Back on the grid

Oh, gentle readers, how I've missed the internet!

We weren't stranded on a desert island for three days - nay, we were in a gilded, posh hotel.

That charged 12 bucks a day for internet. No Wi-Fi. Ethernet cables available from the vending machine for $10.

(That being said, Jason had brought an ethernet cable. He just didn't want to spring for access. He checked his email on his phone.)

I guess it was worse for him than it was for me, since I was in seminars part of the time.

We had a pretty good trip down Thursday. We arrived in Biloxi around 6:30, found the hotel, and checked in. We were all famished by that point, so we decided to grab dinner before unloading the car.

Oh.my.goodness. Usher was performing there Thursday night, in a charity show at the pool, and there was a line near the bank of elevators that led to our rooms, snaking around the corner and taking up a good bit of the hallway into the mall.

And what those girls weren't wearing would fill a book. I saw a pregnant girl with little-to-nothing on and a MIXED DRINK standing in the line! Did she not remember that it was probably that behavior that got her into that shape in the first place?

When we returned from dinner (and a trip through Biloxi where we kept going down dark streets that dead-ended in water) it took us 30 minutes in the parking garage to find a space. Apparently, all the Usher fans thought their $10 ticket entitled them to the same spaces that we paid $300 for.

I was soothed to sleep by the sound of the folks in the room next door yelling at each other. Thank God for ear plugs.

Saturday morning I had to get myself ready, and Anna Marie. She was leaving for Press Camp at 8:00 a.m.

I didn't see her again until 9:00 p.m. She went to two parks, the beach, Chuck E. Cheese's, and the movies, where she saw Kung Fu Panda.

And, as you can see from this photo, was not ready to go to bed when we got to the room, even after all that.



(Yes, this is where she slept, in two pushed-together chairs. They were comfy, and kept her animals from falling off the side, and she didn't seem to mind. Here, she's watching a movie on the laptop, which is what Jason spent most of Friday doing in the absence of suitable internet.)

We listened to the governor talk for an hour about Medicaid, and get corrected in front of everyone by his wife. We ate lunch next to the pool, and I thought how intimidating it must be to come to work in a two-piece bathing suit every day, like the waitresses did.

After lunch, I donned my new suit and lay by the pool for an hour or so. The weather was beautiful, and it was very relaxing.

Friday's dinner was divine, as was Saturday's lunch, when we had fillet mignon, rare. I won one award, a third place for best editorial page. I'm a little disappointed, since I won more last year. But my publisher has already informed me that if I don't get a first place next year (and we're notified of the first places ahead of time, so we can get PDFs of the winning entries in for publication) that I'm not going.

And Anna Marie has already informed me that I must get a first place next year, so she can return to Press Camp.

I'll have to write a whole nother entry about our return trip. And we won't even talk about how my eating went. And when I show a major gain on Thursday, I'm chalking it up to water retention.

Yep, denial is no longer a river in Egypt.

I only regret that I didn't get to take more pictures, but I was so tired Friday afternoon during our free time that I just lay in the bed and watched television.

And that's one of the best part of the trip - the freedom to do nothing for a few hours.