On Monday I went to a few sessions. Met more awesome 'peeps' and had some great conversations about math, grants and evaluations. All good fun and really got my brain working.
Several of us instituted the before dinner beach walkers club and as a result I made a whole bunch of friends and collected lots of shells and sea glass to take home. We walked up and down the beach for an hour each of these days then popped back into our rooms for a quick clothing change and then back out to the hotel lobby to catch the bus for dinner each night.
On Monday we took the bus into San Diego and the gas lamp district. We went to a swanky restaurant that had a tower of wine and a wine fairy who went up on a harness to harvest bottles from the tower. I stuck to the appetizer list and had a crab cake and a vodka and orange juice. Thank goodness everyone takes a long time over their dinner so it did not draw too much attention when I lingered over my food and didn't eat much.
After dinner we walked past several bars including the croche bar. It used to be owned by Jim Croche the singer and apparently currently owned by his wife. There were album cover pictures all over the place and lovely jazz coming out through the doors. We made a stop at Gheradellis (no clue how to spell that) for a rocky road ice cream cone while we waited for our bus to pick us up.
Lunch on Monday was a bit of a challenge-i wanted oatmeal (something smallish with a bit of protein) but they were all out. My choice without oatmeal was chicken noodle soup or a club sandwich. I don't really like chicken noodle so went for the sandwich but of course there was no half choice and ended up eating 1/4 of the beast and carried the rest back to my room. They gave me a big old bowl of fruit with it and a pickle. In the end i tossed the rest of the sandwich and about half the fruit after a night and day in the mini bar.
It is annoying that some places flat out provide no smaller meal options. I guess I need to be more forward about asking for less even if I end up paying for it all. It is after all such a waste to put so much into the garbage every time.
Today I had to be up at 7am to make it down to the sessions for breakfast and opening instructions for presenters. I had a cup of O.J., a 1/4 cup of eggs and 1/2 a scone over the course of the morning. Attended a few sessions, had a couple of cans of Diet Coke over ice. The conference provided lunch buffet style. I used to be really sad about all of the stuff I couldn't have...at some point (and don't ask me when or how) I have discovered the bread basket no longer holds an allure. I took 3 tortellini pieces, 1/4 of a chicken Parmesan, 2 cucumber slices, 2 cooked zucchini slices and later a lovely 2x2 inch piece of lemon cheese cake. There was a session about online games and learning (I will put the websites up after I have checked them out)and then at 3pm had to do my own presentation.
When my session was over we raced down to our rooms and changed for our beach walk. Today I found some really cool shells, three big pieces of beach glass and two chunks of the biggest clams you can imagine! I really thought they were broken pots at first. I showed it to one of the other walkers who is also a science prof and she and the others decided they were shells. They are amazing. I am going to take them home to use with my tutor students. A little geometry is in order to figure out how big they were before they were broken.
After our beach walk we changed and got on the bus for downtown Coronado. The group decided on an Italian restaurant. They had a Caprese salad with Parma ham as an appetizer option and of course my pre-dinner vodka and orange. For some reason this place had HUGE portions. I ended up with three large tomato sized servings. a thick slice of tomato, a 1/4 inch slice of buffalo mozzarella, a basil leaf and thin slice of the ham. I managed to eat almost one of them and then was done. A little later after a walk we all went in for about 1/2 of lowfat frozen yogurt. I again carried my leftovers home but I opened it a while ago to nibble on a bit more of the cheese...it wasn't very good so I have tossed it also.
Tomorrow I will go to sessions in the morning and then off to the airport for the ride home. I think everyone has missed me. I have had several calls from all of my daughters about one thing or another--including a fender bender, Grace missing me and the others wanting information about the fender bender their sister had....As bothersome as it can be sometimes it does make a mother feel needed :)
Living with a lapband after seeing goal is just as much work as getting there. This blog chronicles my journey to qualify for band surgery, my work to goal weight and now living with the band long term. Weight will always be an issue but there is a whole lot of living to be done.
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