Little Zelda's trip to Southern Comfort

Or, why I suck at trying to blog at an event...

Really, I do. I get so caught up in things that posting about it kind of falls off. It's like taking photos-unless I really think about it, I don't. Which is why I do not have many photos of myself. I know, bad Tgirl, give back your licence...

So, let's start over?

Tuesday

Wake up far too early, toss the last few things in the bag, check the weight with the luggage scale, everything's under, great! Say goodbye to the family, drive to Love Field for my flight. I really like flying out of Love; it's closer to the house, small enough to get in and out of quickly. Park the car and yes, it's now raining. Get to the terminal, queue up for the baggage check in and thank Southwest for not charging fees. Find out that the baggage scale is crap-I'm five pounds heavy. In the middle of the check-in counter I haul out two pairs of heels and move them to another bag. Problem solved-but now I have a broken nail that's too far gone to fix so I snap the rest of it off. Damn!

Queue up for the security line, only mildly irritating. The flight leaves right on time, and we're in Birmingham a little early. I'd never flown into Birmingham; it's not a big airport, which means I get my bags quickly and the car rental counter is RIGHT THERE! Pick up my car (thank you, Hotwire for a cheap rate), pay the rip-off extra insurance (because my credit card won't cover damage) and get a Nissan Versa. It is a basic transport pod, underpowered but adequate enough to make highway speeds if you don't mind winding the motor a bit..

The drive to the hotel isn't that long-about two hours and a bit. The Crowne Plaza Ravinia has been the host hotel the last three years; we've both gotten used to each other. This year, I got a room on my own; first time in years. I do like having my privacy and space. After checking in and getting pretty, I went to my favorite nail place and had the works done-manicure, pedicure, brow waxing. The women there literally jumped on me-I had two nail techs at the same time, which made keeping track of who was doing what interesting. My color of choice? OPI's Lincoln Park After Dark-very deep purple/black. With lots of clearcoat, they were nearly impervious (at least for me-no dents or chips all week!)

Back to the hotel, found friends and ended up in the lounge chatting. That's pretty typical for me-I'm very social at SCC. Which is weird since I'm usually shy. Maybe it's because I am kinda known there, and have a reputation already? Dinner was a salad because I didn't feel like leaving the hotel.

I did see a friend I didn't expect to-there was a death in the family. Her spouse's mom; she was going to stay for the funeral and come down on Friday. These are two people I really care about-they invited me to their wedding, and that was really touching. We ended up closing the bar, and not totally sober...

And with that, I'll post Wednesday in a bit.