Granted there is nothing like being able to take photos of Womens’ Restrooms at airports ’round the world but I’m not exactly living the lush life. Lush as in lavish, opulent, luxurious.

To give you some idea of what it’s like to be a frequent business traveler, I’ll work my way backwards.

Last Friday I made it back to Vino Volo where I had last spoken with a stranger.

This time around I sampled wines, read a book and enjoyed my own company.

The traveling life looks good, huh? OK, there may be some lushness here.

Since I tasted all this wine I had to avail myself of the facilities, which provided me with yet another Restroom Seeking Opportunity. This being my last week in Seattle and who knew when I’d be back at Sea-Tac, I explored another terminal.

This is what I found:

Dark floor tiles, dingier wall tiles, again with the shelf OVER the toilet, I think I had found the older part of toilet town.

Feel free to compare it to the what is provided at the N gates. Still very clean, if nothing to write home about.

So that was the end of my week. Let’s rewind to Monday.

I flew in Monday, which meant I had to unpack and iron. This hotel provided suites. Suites mean kitchens and living rooms. Yep, quite the glamorous jet-setting lifestyle.

Here is where I performed all manner of maintenance rituals, too many to recount. Good thing I don’t do much with my hair and barely use makeup. It’s my oral hygiene fixation that slows me down.

I think I’ve seen these stickers in hotels across America.

I would think that using a sprinkler head as a clothes hook would be very inconvenient but then again, most people are taller than four-foot-ten-and-three-quarter-inches.

Since this hotel catered to business travelers, they provided wireless Internet and a desk. Yes, those are the infamous postcards on the lower-left corner. All the comforts of home and of course, unlike home, there was Housekeeping.

The hotel provided complementary: breakfast and dinner, 24/7 Starbucks coffee, and who wudda thunk it, free local beer and boxed wine during dinner.

Interesting things happened in that dining room.

I thought this was a bullet hole but I am no ballistics expert. I was told this was a rock strike.

But that wasn’t what was so interesting. The dining room looks very innocuous doesn’t it? I certainly thought so. If you recall, I am pretty clueless.

Last week I was sitting alone at one of those tables, sipping wine and writing my postcards to a few of you.

Until a stranger spoke to me.

Some things to ponder…

Free food, Starbucks and booze??
Ms. Q knows how to iron?
How big were those wine glasses and how many more of them weren’t in the photo?
That looks like a bullet hole to me.
What’s up with married men who don’t wear their wedding rings???

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If we don’t talk with strangers we see on a regular basis, we certainly won’t go out of our way to talk with someone we likely won’t see again.

Unless you’re trapped with them for several hours.

Trapped. Not moving. Stuck.

Various Trapped-With-Strangers Scenarios:

• Airplane.
• Waiting in line at the post office.
• Waiting in line for the women’s room at any big event.
• Stuck elevator.
• Doctor’s waiting room.

Even then, most people will stay in their own heads. They’ll reel it all in and be a Self-Contained Unit.

Last Friday I was at Sea-Tac. Here’s a photo of the OUTSIDE of the women’s restroom.

Sculptural clouds on coppery tiles – not bad! Sea-Tac does it up nicely, that’s for sure.

I usually head right to my gate but as I headed towards the trains I passed through the dining and shopping area. I generally breeze past these airport malls but I looked at my watch and saw that I had over 2 hours until my flight. The food choices in my terminal weren’t as enticing looking as what I was seeing here so I looked around.

I spotted 2 wine bars. TWO! Washington is definitely my kinda state! Side note: Oregon is nice, too. Known for pinot noir.

I like the looks of one place – low cocktail tables and padded chairs. They offer wine flights – 3 small tastings of wine, which add up to one glass.

I don’t find the food that appealing – I’m sure it’s good but I’m not in the mood for duck confit or antipasti. I just want a salad so I pick one up a the place next-door and return to the wine bar.

I ask the waitress where I could sit and she says “Well…you have outside food so you’ll have to sit in this outer area.”

The outer area extends a bit into the concourse but is protected by a low wooden rail. I end up in a corner right near the rail. I order a flight that features all Washington reds and pull out a book. I briefly consider taking out my laptop but the guy next to me has his out and it all looks so unwieldy. The table isn’t much bigger than his laptop.

My wine flight arrives. Three glasses on a small tray with a guide describing each wine. The guy next to me is moving around. He stops one of the waiters and asks if the waiter would watch his stuff while he goes across the way.

