O. H.

I. O.

That is the required response by the way. In case you're not a Buckeye and didn't know. I would hate for you to not know. How can you live life, not knowing the response to infamous "O. H." question?

So I went to Ohio for work. To Columbus to be more exact. My hometown and the office that I started with in my company. Whenever I am home I try to stop by and visit old friends but this is the first time I have ever went in an "official capacity". It was kinda interesting to go back to see the folks I worked with at one point in time, when I was "low man" on the totem pole but now I am part of "Corporate". Still the low man mind you, but with that slightly empowered "Corporate" entity behind me. I don't care for "Corporate" title. People always think you are coming to tell them how to do something or evaluate something. That's not remotely close to why we were there. Anyway, enough boring work-ish type stuff.

I arrived to my hotel, The Renaissance and went to check in. I immediately noticed that everyone in the lobby/bar were quite beautiful. Like, really beautiful. It struck me as a little odd but ummm, kay. It was 11pm and I was tired so I went to check in and this happened.

Hotel Desk Gal: We're currently at capacity.
Me: (I start to slightly panic in my head)
HDG: We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are going to upgrade you to a terrace level suite.
Me: Ok....wait, how do you NOT have a room? Wait - did you say Suite?
HDG: Yes Ma'am, but it is the living area of a suite. With a sofa bed.
Me: (Lost my buzz when I heard sofa bed) Um, sofa bed?
HDG: Yes, it is a very plush excellent quality sofa bed. I will send housekeeping up immediately to make it up for you. We will reduce the nightly rate due to the confusion.
Me: Oooook.....?

I went on up to my room. OMG - I don't care if it IS a sofa bed, it was so lovely. I ordered some room service, had a glass of wine, settled in and went to sleep. BTW - no alarm clock, no clock anywhere in this room. I suppose you don't need one when you have a wakeup call but still....a little odd.

For the record, it was a regular old sofa bed. You know, the one with the bar that sticks in your back. I moved to a regular room the next day. Needless to say, I was disappointed. What do you mean the "regular rooms" don't have 32" flat screen tvs'? Alas, I had a real bed and that is what was important.

Remember the beautiful people I mentioned? It appears that some Abercrombie & Fitch regional sort of meeting was going on. It was like being in one of their catalogs. My colleagues (all men) were sorely disappointed when we returned to the hotel and they had all checked out. There was a little eye candy there for the ladies too...it was nice. Hehe.

We had an amazing dinner the next night at Mitchell's. It is right across from the hotel. We noticed some unusual activity, roads being blocked off and all sorts of others. Turned out that Joe Biden arrived and did his post debate interview from the hotel. Obama was also supposed to arrive later that night but that never happened. Bill Clinton did arrive the following day though. Wow - so much activity.

I had set aside a night to have dinner with my Mom & Grandma. My sister joined us too. We had awesome food at Smokey Bones. Can you tell I was seriously off the Jenny Craig wagon at this point? Oh sweet, succulent baby back ribs - how you whisper my name. Mmmm - it was worth it. Grandma had a great time, she got a little worked up and had one of her "spells". This prompts her to take a dose of nitro and wait it out. They normally last about 2-5 minutes. She is 90 years old with a myriad of ailments too long to list. I think an episode every once in a while is pretty good considering...

And then more office stuff (Boo), back on a plane and home to see my boys. I really did miss them. Did Ricky grow while I was gone? It sure does seem like he did.

I actually made it home on Friday evening but it took me THIS long to recover, do laundry, spend some quality time with the kid and write this post. Man, I was tired.

It's so good to be home.