To Eat, Perchance to Dream

I returned this afternoon from a two-week business trip to the East Coast. The trip was notable for long hours and for lunches and dinners at East Coast restaurants. (Also, I lived through an 5.8 earthquake and a Class 2 hurricane. Neither amounted to much at my inland work location.)

I found eating out a refreshing novelty at first. Dining with my colleagues, I enjoyed cheerful company and had my fill of cheese steak sandwiches, authentic Italian pizza (all right, authentic American pizza made by authentic Italian-Americans), Mongolian barbeque, spicy Indian buffet dishes, overgrown Five Guys double-patty hamburgers, Texas barbeque, and East Coast sports bar fare lightly seasoned with cigarette smoke. But all of these hearty comestibles, save the vegetable-rich Mongolian barbeque, worked unpleasant and paradoxical effects on my constitution: I was rendered sleepy at work but unable to sleep soundly in my hotel bed. Two weeks of this has reduced me to near zombie-tude.

I was given today off to fly home and take care of errands (haircut, bill paying, clothes washing, etc.). Tomorrow I will return to the East Coast for another two-week stint. I plan to seek out salad bars.

Note to thieves: My house will remained occupied by family during my absence.