(no subject)

This morning, I woke up around 6:30, and dozed until 7:00 or so. I didn't wander down in the hotel because I didn't think the dining room would be open. (Silly me.) I ate in the room, and got the wake-up call at 9:00 while I was eating. I waited until 9:30 to call Karen. I also called Seth and woke all of them up.

I need to clean and assemble party goods for Fred to drive back to Mpls while Karen and I flew back. Karen said to stop by in 20 minutes, so I called Tammy and wandered down to Ops where she was hiding working on the ConFusion Newspaper. That's where I found out that we'd won the ConFusion Party Award and would get one free night in a suite next year!

I went upstairs to the 16th floor where the party rooms were, knocked on the door and woke Karen up again. I wandered around trying to get things together to take them down to my room to wash them (I was stuck in a non-smoking handicapped room because I wanted a non-smoking king... ) The closet and shower wuz too low. The toilet wuz too high. And, as I continued to complain about the feather pillows on the bed, my bed gradually became colonized by pillows, feathered and foam. (I started off with five feather pillows, complained around 5:30 after Karen kicked me out of the party room, and gained two more foam pillows -- the next day, the maids made the bed with the foam and feather pillows. I complained at the front desk, and so they sent up two more foam pillows. Had I stayed, I'm convinced the bed would have been totally covered in pillows....)

I cleaned up two crock pots and some silver ware in my bathtub, and then took them upstairs, when we woke the people in the other of the double bed (oops, room) to find that I still had one more crockpot to clean. I assembled as much of the party supplies as I could find, boxed them up and with Fred, took them out to his car for the drive back to our fair cities.

I checked out of my room and went up to the party room. Karen and I went down from there to the lobby. She went off in search of a "Guy" and I tried to check the ontime status of the flight. For some reason, nwa.com kept giving me the status of the Saturday flight... something not really of interest to those of us flying on Sunday.

Seth and Sharon arrived at the lobby and asked me to send a copy of the MInicon flyer to NESFA... which I e-mailed off. Karen returned, found the valet, and had the car pulled up front. It was then off to the airport. The roads were free of ice and the sun was shining. It was quite a contrast to our drive on Friday night.

We dropped off the car, took the Avis bus to the terminal, checked our luggage, got our boarding passes and found the gate. They called for volunteers, but by the time we got up the desk, they didn't need any.

We boarded the plane and took off. Karen slept most of the way, I dozed off now and again.

I called Thong when we touched down to pick us up, and then we waited for the checked luggage to arrive. And waited. And waited. And waited. When it finally arrived, I saw Thong go past. And then we waited for him to come around again. And waited. And waited. And waited. When he finally showed up, we hoped in and dropped Karen off at her house. I called Quang's and we ran there for a pork salad and a beef salad. Then home.

My suitcase is still sitting in the kitchen, although I've read the Sunday NY Times and the Stribune. My weatherbug is chirping at me, which isn't usually a good sign.