Thursday 31 May 2007

Shadows

I had someone tell me last evening (and I appreciated the thoughtfulness of it) that they did not envy me right now being the successor to Mike, the guy who did part of my job (the exchange agreements) before and whose sudden death led ultimately to my job. He was 47 and died of a ruptured aorta and other complications while on holiday in Greece last summer. I think he came to NAFSA for 20 years at least. Everyone knew him and adored him.

The Gale Mansion did an absolutely outstanding job last evening, maybe smoothing a little bit the appearance of my competence to some of these people, and we had a toast to Mike, etc. It was kind of an ice-breaker for people to meet me and Sally (the new team), so it was a good time. I think people have been kind of sizing me up and it is more than slightly nerve-wracking, esp. when one could be construed as an imposter without a British accent and with a great blue plaster/band-aid* on my knee. But it is really going okay. Although, I am quite ready for the week to wind down (partly because days are 16-18 hours between hotel departure and return and involve loads of logistical planning along with simultaneous short-notice schmoozing. Which I dislike.).

Back to the Gale Mansion... it was built in 1912 as a home (Pillsbury family connections) and is now owned by the American Association of University Women. Lindsey, the catering coordinator for our event, gave the chefs free reign and they served a magnificently non-mundane selection of items -- from little cucumber cups with gazpacho to miniature crab cakes with dijon dipping sauce to handmade macaroons covered with chocolate to miniature lamb chops to calimari and seared tuna skewers to divine chocolate torte. It was too easy! Anyone needing to host an event in Minneapolis should use this venue. It was much more satisfactory than the initially planned location, and several people said they were happy to see something other than the downtown area.

After the relief of having our event over, Sally and I went to the Orpheum theatre for a dinner hosted by an advertiser who wants our business... Oh well :) It was a lovely, lovely theatre -- old movie house, built at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, excellently preserved. Dinner was on the stage (where the Marx Brothers performed on the first playbill) and involved lots of chit-chat over the sounds of a jazz trio, two of whom looked remarkably depressed and maudlin. Very nice end to the day (except that I missed an Oma phone call).

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A command decision has been made this morning. Am not going to the 8am session that I foolishly placed on my schedule in over-achieving fashion. Sessions at all are a pie-in-the-sky idea if one has meetings every half hour most of the day. Oh well :) I suppose I ought to get my black polka dots on for today and put some Vaseline on my teeth (a little joke -- this is to help one smile if one is competing in a beauty contest).


* reason for blue plaster on knee is that managed to injure self, and then lost band-aid yesterday, re-aggravating injury and causing resumed loss of blood. One of other vendors (insurance company -- how appropriate) has little band-aid dispensers for travel, so i went and got one, discovering later the first plaster plastered to the back of my other leg where my leg-crossing had transferred it. Yes, I am five.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are not five... you are 4 and 3/4ths!