Actually, it wasn't. He sits next to me anyway, so he would've just told me up front, which he has done several times now. Think further away from the centralized area.
My breakfast of chocolate croissants, fruity danishes, fruit salad, and all the juice I could drink wore off pretty quickly. I had only been in the journalism conference debriefing meeting for 15-20 minutes until I left again for my lunch venture. This time, it was at the Hudson Institute to hear a lecture on the Coptic Christians in Egypt, and how they are being marginalized due to increasing "Islamization." Being from South Carolina, I’m sort of used to be surrounded by lots of conservatives. I’ve learned that they can sometimes be pretty cool people too, and I have a quite a bit of pride in going to school at USC—excuse me—University of South Carolina. (I forget that I can’t say “USC” outside of South Carolina, as everyone mistakes it to be Southern California. Whatevs, our Cocks can tear up their Trojans any day.) But I digress.
I arrive at the Hudson Institution 5 minutes early for their luncheon, slated to begin at noon, as stated on their website. As with the morning event, I planned early and had already RSVP’ed. I walk into the room, and head straight to the back.
It wasn’t terribly fancy, but it sure was delicious.
After more-than-one helping, I had altogether: 3 veggie pitas, one-half of a turkey sandwich, four cookies, a bag of chips, a Diet Coke, and a bottle of water. Just call me McGluttony.
The pitas were stuffed with diced cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, basil, and onions, seasoned with a light Mediterranean sauce. It was sooo good. The turkey sandwich on pumpernickel was yummy as well, but not as much as pitas stuffed with cucumbers. By the time I had finished eating and making small conversation with a random Egyptian intern, it was already 12:25. I figured I would hang around for a little while longer, maybe grab a couple more cookies. By the time 12:35 rolled around, I was getting antsy. I had already spent two hours at my morning event and I didn’t want to spend another two at this event, out of guilt for being out of the office too much.
The Hudson staffer made an announcement saying that “His Grace,” Bishop Thomas of the El-Quessia and Mair Diocese would be arriving in a few minutes.
Decisions, decisions...
Although I was interested in the talk, I decided that it would be better to peace out now than to possibly hang around for two hours and not have any time to do real work today.
I went up to a staffer and asked, “Would it be okay if I went downstairs to meet my secretary real quickly and come immediately back up?”
“Yes, sure sure,” he replied.
A cookie and a bottle of water still at hand, I made a dash for it.
I feel bad. I sure hope I don’t go to hell for this.
With the new rule of not “stealing” food, a couple of my options for dinner are now crossed out. Luckily, I still have some plans in the works. Third blog post later on tonight. =)
P.S. And just to prove my point from my previous entry, here is an e-mail that I received while working on this blog post. Names have been removed for privacy reasons, another progressive act.
From: xxx Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 5:21 PM Subject: call em like u see em
Me, xxx, and xxx agree with your blog
U better call it out!
-an unfavorite intern
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