Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Conference Food

Well, the blogging will be light, if at all, the rest of the week. I am off to the annual conference that I go to for work. This is my sixth year of attending this conference. Every year I see the sign telling us what city it will be held the following year and every year I say to myself, “I won’t be going since I’ll have that new job I keep thinking I’m going to get.” Yeah, whatever.

So as I think about which suits to pack, the question inevitably comes up: which suit just fits and should be worn early on and which suit has some extra room in the waist line for later on in the week? See, at these conferences it’s all about going out to REALLY nice dinners, on an expense account, and drinking REALLY heavily, on an expense account. I already chose the restaurants I’ll be taking my “clients” to for dinner and now I’m working on the lunch locations. All of this also reminds me of the first one of these meetings I went to. Ahh, to live and learn….
I had set up breakfast meetings, lunch meetings and dinner meetings on each of the four days. (As some of you may know, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to eat. In fact, one might say I have a hard time stopping eating. I literally eat, not until I’m full, but until I feel sick or the food is gone.) SO at the breakfast meetings I’m ordering huge meals; omelets, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes, French toast, you name it, I ordered it. I was doing the same thing at lunches. No simple salad and breadsticks for me; salmon, steak, whatever the special was. Then there were the dinners; appetizers, salads, huge, rich meals and dessert. Needless to say that by the end of the meeting the suits were a wee bit on the tight side. BUT, I ate it all and every morning squeezed right back into those control top pantyhose and heels like a real trooper.

By the last night, back in my room, after the last amazing meal, my stomach had had enough. Suffice it to say, it all came back up. The omelet on day one, the cannoli on day two, the 8 oz. filet on day three, ALL of it.

Me, being the idiot that I was, thought, “Hmmm, I wonder what I ate that made me so sick.” I DON’T KNOW JACKASS, MAYBE IT WAS EVERYTHING?!

Uh, yup, it was everything. Felt right as rain and ten pounds lighter the next morning. Since then I have learned that I will in fact get another meal and that I don’t have to pig out at every meeting, to always wear pant suits so you don’t have to deal with control top and finally, to make sure that the larger suits get worn later in the week and the ones that fit perfectly get worn earlier on.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Fashion Don't

With all the rain we had over the weekend I got to do all the indoor things I’ve been putting off all summer. Who wants to waste a gorgeous sunny day inside?. So I got up, downed a pot of coffee (yes, decaf, that’s another post for the non-knowing folks) and got to work organizing and cleaning the closets. Truth be told, not much organizing and certainly NO cleaning got done. What got done was me pulling things out, trying them on and then reminiscing about where I was, what I was doing and who I was dating when I actually wore the hideous thing. Then laughing hysterically while thinking that I actually wore it in public. Then putting in back in the closet because hey, it MAY come back in fashion.

For instance, I actually have a leopard print skirt in my closet. It was for summer. I wore it. In public. More than once. In the last decade. I even have witnesses. Scary, hunh? I like to keep it to remind myself what a fashion faux pas I am. YES, I know I don’t need that skirt to remind me of this fact.

Then there is a really nice Ann Taylor black skirt that comes right below the knee. I wore it with heels and a pink tailored shirt and a black leather jacket. Doesn’t sound too bad does it? Well, it was a “petite” (I’m sure the only reason I got it was because it was on sale) and I am 5’ 8”. It was not a nice mid-calf skirt. It hit me right below the knee and after trying it on I realized that I looked like I was 60. Good grief. Why didn’t someone TELL me this when I wore it?!?

Fashion Tip of the Day: You’re always safe in jeans and a white t-shirt. Unless of course the jeans are pegged and the white shirt is five sizes too big and belted…. Ahhhh… the 80’s….. now where are my Reebok hightops and hair scrunchy?