This weekend was the Rotary District conference in Springfield and since I’ll be an officer next year, we decided to join in the activities. Friday night we ate at the ballpark and watched the Springfield Cardinals win 7-3 over the Northern Arkansas Naturals. Saturday morning I attended a breakfast and presentation on how grants are used and it was really interesting because some of the scenes were in northern Thailand and involved Rotary clubs we met on our trip there in 2004.
Then Saturday night was the banquet which was a wrap-up of the current year and a kickoff for the new year which starts July 1st. Friend Vickie and I had emailed back and forth with our speculation on the food – I started with “wonder what kind of chicken we’ll get at the Clarion for $25″ (and that $25 also gave you a drink ticket at the reception prior to dinner!) – Vickie replied that whatever chicken we had, it would be served with long green beans, rice pilaf and cheesecake for dessert – and of course the salads would already be on the table each adorned with one cherry tomato and 3 croutons along with ranch and french dressings – and the table cloths would be blue with yellow/gold decorations! We had fun speculating on the scenario and here’s what we got:
The tablecloths were white but the napkins were Rotary blue – the centerpieces were large glass goblets (really pretty cool) with floating white candles. The salads did indeed have the requisite one cherry tomato but they forgot the croutons – and they substituted raspberry vinaigrette dressing for the french but of course had ranch. We really missed on the entree – no chicken although I would have preferred it to what I think was pork loin but it was disguised with too much gravy. The long green beans also had long yellow beans and carrots with them and instead of rice pilaf, we got piped-on-the-plate mashed potatoes! I don’t know what the dessert selection was – you had to go to the dessert table and Burl returned with cheesecake for himself but I passed!
The bright spot were the wines from St. James Winery – we especially liked the Friendship School Red and they also had Rotary wineglasses which were our favors. Best of all, we sat with our buddies Rob and Vanessa with whom we always have a great time and lots of laughs. The only minor tragedy occurred as I was getting ready to go – I’d been powerwashing the deck all afternoon and by time I stopped to clean up, time was at a premium. I’d bought a new dress last week at Dillard’s sale – not that I needed it but hey, it was on sale and really cute – and when I put it on, I realized I had purchased the wrong size! I’d tried on a petite and a misses and obviously picked up the wrong one – so I scrambled at the last minute to find something appropriate and now that dress will go back. Oh well, maybe I’ll find some shoes with my credit!
This evening it’s 81 and I should be outside powerwashing our deck but somehow I picked up a sore throat over the weekend and all I want to do is curl up in an easy chair and read – sounds like a plan to me!
