Deep in the Heart of Texas (I think)

I always tell people that if we're playing Trivial Pursuit, the sure way to beat me is to ask me questions about geography.  I have no sense of where anything is.  So I know Texas is in the middle and near Mexico, but other than that... all that is to say that I recently went to Abilene, TX for a work thing but if you asked me to point it out on a map, I'm not your gal.  Anyway, about my trip...

I'm sure that most of this post will come across as a jaded New Yorker making fun of Texas, but hopefully it will just point out the everyday quirks of traveling around this great big country of ours.  One or two of these little things would be less noticeable - it seemed like vaguely wacky things happened all week!  Enjoy my vaguely random musings.

From New York, it takes two planes to get to Abilene - for some reason, on both of these planes, we were delayed by mechanical issues and our pilots were entirely too honest about the issues.  From NY to TX, the pilot told us that the mechanical issue that was delaying us was one that had happened on this plane's previous flight, but it needed to be fully taken care of now.  Uh...ok.  On the flight from Dallas to Abilene, the pilot told us we needed to wait for a part to be delivered from the garage.  He told us there was no excuse for the delay and he took full responsibility for it.  Uh...ok.  I actually don't want all that TMI when I'm flying.  Do I really want to be thinking about a missing part or a possible mechanical issue when I'm in the air?  No, not so much.  Thankfully, we made it there safely.

A brief note about the movie I watched from NY to Dallas:  I finally saw Bohemian Rhapsody.  This was a few days after Rami Malek's Oscar win.  I thought he was good, though omg, why was he saddled with those grotesque false teeth?!  I know Freddie Mercury had a famous overbite, but that poor actor could hardly speak at times.  He literally couldn't get his mouth around the words (speaking of the words: that screenplay - yikes).  I felt like he was fighting the teeth the entire movie and couldn't fully inhabit anyone, but I guess that's just me.  I did enjoy the music and have been listening to my Queen's Greatest Hits cd ever since, so maybe that's all that was supposed to happen for me.  I will say that the movie was edited for the flight, so maybe the edits hurt the movie more than I can imagine.  I guess I'll never know.

Anyway, back to Abilene.  The work event was very good, I met lots of nice people, made good connections, and I think the workshop I led was successful.  Most of the comments I'll be making in the rest of the post are about what happened outside of the work event.  So.  The hotel that my co-worker and I would be staying at said we should call when we arrived and a shuttle would pick us up.  We found the complimentary phone near baggage claim, but someone else was on it.  So I called the hotel from my cell phone.  The operator was a bit confused, so I was put on hold.  It seemed as if the woman on the airport phone was put on hold as well.  It turned out we were all going to the same hotel for the same work event, so we quickly became the three musketeers and soul mates by the time the shuttle finally arrived.  Once we got to the hotel, though, ugh.  What an ordeal.  The poor young guy at the registration desk just didn't know what hit him.  He had three women from the east coast who weren't happy that their registrations seemed to be incorrect and that the billing wasn't taken care of in advance.  He just kept saying, "Excuse me, I have to go check something in the back," and he would disappear into a back room.  I think he just had to go collect his thoughts because we were scaring him.  I could be projecting, though.  When I got back to my room at the end of the night, there was a voice mail on my hotel room phone from the poor young guy, making sure I had everything I needed.  I have a fear that we broke his spirit - we didn't see him for the rest of the week, so we imagined he was using some personal time off to avoid us...

probably should've gotten a photo of the elusive water glass

We finally got checked in and headed off for the work event dinner - we had to call a Lyft car, since the shuttle to the restaurant had already left.  Our Lyft driver was very pleasant and told us a few restaurants we should try while in town.  I will have more stories about Lyft drivers later.  The restaurant was nice and it was good to sit down and have a snack, though I think our meals had been sitting under the warming lamp a little too long.  One interesting quirk that happened - when I ordered my margarita, I also asked for a glass of water, because I like to try to have one glass of water per glass of alcohol.  It stems my headache, or at least I imagine it does.  My two pals ordered their glasses of water after they had finished their margaritas.  After a long while, a server comes up to us and says that there are no more clean glasses, so they couldn't get a glass of water.  Silence.  We just looked at each other, then I said, "Can we get three straws?  They can share my water."  I was sort of kidding, but that perked the server right up, and they went to get straws.  But...really?  No clean glasses at a restaurant?!  We weren't there at last call, this was early in the evening.  No one was willing to wash two glasses for the group in the back room?!  Very strange.

The rest of the work evening went well, then thankfully it was time for sleep.  The hotel room was actually nice, very large, with a bar and a sitting room.  I do so love a hotel.  Quirks about the hotel, though, include a sign that said you can't openly carry your gun inside the hotel and a very large granite statue of the ten commandments in the breakfast room.  I was rather nonplussed that such a large religious item that rather looked like a gravestone would be in a common room of a hotel, but I guess that's the south for you.  More strange than the statue was the stuffed bear and coloring book page that sat under it.  I don't know, it was just all strange to me.  But breakfast was free, so I shouldn't complain.  I also want to mention that nearly every bathroom in every venue I was in had a list of the Top Ten Things to do in Abilene.  The tourism center is on the ball and makes sure everyone knows what to do when they're in Abilene, I guess.  Oh, and the small coffee shop in the hotel lobby was interesting, too - they didn't have any venti cups (they were serving Starbucks coffee), even though "they placed the order for cups," and they didn't seem to know what an iced coffee was.  One gal served all milk, very little coffee, and another had to put on plastic gloves and get the recipe book out before making it.  Iced coffee.  Quirky, right?

