Business Travel is for the Birds

Flight delays are inevitable to me now.  I don't blink an eye when I miss a connection.  I shut out the poor cries and screams of infants, and empathize with the exasperation their parents must feel (for I, too, wish I could throw a big ol' fit on the airplane and get away with it).  I assume my luggage won't arrive with me right away.  I fall into bed in a random hotel and wake up every hour wondering where the hell I am, only to wake up bleary-eyed in a different time zone.  I spend free time pouring over restaurant menus, hoping for some glimmer of home in a somewhat bleak day.  This is what I chose, for now, but what I know I don't want.  I am good at meeting people, listening to their stories, remembering the details, getting the job done.  I can work with four different manufacturing plants through e-mail, voice-mail, phone calls, in person, when I'm there.  But where am I?  I'm tired.  Broken a little.  Lonely.  Homesick.  Who knew I'd be homesick for Wyoming?  I'm really just homesick for my husband, my friends - who I just assume will always be there for me.  This isn't right.

I did have a great meal at Seabar in Buffalo, NY.  I sat at the bar, where single diners feel more comfortable.  Usually watching TV diverts the fact that you are there alone.  I had a really friendly bartender who engaged me in conversation and made me feel like I was less a party of one, and more a passing friend in the evening.  The food was superb.  Asian with a twist, I suppose you could say.  I started with cucumber salad.  My Japanese grandma makes cucumber salad to rival no other.  I try to duplicate her recipe (which sadly, is the way I cook, eh, a little of this, a little of that, taste it, and make it your own), but my recipe always falls short of hers.  This cucumber salad was cold, refreshing, cucumbers so thin I know the chef knows how to use a mandolin: I do not, mine sits in a drawer, begging for attention.  The sauce was mirin - maybe - it was sweet, sesame oil, vinegar, sweeter than what I'm used to, but delicious none-the-less, served over cold, perfect sticky rice.  I was in heaven.  This paired well with my passion-fruit cosmo, by the way.  Next came the Tiger-Eye roll, salmon, hamachi, and I believe salmon roe, lightly tempura'd, dipped in soy and wasabi, I felt bad not eating all of it.  There is nothing like eating with chopsticks to make me feel like home - or rather, that I've transcended the earthly realm.  Then the main course, lobster - my true culinary love because I first had lobster maybe 3 years ago, and it's ridiculously expensive and rare in Wyoming - formed into a perfect circle, poached in butter, and decorated with fresh snap peas, pea shoots, shallots, onions, and a butter/cream/lemon sauce (I dove for the lactose pills as soon as I hit the car, I'm sure I'll pay for it later, though).  It was utter perfection.  The atmosphere was great, the service friendly.

Then I return to a lonely hotel room - a dump this time, if you ask me, the "suite" I'm in gives me a taste of a Manhattan apartment, and I'm not lovin' it.  I'm used to 3,000 square feet of space, in the house, and a yard and garage to spread out even more; moving down to 400 is a shock to my Wyoming-space-livin' body.  After three tries with the Garmin, I found a nice wine store, and am sipping a nice Italian white, watching the Travel Channel, and wishing like hell that I was cooking for my husband in my kitchen, in my surroundings.  Sure, I've got an opportunity here, but is it really worth it when you come home at the end of the day to no one?  I'm learning that lesson.  Coming home with (since we work together) and to the one you love are better than just about anything else on the planet.