Deat by Meeting and Other Stories

So Friday we had a "faculty retreat". Don't be fooled by the word retreat. It just means we had a very long, all-faculty meeting that wasn't in our usual building. But we were still on campus and it was still a meeting. It is this kind of thing that makes me really hate academia and question pursuing a career in it. What an incredible waste of time. Seriously, there is a reason it's called death by meeting!

Saturday morning I was busy preparing for my trip to KC and checked my e-mail early to retrieve an address. My friend the Fashionista (you know, the one with the chandelier in her closet?), recently moved and was planning on hosting cocktails before dinner. So there was a new e-mail from her address in my inbox, but as it turns out it was from her husband. The Fashionista's mother had passed away in the wee hours of the morning.

Though my trip was still on, it was now for entirely different reasons.

My friends are having a bad year of it. That's two mothers in less than six months. Now the Fashionista had told us her mother was ill, but I don't think any of us, especially my friend, was expecting to lose her so quickly in the end.

So I still took the trip, and we all still had dinner, but it was more to boost my friend than to celebrate all of us being together.

I did enjoy the hotel. I slept extremely well in the king size bed sans critters and got up early this morning to run and use the pool. I couldn't believe it when I had the place to myself. No cute boys in the hot tub, but frankly, I was quite pleased with that. I enjoyed over 20 minutes of soothing hot water and massaging jets before I returned to my room to shower and get ready for brunch. In fact, I had such a nice time, I may go back for the entire 3-day weekend over President's Day. I deserve it, damn it.

Brunch was a mind trip. I was back in my old hood . . . literally right next door to my childhood home I hadn't seen in probably a decade or more. I had dinner with my two best childhood friends, their spouses and children, their parents, and even a sibling and his family. It was WILD but really lovely catching up with everybody. I hope to see them again before another 10 years pass. I imagine I will.

After debating staying until Tuesday for the memorial service and deciding I could return if I wanted, I hit the road about 2pm. On the way home, I decided to stop in Osceola to check out this cheese shop I see advertised on billboards for miles and miles both north and south of town. It's a funky little place on the side of the highway, but you get to taste most of their cheeses for free (and those who know me know I can't pass on free cheese tastes!) and check out a bunch of other Osceola-made goods. I poked around for a good half hour and finally picked up a Gouda-goat cheese, some red pepper jelly (on the advice of a friend), a dip mix, and some peanut butter pretzels (I was a little peckish). I considered it an Artist Date and really enjoyed myself. Then I got back in my car and finished my trip home.

So I'm home now and trying to figure out if I should head back up tomorrow, extremely early Tuesday, or not at all. I really want to be there for my friend, but it will take its toll on my time-wise and with classes. So I'm going to sleep on it.

And that's it for now. Well, except that I still have no groceries in the house and dinner to figure out. SIGH. I wish I could just click my fuzzy pink slippers like Dorothy and be back at the hotel. Sadly, life doesn't imitate ALL art.