1st annual Hospy awards

David & I had a date Saturday night to an awards dinner at the Anatole.

I had only been there once since prom my junior year and that was when I was working for Channel 5 and went on press credentials to hear Deborah Tannen at the International Association of Business Communicators (probably 1996?).

Anyway we dropped off the kids at Mom & Dad's where they were watching the Tech/ UT game. (David filled me in on this Saturday morning as they were getting dressed, so they all wore their Tech gear.) Carmen later remarked about how long we were gone: "We watched a whole movie AND drew pictures for an hour AND (I can't remember what else she said) for an hour!"



Turns out that the people/businesses who won awards all seemed to sponsor the event, and the "hospies" (hospitality industry awards) mostly went to the (surprise, surprise) highest-dollar, high-brow hotels. We sat with two women David works with (Megan and Patricia are in the marketing dept. Mom, you might remember Megan--she went to SG but didn't have you in class.)

It was also a silent auction where people bid on hotel stays and after the awards were presented, there was a live auction for 10 different packages including trips to L.A., Colorado, Barbados & Egypt. There seemed to be two themes for the night: pineapples, symbolizing hospitality, and exotic locations. They had models in Oscar suits holding pineapples--most people didn't seem to realize they were real people, not statues, but I first noticed they were different heights.

They also projected a huge pineapple on the wall, served non-alcholic pina coladas, and pineapple-shaped things like a small chocolate on our dessert plates. There was a big Buddha statue and two girls in togas up on a high sushi bar.

I had filled up on the hors d'oeuvres in the reception area (shrimp cocktail, shrimp sushi, the pineapple drinks, and some mushroom-mixture-in-a-pastry-shell), so I barely touched the lobster bisque in a bread bowl, the prime rib, potatoes, asparagus, or roll once we were ordered to proceed into the banquet room.

A band played while we were served and I collected $100 coupons for limo service from everyone at the table. (Thought those might be good drawing prizes for the seniors I'll have in a couple of weeks!)

After the dinner, it took forever for dessert to be served and we considered leaving far before that, but I was afraid we'd miss something fancy like a souffle--which I had thought I'd seen when we first spied the bisque in the bread-bowls.
Dessert turned out to be something like an upside-down chocolate cupcake drenced in chocolate syrup and caramel. My plate was actually missing the ice cream scoop as if the waiter knew I couldn't have it (but she didn't).

Anyway it was a nice night out together--we hadn't done that in a long time, and it was a lovely night.