There’s Something About A Hotel Bar

There’s something about a hotel bar that I just really like.

It’s never strange to eat and drink solo. Tired travelers make chill seat mates. Bartenders are used to making tired people in transit feel at ease. In the Charleston episode of No reservations, Anthony Bourdain described Waffle Houses as “irony-free zones where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.” I feel like hotel bars have a similar vibe, except with more irony and very little judgement.

Last year Jake won a trip to see the Final Four in San Antonio over Easter weekend. Sunday was our only (mostly) free day. Jake opted for a group wine and rum tour. I gladly opted out of the wine and rum tour and found myself alone on Easter for the first time.

That morning, I pulled up a seat at the hotel bar, ordering two mimosas and an Easter buffet for one. The woman sitting next to me was also tagging along on her partner’s Final Four work trip and opted out of the group activity. We commiserated about introvert things and clinked mimosas.

A 90’s Post: Things Our Kids Will (Probably) Never Experience

January 21, 2019 / Jeni / 2 Comments

Between bites of McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches at 6:30 a.m. last week, we had plenty of time to chat on the car ride to Rochester for another infertility appointment.

Whether or not this succeeds or fails, or if we adopt, or both, our children will grow up in a different world than we did.

It’s weird to find yourself on the other side of “I think I’m old now!” coin.

Most of these things are super specific to the grade school I attended. Jake commented they most certainly did not do many of these things in his public schools. Millennials from District 196 can relate. 90’s sensibilities were different than today’s, for better and for worse.

Here’s a list of things our kids will (probably) never experience at school:

Eight Years Later: Reflections From A Semi-Retired Influencer

November 25, 2018 / Jeni / 12 Comments

I feel like this chapter of my life could be titled “Tales From a Semi-retired Influencer.” From the first post I published on my old Blogspot blog to the present, it’s been a wild ride. Here are some thoughts that have been whirring around my heat and heart lately as I reflect on joys, regrets and learnings from sharing myself online for much of a decade:

Thoughts Three Weeks After Deactivating Facebook

October 21, 2018 / Jeni / 2 Comments

Three weeks ago I left Facebook.

It feels weird.

I’ve been on Facebook ever since my sophomore year of college. Back then it was for college students only. Facebook slowly added one college at a time to access the network. I mean, the social network lollll. We celebrated the day Facebook finally added our college.

We excitedly added the high school people we hadn’t thought about for three whole years and our new college friends.

Before all of the privacy settings you could totally stalk your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend or you could poke people. Statuses were limited to “[Insert name] name is ________.” We also wore ties as belts, bra straps as head bands, and blazers over graphic tees. It was a strange time.

This Is One Of Those Currently. . .Posts: Mid-Summer Edition

July 10, 2018 / Jeni / 6 Comments

I’m doing one of those “Currently. . . ” posts because I want to and it feels good.

Currently, like right this second, I am on PTO.

This is no resting vacation, this is a working vacation. We’ve got a list of DIY projects that can’t wait another winter.

Like my friend once said, maintaining an old home is like keeping an old person alive. Jake and I aren’t particularly handy and we don’t come from handy lineages. These projects are knocking the wind out of us.

The man we bought this house from completed a lot of his own DIY projects that we’re having to redo. For example, he painted our deck with some type of strange, interior paint. Trying to figure out how to re-stain it has been our latest adventure.

Category: Memoir (page 1 of 20)