I’m typing this from the heart of wine country with a complimentary beverage of the area by my side. Sonoma.

About a year or so ago, I went on my first work retreat in a Mexican village. I dreaded the trip. Dreaded being with co-workers who I didn’t yet know from a state I had just moved to and talk about work, a concept I will always have mixed feelings about.

I swear to god, somewhere there’s a self-help, workplace consultant, game playing guru chuckling over inventing retreats. It all came about from a twisted reinterpretation of Stockholm Syndrome no doubt.

This year’s dread, which grew into fear and loathing worthy of Hunter S., but unfortunately lacking the ether, ammunition and Dr. Gonzo banter, crept in because I know the job better now. That knowledge meant I pretty much on my own had to set the whole motherfucking retreat enchilada into motion. Talk to hotels, haggle prices, get rooms, get food and tell people where to go. You’d think I’d like telling people where to go. Hasn’t rocked as hard as I wanted, perhaps because of where I didn’t get to suggest.

Dealing with arranging 20 people from different backgrounds, different experiences, different levels of self-awareness from four different time zones just fucking sucks all away around. I am too exhausted to play the ice-breaking games I luckily won’t have to play.

Cockeyed, crazy, laser beam sunshine sweet optimist that I am, I’m losing all Is that aren’t in team and making a whole bathtub full of lemonade. That would be a Jacuzzi brand tub.

Here’s the flipside of feeling the hurt of planning a big work function. You’re ground zero, the bullseye, the lynch pin of all contact with the hotel staff, and they know you are the one to review the contract, pay the bills and make happy nice business happen for them.

Thanks to that dynamic, I sleep here tonight.

That’s a pic of my suite. There’s a bunch more pictures here.

Fireplace, Jacuzzi, four-poster bed, a balcony overlooking a fountain, complimentary spa lotions and salts, wine and the fucking size of a decent sized studio apartment in Cambridge. You gotta check the pictures.

Retardedly plush. Especially considering my beau snoozes about 70 miles south of here, and I should be doing some work reading.

By the way, I have no business in a fancy schmancy hotel. I like parking my own car and carrying my own bags, valets and bellhops make me jumpy.

When room service brought my fabulously delicious club sandwich, the room service dude knocked when I was taking the pictures. Being as I’m about one beat away from the Beverly Hillbillies, I confessed to photographing digs I ain’t never seen the likes of. Not only does the toilet flush, but the magic water tub shoots jets.

I am a giant rube-like dork.