Oh Hot Cakes.. it's Monday again... LOL. I have been on the go all weekend and had a great time beginning with impromptu yard-saling Friday evening (that new GPS thing is really coming in handy, LOL, I'm beginning to learn my way around MY OWN TOWN after far too many years!) and again Saturday morning. And yes, I had a place for everything and everything's in it's place. Founds some GORGEOUS stained glass windows with Hummingbirds on them in honor of Cutty. A great baker's rack for the laundry room to organize. Had a lot of fun for both of us. Mushy is quite the travel companion.
Then off to Dallas Saturday afternoon for lunch followed by the Wine Tasting Tour with BCF. In retrospect, I realize I should have asked more questions when I made the reservations. She gave me the number to phone as she saw it on TV; I believed her when she said 'we get taken around to vineyards, samples, and dinner at a great Mansion with a vineyard.'
Wrong. Oh So Wrong. 'Wine Tour' was merely a label for 'shuttle bus full of strangers who get wasted over a few sips of crappy wine and grow progressively drunk and loud during the evening of being hauled around to WINE SHOPS and ends with being crammed into a long table at mediocre restaurant with the typical 'large crowd' service. Yes, I know I read like a snob but the two tickets were $200!!
On top of that ~ BCF didn't tell me she was going to wait until mid July to pay HER HALF. I don't like that. Not one bit. I will NOT be making arrangements like that for both of us EVER again. It reminded me of Blondie!
So although it wasn't 'intolerable' just something I won't do again without asking MANY more questions. Live and learn.
Actually, the $20 late lunch we shared earlier in the day was better than the dinner. I had salmon on tomato skins (basically a few oz of fish on a single tomato) but was relieved it wasn't a great 'volume' as I'd been looking forward to AND SO ENJOYED the Maple Banana Bread Pudding. Yes, all of those delightful things in one dish. If it had contained raisins I'd probably have licked the bowl. But totally fabulous.
So fabulous that when the 'chocolate brownie w/a cookie and ice cream' came as the dessert at the 'fancy' dinner I decided to just stare at it and imagine it tasted great. By then the Tomato Bisque (cold, watery) and Trout (cold, dry) had forewarned me to not get very excited by anything else. One bite confirmed it to be sufficiently underwhelming and I was so relieved to go back to the hotel. Alone. With Mushy.
She's really starting to get her groove on at hotel travel. She LOVES running the halls because they are level and carpeted.. so she doesn't slip like on tile or take a beating on her feet like when we jog on cement. So yeah, we're like kids running the halls. Then she piled up on the pillows in on the sofa. Too cute. We snacked on some chips & chocolate I'd brought then went to bed.
Woke to the wonderful sound of rain despite falling asleep with that same inexplicable focus on 'complimentary made to order breakfast is served from 7:30 to 11:00 am'. The only thing I can conclude, as this wasn't a trade show weekend, is that the thought of something 'free' (like hotel breakfast) just grabs my attention although I'm rarely hungry in the morning anymore.
So no breakfast. I finally got myself around, dressed and made our way home with a couple of shopping stops. I picked up another Betta ~ a butterfly ~ and named him Alex. I have no idea why that name. If he lives past a week I'll post his picture. Picked up a couple of pretty blouses and a pair of jeans at Ross.
Grace and I met for brunch. I had the local version of a 'Monte Cristo' and again, not that great. Ate a few bites and called it quits although I ATE the rest of it late last night when I let myself get too hungry. For the most part though my eating was mindful and proportional. Not everything fresh or perfect but I didn't eat beyond full and stopped eating (and in the case of the wine - drinking) if it didn't taste absolutely wonderful.
So for about a week I've had this 'feeling' about a certain casino ~ one to which I've never been ~ and my plan when I pulled out of here last night was to go to it. But something got confused - either ME or my GPS - and I ended up at a different one in a different direction. Will investigate that later. No huge win for me ~ financially ~ (literally, broke even ... once I won as much as I'd wagered I cashed out and LEFT) but I consider it a victory that *I* left here, alone, on a Sunday afternoon. I knew I wouldn't be gone too long for Mushy to be home alone and it was interesting to be in the car just ... feeling things... without being distracted by her or using her as my security blanket (I often drive with one hand on her).
Whenever I would have the urge to 'forget it.. turn around.. go home' I would argue back 'hey, you've come this far... finish it.' And it gave me another notch on my seatbelt that I *can* go somewhere roundtrip without a problem. Little by little I'm breaking free of that Stockholm syndrome.
That's about it for now. Mystery dinner theater coming up this weekend. Maybe I'll even mapquest my casino hunch and try it one eve before then. Hmmm...
Hope you're all doing fine. Thank you for stopping by and visiting with me.
Bella
