Cincinnati

I have had a lovely week in Cincinnati. It would have been even lovelier to have Spring-like weather, but we had winter weather instead. And that is okay, because I was mostly inside the elegant Hilton Netherland Plaza Hotel.

On Monday, my cousin Marie picked me up at the airport, and I spent the day with Marie and Steve and their son Eric, and assorted dogs and cats. I can't remember all of the animal names, but they have a lovely black and white pussycat named Josie, who was small in size and really pleasant, reminding me of our Lakhi. Here is a picture of Marie and I. Sorry that I am so weird looking, but it proves that Marie and I were together in the same place.

 It was so much fun to spend an afternoon and evening with her! She cooked some lovely food--she said she got the recipe from my sister Colleen--and a salad that involved a lot of chopping, which reminded me of Marie's chopping of the onions when we made tacos once upon a time. (The finest, most finely minced onions you could ever want!)

The conference was good. It was fun to room with first Janet and Janice, and then Janice and Anita. Sadly, Anita's husband has pancreatic cancer. ANOTHER ONE. I am so sad about that. I am just surrounded with too much cancer for these many months. So Anita is contemplating what it will be like to live alone.

On Friday night, we went to see NEWSIES at the Aronoff Theatre in Cincinnati, which was a short five minute walk away from our hotel. Since we got our tickets so late, we were all sitting alone in random seats, but that was okay--we at least did not talk too much during the show, right?  I took a picture of the theatre at intermission.

 Then it was finding each other (seven of us) after to walk back to the hotel...that was not easy! While Janet and I were standing looking up the stairs to the balcony, we saw a bunch of girls with soft curlers in their hair. Like, two or three or five girls at a time. They were completely un-self-conscious about it. Just walking along with their boys wearing their curlers. And they were at a Broadway show! And they were just "Here I am in my curlers." Well, solidarity--there were so many of them. Apparently there was a show choir competition or something, so all these kids were in Cincy and went to the show and wore their curlers. We saw more of them today while out for lunch.

When we got back to the hotel and got on the elevator, a young boy (not so very cute, either) and his father got on the plane elevator. His father remarked that the boy had "just got off work"--he was like nine years old, so Janet said, "You are the boy from Newsies!" And he was the young actor who played the character named Les. So that was fun. Also a crew member was on the elevator with us. She was really nice. So. The dad was a great stage dad--they were staying on the 6th floor, but they rode all the way up to 27 with us so he could sign programs and schmooze with "his public." He was enjoying it while he can--he will age out of the role in a year or less. Hah--Les, less. So there you have it!

Today, we took some pictures. We have such nice people in our chapter. Here we are with Josh, who is a library student in Wisconsin, but who is from Oklahoma. Nice young man.

Josh, Janice, Me

Janet, Josh and Me

Notice how Janet and Josh and I are kind of color-coded. So therefore we needed a photo op.

Now Janet and I are waiting in the airport, and I guess our plane is going to be a half hour late. So far. So, we will be waiting...