Still turning the world on with my Smile

I have an official Traveling Tradition as of this moment.

For two years in a row, on my way home from Mpls, I have stopped at the same airport restaurant and ordered the same thing (A "Rachel" which is a rueben sandwich with turkey and a tomato caper aioli which I think is just fancy way to say "Thousand Island Dressing" because really, capers are nothing but better tasting pickles and ketchup is nothing more than tomatoes and vinegar, so isn't may with ketchup and fancy pickles just Thousand Island Dressing?)

Then I log into the internets for one hour and chat while I wait for my flight. Such a lovely tradition, I think. 

Did you know that there's a big spoon with a cherry on it in Mpls? There is. Here's a picture of it. Today my two consultant friends and I decided to try to find it and sure enough, it's not a far walk from our hotels at all. Unfortunately, my angle wasn't as good as this picture is. (They really should give a person more napkins for this sandwich because back and forth from the keyboard is not working with caper thousand island dressing although it does taste really good.) It was very humid today. Fortunately the humidity and "heat" waited for our last day of the conference but today was the most outdoor walking we had to do. Last night after the grand finale, it was raining hard. Fortunately, we got out just before the skywalks closed at 1 am so we were able to walk back to our hotel from the convention center without ever stepping foot outdoors. Mpls's Downtown skywalks are very handy if you know how to get to where you want to go.

Our training yesterday ranged from Beyond Dull and Mundane (they essentially read the policy and procedure manual to us. "If you do this, we will give you this much money. If you do that, you get this much money, did you know that?" There were not enough eyerolls,) to the Unrealistic (If someone asks you what you do for a job you should say "Well I'd be happy to tell you but first do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" SERIOUSLY. You tell me. If someone said that to you in idle chit chat what would you say? "SURE! I'd LOVE to answer your questions!" or "HOLY CRAP IT'S A TRAP, BATMAN! DANGER WILL ROBINSON. FIND ESCAPE ROUTE NOW!!!!" Personally, for me, it would be the latter.) to the Truly Inspirational.

Truly Inspirational was a woman from back east who got a standing ovation. And I wouldn't be embarrassed or uncomfortable using a single technique she talked about. She was just wonderful. 

The closing event was like watching the oscars with a good girlfriend. "Oh, that's a lovely dress" "Oh, dear, that's a good dress but she can't pull it off." "Oh my, who told her that looked good?" "Oh, that is goooood." "That would look good on the older lady on the end but she's much too young for that dress." "Oh, now that dress is beautiful and it fits the theme, too." And of course, my favorite "When it's my turn to walk across stage, I'm going to wear my dress for you before hand and you need to watch me coming, and going and waving above my head to make sure it looks ok." (Yeah, let's not all hold our breaths now, K? But I do have a contingency plan. Yeah, you betcha.)

The winner of the evening was probably the older lady wearing a kind of sleeveless dress with a slit up to her crotch. (My friend swears she saw pink panties. I missed that part, mercifully.) After the ceremony, she walked by us and I could've sworn her right boob was going to fall out of her dress any minute. 

I'm hoping I'll remember the other things I was going to post. Maybe I will later. OOOH, there's a bunch of law enforcement cars driving down by the airplane gates with their sirens on.... Wonder what that's about!