The restrooms are in our line of sight.

The waiter is leaning down and hesitating. I can see that he doesn’t really want the responsibility of keeping an eye on this guy’s laptop, Treo, all this stuff.

I catch the guy’s eye and say, “I’ll watch it for you.”

The guy pauses. I’m firmly ensconced my corner.

I’m a four-foot-ten-and-three-quarter-inch Asian female just under 100 pounds. Totally harmless. There are 3 small glasses of wine in front of me. I’m not going anywhere.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Sure. No problem. Where are you going?” I say.

“Uh…just across over there.” and he points to the restrooms.

“OK.” I say. I have a great deal of respect for restrooms and the need to use them.

He leaves his laptop out but puts away his Treo. I think it’s a Treo; I’m not all up on the latest and greatest phone-PDA-gadgets.

And off he goes…to go.

Speaking of going…this is going on longer than expected.

I’ll be back. Will you watch my stuff?

Not exactly a cliffhanger but to borrow a bit of Ricardo’s style….

Will he be back?
Were any of those glasses of wine any good?
Again with the chatting with lone men at adjacent tables!
The guy was drinking white wine, what is Ms. Q thinking???

Is Ms. Q truly harmless?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I know you have been putting 2 and 2 together and ending up with a number approaching 4.

This means you’ve been ruminating and your ruminations went thusly:

1. Ms. Q went to Seattle.
2. Unless Ms. Q lives within a reasonable driving distance, Ms. Q probably flew.
3. Flights involve airports.
4. Airports have restrooms.
5. Ms. Q takes photos of airport restrooms.

This has led you to ask yourself:

WHERE ARE THE AIRPORT RESTROOM PHOTOS???!!

Interesting question. I’m gonna hold off answering that for a while.

Delay your…gratification.

I’m gonna torture you. I know you want it.

You want it BAD.

Don’t worry. Ms. Q will deliver. She appreciates people who share her Public Restroom Fixation.

I’ve always liked the name of the Seattle Airport: Sea-Tac.

It sounds adventurous. I had visions of seaplanes and orange life vests and manly men squinting into the sun in their manly flight suits.

Why I had these visions, I have no idea. Well, OK, I do have some idea: TACtical. SWAT Team, Navy SEALs. Then there is the fact that if I’m gonna have a vision, I may as well include some Manly Men.

I wasn’t thinking: SEAttle-TAComa. Yaaaawwwn.

Speaking of Tactical, I had to be fairly strategic in taking my Sea-Tac Restroom photos.

If I were REALLY Strategic in my Tactics, I might try taking photos of the Men’s Restroom but I’m not that stealthy. Nor do I have the kiwis for such an endeavor.

Have I whetted your appetite enough?

Let’s get to it then. Let’s take a peek into a Sea-Tac Women’s Restroom.

These photos are actually from 2 different restrooms. The fixtures were the same but some of the decorative accents were different.

This photo shows a bit of sculptural molding above the mirror.

This photo shows a cleaner look.

One thing that I liked was that the restrooms were spacious, clean and had plenty of stalls. NO WAITING!

The stalls themselves were clean, with NO ANNOYING AUTOFLUSH and regular Toilet Paper Rolls!

I didn’t experience any icky backsplash nor was I left with USELESS SHREDS.

I thought the coat hook was nicely designed as well as functional.

However, I never understand why shelves are placed over the toilet. Over-the-toilet placement just doesn’t seem…strategic.

There were plenty of mirrors and nice shelves below them.

The Sea-Tac restrooms were a clean act. I would like to say that they are also a Class Act but the cleaning supplies were left out in the restroom. This wasn’t a rare event as I saw this on two separate trips.

Yes, that is my backpack. My WORK backpack. Big Purple Backpack, the backpack you know and love, is my vacation backpack. It also does double-duty as my grocery shopping backpack. BPB and me are missing South Africa, that’s for sure.

But I digress.

I give Sea-Tac 4.5 flushes out of 5.

So…Did I give you Airport Restroom satisfaction?

………………………………………….

I don’t go out of my way to think of Minnesota, that’s for sure.

But for some odd reason, Minnesota keeps coming up.

The last time I was in Minnesota was huh, several years ago.

It was in the winter. Negative 19F with the wind chill.

Not fun.

