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Friday June 1, 2001
"You don't have to be particularly observant to notice that restaurants in France consistently attract larger audiences than churches." Peter Mayle, French Lessons
a dreamlike image...
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day off The Hotel Del Cornonado is a dreamlike place. But our room smells like a dumpster since last night and the bathroom is tiny. There isn't a phone on the desk...it's on the other side of the bed. But there are two phone lines so I drag the phone over the bed and log in and I have about an hour's meeting while FFP has a room service breakfast and gets me coffee and goes off to complain about the room. We spend a bit of time after my business meeting haphazardly pulling our stuff together to move us to another room. The new room is bigger, with a roomy enough bathroom and a view of the ocean. (Well, tha parking lot as well, but still.) We have coffee and a snack and sit and watch ships wend their way across the horizon. We read some. FFP tries for a massage but there are no appointments. We decide on a walk down the main drag of Coronado. An independent bookstore sucks us in briefly but mostly we just look in the windows. A little toy store mixes antique and collectible toys with new things on offer. I have to go in and look a bit. We go back to the hotel because we have some lunch chits to use. We have apps and entreés and two glasses of wine each and FFP has a key lime pie. We manage to overspend the chits, of course. But it is pretty good and the ocean view and cool air is pleasant. We go have a nap. The company's idea of a good business meeting is to take us to a military base to eat a buffet and see planes and helicopters. I'm not kidding. They have given us fake dog tags and identical Tshirts and we look pretty dorky. When the business meeting is over people stream out to line up for buses and the porta-potties. "Ladies and gentlemen," says one of the organizers, "Do you know there is a band playing inside?" We can, of course, hear it. Back at the hotel we have a few drinks with friends and listen to a wonderful jazz/blues duo of a piano player and lady singer. After midnight, we head for the old elevator. Too lazy to walk to three, we let the elevator operator take us up. Yes, the elevators still have operators.
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