Living the life

I’ve been living the life style of the rich and famous the past few days. Tagged along to Dallas with my husband to watch him receive an engineering award at an engineering conference while my mom watched the kids. We stayed at a hotel where the rooms start at $495 a night. And you know what? Even though the place was Texas-sized enormous, and the lobby and atrium were glitzy, and the pool and workout room were glamorous, the beds were uncomfortable and the only coffee to be found started at $3.50 a cup for a tepid watery brew served out of a big push top carafe. Disappointing. Good thing we were on government rate.


We had a room with a balcony overlooking the atrium, like everyone else. I woke up a little before my husband one morning and sat out there to take in the view. The atrium’s glass ceiling was a magnificent feat of engineering that topped a faux Texan landscape, a faux Alamo façade, a faux oil derrick, and a faux saloon. I felt a little like I was at a Texas Disneyland. Although the water feature’s falls added a soothing lull to the scene, from some elevated speakers, country music played in the background. So at 7:30 am I was listening to waterfalls and “if you’re going through Hell, keep on going,” wishing I had a cup of coffee.

Now that song is stuck in my head, which isn’t a bad theme song for the last weeks of school, especially when you find out one kid got detention while you were gone, and another one bombed a final.

Although the only part of the conference I attended was the awards luncheon, which, aside from the decadent three layer chocolate mousse dessert, was only a step or two up from school lunch, I did do a fair share of people watching. One lady caught my eye – and probably everyone else’s. She was wearing a tight black mini skirt, an off the shoulder white blouse and three-inch red heels. Betraying an inbred stereotype, I whispered to my husband, “She doesn’t look like an engineer.” He replied, “She’s probably in marketing.” Marketing something, for sure.

Not only did we stay in a deluxe hotel, but we won the rental car upgrade, also. The first night we were there, a big hailstorm hit Dallas. We happened to be at dinner at my brother’s house, where we spent an hour huddled in the hallway, playing Lego games with my nephews while baseball sized hail pelted the house. When the storm finally blew over and it was time for us to go, we found that the Toyota Corolla we rented had a shattered windshield. We drove it back to the hotel cautiously. I had visions of a tiny piece of gravel adding the final bit of pressure to the glass, causing complete disintegration. A call to the rental agency led us to believe we’d have to drive back to the airport to exchange the car for a safer one, but lo and behold, the next morning we found that there happened to be a rental car station at the hotel. But of all things, all they had left was a Mercedes. So we had to drive one of those the next couple days. I’m not one to care much about cars, but this vehicle really had some oomph. Helpful when we were running late to the airport because the GPS and the road signs didn’t match up and we couldn’t decide which to follow.

A few days spent in a fancy hotel and driving a fancy car could only be followed by a fancy plane ride. My dear husband booked my ticket with frequent flyer miles, and the only seat left on the way home was in first class. I did enjoy getting to line jump at security, and getting to check my bags for free (they were carry-on size, but I had picked up a few things at the exhibitors’ booths at the conference: pens, post-its, thumb drives, grocery bags, water bottles, little stuffed eagles and dancing robots, all emblazoned with logos from firms that do business with engineers), but I can’t say that riding in first class really felt that much different from the back of the plane. Yeah, I got a free cocktail and a bag of peanuts, but I don’t think I could ever justify the expense if I were actually paying money.

While on the plane, I finally finished Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra. I’m afraid I didn’t give it the attention it deserved. It was an entertaining biography with lots and lots of background about the conspiracies of Octavian and Mark Antony, but the whole time I was reading it, I kept wondering where the author was getting this stuff. So many details about the emotions of the main characters seem to be fabricated, but they make for an interesting read. I want to go back and check out the fifty pages of footnotes, but I’ve got to give the book back to its owner. And I’m about a hundred pages into Atonement, which a friend gave me two years ago right after I saw the movie and fell in love with James McEvoy all over again. I’ve been waiting to read the book until I forgot the movie, which has stuck with me. But the book has details galore that didn’t make the movie. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, but the ending I remember from the movie wasn’t satisfying, so now I am interested to see how the book ends. Next on the list: The Moviegoer. What I really should be doing is going through my books to get rid of some before our move. (Lucky for me, I just found out I am now able to claim some of my lit books as “professional gear,” since I actually got paid for teaching this year. That gives me a little less anxiety about needing to downsize, but I’ve told myself I’m going to fill at least one box with books to give away. Still have about 2/3 of the box to fill.)

Although this trip was full of luxuries and perks, I can’t say it was the best vacation ever. The timing was bad, we had a lot going on at home, and I just felt out of place. I am not a first class passenger. I'd much rather go camping with the family than run off on a hotel getaway where I'm afraid I'm wearing the wrong thing because outside it is nearly 90, but the temp of the indoor artificial air felt close to 60.  Even the fancy car caused me worry because I couldn't help but think of how much more gas it used than the Corolla.  I was happy to come home to the chaoticly enmeshed family we left behind.  Sometimes the best part of a getting away is seeing more clearly how good you  have it back at home.