I was there for work. Well, I sure wasn’t there for the Mall of America. I wouldn’t think Metrosexuals roam there. Then again, who knows?

Anyway, I was in Minnesota. In the winter. The locals were bemoaning how mild it was. Remember, the temps were -19F with the wind chill factor. That’s too freakin’ cold for it to snow.

For the locals, SNOW = FUN.

For Ms. Q, SNOW = Nail-in-the-eye.

So no winter sports. No snowmobiles. I guess there might be ice fishing.

The project was lots of fun. If you like nails in your eyes. Or in this case, icicles.

That was the last time I was in Minnesota.

Not that it was all bad. I was working with a team and every so often our manager would fly in to cheer us up. He would take us all out to dinner and he found this great place called Cafe Havana. I still remember the paella. You had to order it something like the day before and it was fantastic. Nothing like paella to defrost your toes. Memorable after all these years.

Cafe Havana was close to Sex World.

Did that make you blink? The first time we shivered our way from the car to the restaurant and spotted Sex World’s garish neon sign, we were all a bit stunned. Something did not compute.

Brain lock. Well, Brain Freeze might be more like it.

Minnesota. Sex World. Winter.

Hmmm. If it’s too cold to do anything outside what to do…what to do…

That all was years ago and I really hadn’t thought much about Minnesota.

Until recently.

For some odd reason Minnesota keeps coming up.

It all started with my reading “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper” by Diablo Cody. The author writes about her experiences as a stripper. In Minnesota.

She also worked for Sex World. The only thing I call really recall about the book is that the strippers who wore white heels got more tips. This surprised the author who had made the mistake of buying black shoes.

Her thought was that there something about the white/virginal-sin/stripper dichotomy that got the men all revved up. Hey, whatever gets the tips.

Speaking of strippers, guess what else Minnesota is known for? The Hot Dish.

Someone I knew had moved there for work and told me about this regional specialty.

Sorry, it doesn’t involve white shoes.

It’s a casserole. Here’s how you make a hot dish:

1. Get a pound of hamburger.
2. Add a can of soup.
3. Mix it up.
4. Either pour the mixture over some type of empty carb or top the mixture with an empty carb. If you want to go crazy, do both.

Example 1:

1. Mix a pound of hamburger with a can of cream of mushroom soup.
2. Pour over a mashed potatoes.
3. Bake.

Example 2: Mexican Hot Dish

1. Mix a pound of hamburger with a can cheese soup and a packet of taco seasoning.
2. Pour over tortilla chips.
3. Bake.

Strippers and Hot Dishes. They really do go together. I found out when I accidentally typed in Hotdish Dot com in my browser’s address field. I realized my mistake as soon as I hit the return key when my brain caught up with my typing.

I had forgotten that hot dish had other connotations. If you’re not 18 years old, don’t try it. Or don’t say you heard it from me.

The next time Minnesota came up was when I began reading Speedcat Hollydale’s blog. He lives in Hollydale, MN.

Then I’m ordering something and the company is located in Minnetonka, MN.

Then I have dinner with someone and learn he’s from Minnesota.

Last weekend I was attending some training. The instructor mentions that he’s originally from Minnesota.

I am not sure if all this has any significance. If I were looking for Portents and Omens I think the glowing neon signs of Sex World have been dimmed by time.

However, while I was Googling to figure out if Cafe Havana was still in existence, I found this review of its bathrooms.

If that ain’t a sign, I don’t know what is.

OK, so it’s not quite on par with a burning bush and I have no idea what it all means but it’s a sign.

It’s a sign I gotta go …

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I was never big on magazine subscriptions in the first place. I have enough to read as it is and magazines usually end up as clutter.

Or bathroom decor. Yeah.

Admit it. Unless you have a fiber-rich lifestyle, you catch up on your reading in the bathroom.

The few magazines I have subscribed to have been Consumer Reports (at a dollar an issue, it was tough to beat) and Gourmet (back when I wanted to be a chef).

However, I was recently given a gift subscription to a magazine from one of the hotel loyalty programs. Last year I was really loyal!

I just received my first issue. I am flipping through it and at annoying intervals stuff starts falling out.

I’ve flipped through magazines at airport bookstores to kill time. I’d forgotten about all the times I’ve had to stoop down to pick up the exhortations to subscribe. They never fall out all at once, either. They seem to be timed to fall just when you begin to straighten up.

I want to relax while reading. I don’t want a workout.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .