"Sunday" Morning Coffee Pondering

Good morning.  Yes.  I am a day late.  What's the saying?  Day late and a dollar short?  That has been the theme for me this week.  A serious of unfortunate events (another children's book reference huh?) beginning on Monday morning and the hits just kept rolling.  I could blame it on a myriad of things, but I will choose that it is Karma payback for an amazing weekend with the girl friends in Omaha.  I had a good time so need to have a crappy week to balance it out?

I am going to title the Omaha weekend away the "Anti-climatic Pub Adventure".  I will explain later.

Friday, Bailey and I drove four hours to visit Wayne State College in Wayne, NE (WHERE?).  The ice and snow barreling down on the state was going to make the trip very interesting with my little red skate.  But alas, it moved to the north and east and we were able to head out west.  The trip was uneventful until we got to the Missouri river to cross in to Nebraska at Decatur, NE.  HA!  

You can't really tell it in this picture, but you see very crude, rudimentary, hand painted "toll bridge ahead" signs about a half a mile out.  Then there is a steep incline onto the bridge deck.  At this point, I thought Bailey was going to piss herself.  The deck is made of grooved steel.  My little car did not like the grooved steel and started to do this wiggle thing (NOT LMAFO WIGGLE but scary none the less).  She is breathing heavy and closing her eyes and (I think) praying.  I am laughing and holding TIGHT to the steering wheel (OR YOU WOULD SEE SOME PICTURES) and it is a very, very narrow bridge.  We meet a large duelly pickup coming toward us.  She panics worse.  I laugh louder.  (What is wrong with me?)  Any way we finally get to the other side and I have to pay a dollar toll.  I wanted to ask the toll taker if I have to pay money how come the bridge isn't a better bridge but I was laughing too hard (think tears streaming down face) and he looked at me like I have lost my mind.  This was a harbinger of a visit that wasn't going to go so well.  I won't go in to detail, but we spent three hours at the college, the last stop on the "tour" she turns around and says "WE HAVE TO GO" and proceeds to sob all the way to the parking lot in our car.  Sorry Wayne State -- she won't be transferring there.  LONG STORY!

Then we decided to head to Omaha.  The plan was that she was going to drop me off at the hotel (where Curtis was coming to teach a class to First Responders) and Joan and Keetah were coming Saturday morning.  We get to Omaha in pretty good time (despite almost running out of gas and no "open" gas station in sight).  Unfortunately, it is rush hour and my Bailey is not a good rush hour driver.  But, after many attempts and an aborted idea to leave from the hotel (she dropped me off at Westroads Mall) and headed home.  Another adventure for her but she was brave and prevailed.

Keetah and Joan arrived the next day.  Both traveling in from different points from the North and the South.  I felt like the Mason-Dixon line (just kidding).  Of course the first thing we do is head to "lunch".  The first course consisted of these beautiful girls

Long Island Iced Teas

I think that we scared our waiter.  He wouldn't come very close to the table and giggled when he approached.  Hmmmm?  

It was a great lunch (a long lunch) and we then ventured back to the hotel to get "Settled Inn" (HA!  Name of the hotel).  It was an adventure just to find the hotel.  It seemed to be in the middle of a strange land.  A very large parking lot of a mini mall.  It was just plunked down in the center.  A very beautiful drainage ditch was the view.  I bet in the Spring it is lovely.

I at this point looked up area "pubs" to figure out our evening activities.  Found one that was going to have some live music and we decided to do that.  But first we needed to head to the mall.  Walked around there for a while.  No one seemed to be in the mood for shopping.  I did find a new bed quilt and accent pillows for my bedroom.  CHEAP at Younkers.  Other than that......nada.  So we decided to continue with the theme from lunch and stop at TGI Fridays in the mall.  Now I LOVE a mall that has places to rest and drink.  Every mall should be required to have this type of establishment. 

So we "rested" here and refreshed our parched systems.

This picture looks like it is a very LARGE margarita.  But....it isn't.  Curtis just decided to take a very CLOSE UP picture of it.  And look who is sitting in the glass.  FUNNY!

I miss these ladies so very much!  We MUST schedule monthly get togethers.  It will be cheaper than medication or therapy.  We won't talk about the extra expense for wine and tequila.

After the mall, we headed to the "pub" to have some food and YEP you guessed it refreshments.  Now, I keep putting "pub" in quotes.  NOT A PUB!   GEEZ people!  Old Chicago is more of a PUB than this place!  It was a sports bar with a pub theme.  keetah and I decided to share the "Irish Nachos" -- They looked like a sad version of Taco Johns Super Potato Oles.  In fact, TJs are better.  DISAPPOINTED EXTREMELY!  So much so that we left before the band played and decided to head back to the hotel and create our own "pub".  Pit stop at HyVee for some extra stuff and away we went.

I received a gift of this bottle of booze for my birthday.  I hadn't tasted it before the night so we decided to mix it with some Sierra Mist as the bottle suggests.  Um.....nope......TOO SWEET.  So Keetah (SHE IS SO SMART) thought we should mix vodka, sierra mist and just a drip of this.  It worked for about two and then we decided that vodka and sierra mist was the way to go.  Still have 3/4 of a bottle.  I think I will save it for guests.







Our therapy and drinking session went through the night until about 1:30 am.  I so needed that energy boost from them.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

We were up and at em for a scheduled brunch in the Old Market at this French Restaurant.

And SURPRISE Wade drove up from Kansas City to join us.

The meal was amazing.  Started with coffee -- really good coffee, not nasty hotel coffee that I had been drinking the last two days.  And then they called it a brunch, but it was ordering off the menu and I had the BEST hollandaise sauce on Eggs Benedict that I have ever had.  Sorry La Chiesa......it was really good.  It was amazing to spend a leisurely breakfast with great friends.   We then walked around the old market shopping and sightseeing for awhile.

For our next visit, I found our next "pub".  Okay not really Irish, but TEQUILA sounds great!  What a fun name.  Lesson learned that we need to hang out in the Old Market and go to a real PUB!

My favorite purchase of the weekend was THE QUEEN.  I know it is cheesy, but thought I would end my blog with her telling you all hello/goodbye.  Until next time.  Curtsy to her majesty.

(VIDEO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES -- CHECK BACK)