minneapolis, whee!

I made it to Minneapolis in one piece.
So did my Sprout & Gram.
Yes, its been that kind of day.
Very long drive, and it was hell getting out of town this morning.

My back, sacrum, sciatic and freak neuropathic pain in my toes are all less than impressed with the journey I took them on today. I may need an extra pill or six to get to sleep tonight.

We're staying at a really nice hotel.
We have sleep number beds. I'll tell you right now, they suck. No matter what Lindsey Wagner says.
The waitress in the hotel restaurant, clearly made a foolish judgement when she saw us at her table.
Her name was Harmony and she was horrible. She made the service of the dude from Hiro (I'd link but I don't even want to think about that night) look like a champ. The pink and purple striped haired girl with the tattoos.. and her kid in a wheelchair.. and her mom warranted shit service.

Why is it that servers so often tend to not realize that broke ass people understand WHY you should tip and WHY its important (financially) to servers. I may not have bajillions of dollars to throw around, but I know how to tip. I tip well. You don't go somewhere to eat unless you can afford the food and a proper gratuity.

ex. I'm eating my popover, when she comes out with my soup. My plate is directly in front of me. She doesn't make eye contact, she doesn't speak, she just.. shoves a plate holding a bowl of gumbo, underneath my knife weilding forearm as I'm diving to scoot my plate out of the way.

She didn't take dishes away.. came with soup, didnt take popover plates.. came with food.. didnt clear soup dishes.. Frank brought our food. Frank was friendly, smiled, passed out food.. we like Frank.

I wish I had better examples, but its hard when your server pretty much ignores you unless she has to deal with you. We should have just ordered room service and had someone deliver it on up to us.

She was abrupt, rushed, non smiling and bordering on annoyed when asked questions such as.. "what are your soups for today". Sprout has a cold that is kicking her butt. By the time we got here, all she wanted was "chicken noodle soup, a glass of chocolate milk, my pills and to go to bed". When a kid says that, you don't argue.

I thought maybe she was having a tough day or something and tried to lighten things up, relax things, whatever. She provided crappy service and seriously, treated us like cheap bastards who are going to leave a lousy tip (she was all glarey and all but sneered 'is that ALL?' when all cait wanted was a (ten dollar) bowl of soup and chocolate milk. and not an entree.

Harmony got 15%. I didn't round up.

We have a pool and a hot tub. They are open until midnight and re-open at 6am. I think my back is going to request a soak. Sprout and Gram went to bed early. Bosley is over at

mantofev

's house. She posted a picture of him in his new light blue preppy sweater. You should go check out her blog and see. Elvis is still pathetic and is being cared for by my upstairs neighbor.

Tomorrow morning, we head over to the Shriner's Hospital, so we can talk turkey on what direction we're going to be going with Sprout. Hopefully, we wil be headed in the direction of progress. I could use the feeling of some progress. We're going to talk about that hip, and how its doing. We're going to talk about her spine. We're going to be talking splints and chairs.

Cross your fingers that it all goes smoothly and works out to be everything we've hoped for and then some. I want to sleep in my own bed tomorrow night.