Brooklyn Heights

This past weekend I stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Brooklyn Heights in order to visit with my buddies Tim and Dan in NYC. Honest to god, I came downstairs at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning to go for a run…and WHAT am I greeted by in the hotel lobby but 15 women dressed exactly alike in some middle-eastern pantsuit/burkha ensemble with the matching hat/veil. Seriously. All I could think was “Oh, goddammit, did those hallucinogenics not wear off yet?” [Just kidding mom…I mean…I don’t even know what those things are – I had to have Anne Louise explain it to me.] =)

It was either the entire crew of flight attendants from Saudi Arabian Airlines or a very, very conservative dance troupe. Actually, it wouldn’t be Saudi Arabian Airlines seeing as the Saudis aren’t especially crazy about pantsuits…or ummm…women.

And here is this little old infidel trotting through the lobby in her shorts and a ballcap, drawing p—len—ty (!) of stares from the Riyadh Rockettes. If that picturesque waterfall behind them had been more real, I would have been in for a good, old-fashioned stonin’ right thare at the Marriott.

And just to top it all off…there was some adolescent beauty pageant ALSO going on at the hotel. So on one side of the lobby you had a gaggle of 14-year-old girls all trying to purge while lowering their IQs by 20 points and on the other side of the lobby you had Esther Williams and her merry band of synchronized Shii’a. It looked like the United Nations’ Committee on Feminist Trainwrecks had sponsored a multi-cultural version of the West Side Story. ummmm…where the $%#&^ IS this hotel…at the corner of aberrant and absurd?

Finally, I just had to say…look people…I am going to go for a run…and when I get back…I’d like for all the “there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I” characters to have returned to my therapy sessions where they belong.