Much better hotels

I got to spend the night at home last night, and drove back up to Cheyenne this morning. It's really not a bad drive, not much traffic. I wsa up and out of the house by 6am, which is pretty much the buttcrack of dawn for me. I hate mornings.

The poor Adorable Husband had to roust me out of bed at six, which is always a bit risky for him. I'm not the most pleasant person before I actually wake up (which is somewhere between one and three hours after I get out of bed) and he is just as likely to startle me into leaping out of bed with a snarl as he is to manage to wake me up and get me steered into the bathroom without incident. Then I stand in the shower for twenty minutes or so. He, of course, is perky in the morning. It's a tradeoff -- perky and alert in the morning equals somnolent by eight pm. Me? I hit my stride about midnight. I really got used to being nocturnal when I was off work.

Well, the hotel tonight is lovely -- internet access (free!), big tv, new bed. Not gold and roccoco with gilt mirrors. Much better. Of course, it's near train tracks, so I can hear the train whistles as if they are in the next room, but couple that with the sound of jets overhead from the nearby airforce base and it's barely noticeable.

People eating alone (probably more so women eating along than men) seem to make waitstaff nervous. I usually take along a book to read, or a book of crossword puzzles to do while I eat, and I don't mind being alone...unless the waiter (waitperson? what's the right term now?) decides that I need to be "amused" and that it must be the worst thing on earth to have to eat in a restaurant by myself. They hover, they make weird small talk, they keep interrupting, as if I couldn't possibly be interested in reading a book over dinner and have to be saved from a fate worse than death. The good ones realize that I'm fine, I just need regular refills of diet coke and a box for leftovers...the rest? Well, here's a tip: you aren't going to get much of a tip if you actually sit down at the table with me and make like we're long-lost pals. Unless you look like Colin Farrell, this is not going to impress me much.

Unfortunately, no hockey for me tonight unless I head off into the smoke-filled bar down the road. I'd forgotten that not ever state bans smoking in restaurants. It's startling to be asked 'smoking or non?' when I walk in, and I'm seriouslly apalled at the concept of smoking int he same place people are eating. Bars here are cloudy with smoke, and that's about the only place that gets enough satellite channels to show the Stanley Cup games.

Not that the Avs are going to win. I'm quite sure they're going to go out with a bang, though. Too bad, we'll have the basement done and set up with the theater in time for the actual Stanley Cup games. There isn't even a team I like remaining.

As for basement news -- I have pictures, which are unfortunately on my desktop machine at home -- of the walls up and taped and mudded. Lovely! They actually look like rooms now, and I assume they'll be in to sand and do the texturing. Personally, I hate textured walls, but hte rest of the house is this low knockdown finish, and we want to match. It's easier for the drywall guys, too -- they can be less precise. When we had the kitchen in the other house done, I wanted a "levvel 5" finish, which took them THREE tries to get right and it still wasn't actually smooth. This bumply stuff hides a multitude of sins.

I'll post the pictures when I get home tomorrow!