Dirty Sally’. (I have a feeling the next few days are going to be rather Roman in excess.) I thought the plan was to go have dinner but they didn’t want to eat in the restaurant with the managers (they had a session here earlier today) so since I was hanging out with the people that have organized this little event, we ended up eating the left over appetizers the managers hadn’t polished off. And a few glasses of vino.
Someone put a plate outside and I didn’t have the energy to tell them that wasn’t the smartest thing to do given we are out in nature and the big ass raccoon that showed up and polished off the rest of the Caesar salad did provide entertainment.
I hung on until 9:30 PST (5:30 GMT) took a bath in my gineourmous tub and fell fast, fast asleep until 4:00 PST. . .I’ll be hurting tonight, but perhaps this will protect me from howling at the moon because everyone is telling me this event can get a bit wild.
My job sometimes feels like I am in a University party school. I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing given my genetic inclination toward alcoholism but it does make it easier to put up with the work bullshit.
I am already plotting my detox when I get back home to London.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Wait, you’re over here again in WA? And there is seriously a hotel/resort/anything that actually provides an “intimacy kit”??!!????!!! OH MY GOSH! I have never heard of such a thing here, I could just picture a super PC uptight person opening that up and then storming down to complain to the front desk and management. Ha! Have fun at your conference, not sure how long you are going to be here but we’re supposed to have partly sunny days through the rest of this week!