Part of the work I do, includes serving on boards for organizations that advance the kind of work I do. I am in the third year on one of the best board appointments I have ever had, this board generally meets in person three times a year, twice a year at conferences (hence, Newport Beach, California, and Denver in the past year) and once a year the organization pays for an annual "board retreat" two days of meetings in someplace nice.
The first year was Charleston, South Carolina, it was nice, I was having trouble with my funny walk and didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. Last year was Portland, Oregon - great fun, I was moving much better and had a nice wander around the city. This year is Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side. A little hard to get to, but it is a spectacular place.
Most of the board is from the eastern half of the united states, and here we are for the second year in a row, in the Pacific time-zone for the board retreat. This results in waking up very early local time, and wanting to fall asleep early.
One of the traditions is the board dinner on Thursday night. Last year in Portland, we met at a nice restaurant 6:30 local time - 9:30 east coast time and they served wine for an hour. Then we set down and it took the restaurant an hour to serve the first course (salad) and more, much more wine. Entries were served at about 8:30 pacific time, or 11:30 east coast time, and the wine just kept flowing. Most of what I remember about desert was that we were having a hard time keeping a couple of board members from trying to dance on the tables.
This year, it was cocktails on the beach at 6:00, and a buffet at 6:30. Much less opportunity for people to get crocked before dinner, and while still late by my bodies standards, dinner at 9:30 is much easier for me than dinner at 11:30. It worked much better. My digestion still does not like the large volume of food and drink at that late hour, but it will calm down in a day or so.
It is always important when traveling across time zones to keep one's body in mind when scheduling meals.
what sort of cocktails?
ReplyDeleteI a basic open bar, I had a small scotch on the rocks (okay blended scotch - nothing I would buy for home) and a black-Russian. I should have had couple of glasses of wine.
DeleteI flip west to east about 10 times a year. I think west to east is easier since I live an early schedule out here. I'm usually up at 5:30 am so 8 am is easy there and I eat dinner at 5:30 here so dinner at 8 is easy there. I just stay basically on my schedule. Coming this way from there would present issues for me similar to yours.
ReplyDeleteThat second pic of you is particularly good. I downloaded it.
ReplyDeleteOnce a year I travel to warm and sunny California during the depths of winter here on the East Coast. I was surprised that it doesn't take me too long to become acclimated to the change of hours.
ReplyDeleteI must've been one of the table dancers in Portland, because I don't remember that! I agree that this year was much more civilized, though.
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