"I'm in Connecticut!"

Well look at this...I had to go all the way TO CONNECTICUT to get online. Fucking laptop.

Ahem.

Hi! I'm in Connecticut! It's a business trip so my apologies if I'm within an hours drive of you & did not swing by to say hi. My bosses are doing the Celebrity Chef Sundays at Foxwoods Casino which holy shit! This place is HUUUGE.

We flew up on Saturday morning. This is actually only my second trip with my bosses, the first being to Nashville and not requiring air travel. As the travel is paid for as part of their appearance contract, they fly first class but I am resigned to coach. It's not bad, though, since I check in at 1st class with them, then go through 1st class security and even pre-board with them.
I guess there's not a direct flight from Memphis to Hartford, so we had to go through Detroit. That was super-easy though, since our arrival gate and departure gate were directly across from one another. My flight to Detroit was horrendous, as the flight was full and the man next to me reeked of cigarette smoke and stale alcohol. The flight from Detroit to Hartford was very bumpy, but at least my seat mates were clean-smelling women. Teenagers in the seats behind me were unnecessarily loud so yeah, flying coach still pretty much sucks. I didn't get any photos of pretty leaves from the plane because of the cloud cover. When we landed, it was raining in Hartford. Okay, I suppose I brought the wrong coat then.

A stretch limo picked us up at the airport for the hour's drive to Foxwoods. It was mostly uneventful except for the moment that traffic stopped in both directions on the highway because someone's dog had jumped out of their car and they were running around trying to catch it. (I do hope they were successful.) It was rainy and the limo driver was listening to NPR's "On the Media." I know this because I had listened to the same radio program that morning at 6 a.m. when I left my house.

The VIP escort met us at the casino hotel. She was wearing jeans and flip flops. Also? They said this was an Indian Casino but I've yet to see any Indians here. I'm pretty sure that's false advertising.

We did a walk through at the theater and in the kitchen, then went to dinner where we were treated like royalty with the chef sending out all kinds of appetizers and bottles of wine for the table. That almost makes up for all the people who just walk up to the Celebrity Chefs AND HUG THEM. I'm sorry but I do not want to be famous if it means strange people coming up to me and invading my personal space. That is just so weird. I would never do that. I can't even imagine.

We had a tech rehearsal at 10 a.m. this morning, so I set my phone alarm for 8 to give me plenty of time. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that my phone did not reset to Eastern Time. So I got up at 8 a.m. Central Time and began the day running an hour late. Ever the professional, that's me.

At least the sun is out, so I did get some leaves photos. (From the casino window. I haven't actually stepped outside since we arrived.)

And now? I'm about out of time on the computer that I paid $8 to use. So I will bid farewell. Hope your weekend is grand.





PS - People here talk funny.