One of the days we were there had a break of a couple of hours built in, so my co-worker and I went to the Storybook Garden right next to the convention center.  This was a charming place (too bad it was so cold out!  I had packed for 70 degrees, but I don't think it got above 50 the whole time we were there) and we had a grand time wandering through.  Memories of reading the books depicted were heartwarming and being able to take a look at the sculptures up close was terrific.  I'll put some photos below - there's apparently another Storybook Garden a little bit further away from the convention center that has Dr. Seuss statues, but it was too cold to walk that far.  Maybe next time.  It was a nice break, though, to get out of the center and into a little bit of local culture.  I really enjoy seeing local attractions, but I need to be better about building more time into my work schedule.  

About those other Lyft drivers:  when we took a car back to the hotel after the last work event (well, the last official work event, we were off to a closing reception), we rode with a gent who told us all about his seven children, his favorite Broadway show, and his favorite food truck, which was essentially a winery.  He was a personable, charming, chatty guy and it was fun to listen to him brag on his seven kids (one of them is thirteen and going to MIT!).  Another attendee told us a story of his Lyft driver, who bragged about their knowledge of Abilene, even though they went to school abroad.  The attendee asked "Where?" and the Lyft driver replied "Nebraska."  Abroad/Nebraska.  Ok.  (Gee, when I'm reading it now, it doesn't look as funny, but when he told me that story, I nearly peed my pants.)

Heading back home was also fun.  The Abilene airport is teeny tiny, with only four gates.  There are two people who work in the front security - one tells you to put everything on the conveyor belt, then they checked ID, then they hand-carried your bags/trays to the xray machine.  There was a boot jack to help you get those cowboy boots off.  The person handling the big body scanner thing was an Elvis impersonator, I'm thinking.  He had the pompadour, the mutton chops, and everything.  He was very nice, joking with everyone, but still serious about his work.  The flights from Abilene and then Dallas were uneventful, though the TSA agents were extra-vigilent in Dallas (is that where the caravans are??) with thankfully no apologies from the pilots about missing parts.  I watched A Star is Born on the way back and, yikes, that screenplay was pretty terrible, too.  The performances were good, and I liked the music, but did anyone else find the movie a little misogynistic?  She says 'no' to him on several occasions and he just goes ahead and does what he wants anyway.  Is that supposed to be romantic?  And that manager?  Just no.  I mean, Bradley Cooper is terrifically handsome, and Lady Gaga can sing like no one's business, but I guess the alterations this version made seemed even more sexist than before.  Again, maybe that's just me.  I do still have that "Shallow" song running through my head, though.  It's an ear worm.  I probably should've rewatched BlacKkKlansman instead. 

Other random musings:  *I am certain I saw a lynx running around near the convention center, though my work chums said it was a cat.  I think it was a lynx and one of our Lyft drivers confirmed it could've been true.  So now it will be a story for the rest of my life that I saw a lynx. 

*I was a bit taken aback when one of the participants in my workshop didn't seem to understand the phrase "gender parity." Seriously?  I had to work hard not to roll my eyes but just to answer the question calmly.  But.Seriously?!?!

*During the work events, I turned off my cell phone.  One day, I turned it back on and there were many texts and voice mails from the super in my apartment building.  Apparently, he had to crawl through my bedroom window, down the fire escape, to check on someone else's apartment where there supposedly was a candle burning too strongly.  Uh, WHAT?!  That is NOT the text you want to receive when you're in Texas!!  I called the super during the intermission and he assured me that all was well, he locked everything in my apartment back up, and put everything back the way he found it (I have a bad habit of leaving loads of laundry on the radiator which is in front of the fire escape window.  Maybe I will break myself of that habit).  After the Great Fire Adventure of 2011 (you can remind yourself of that nonsense HERE), I am terrified of any fire-related things, so imagine my unhappiness at being so far away during that brief emergency.  Thankfully, all was indeed fine when I got home, but still.

*And does Starbucks have some sort of timed test for its baristas?  Maybe they should.  I have never had a week of such leisurely service in my life; not only in Texas, but also in the new Starbucks in one of the new LGA terminals.  Please, people, we're in a hurry!  We have lives to live!  Sometimes I need to remind myself to slow down.  But even with all the quirks, I had quite a good time.  It was fun to travel with my co-worker, it was fun to make new friends (and soul mates!), it was fun to be in a hotel, and it was great to laugh so much.  I had more belly laughs this trip than I have in a long time.  Belly laughs are worth a little quirkiness, don't you think?