You're Famous!!!

Apparently I am full of obvious statements, because I said this several times this weekend. As I am sure most (if not all) of you are aware, BlogHer '09 was in the heezy this weekend.

I "attended" this mother of a conference. And by "attended" I mean I RSVP'd to a few things and went to all the free parties I could finagle my way into. This weekend served to only whet my appetite and now BlogHer '10 cannot come fast enough. So, here's some of the fun that went down.

I was lucky enough to spend the majority of the weekend with Katie. I'm fairly certain she just kept me around for comic relief & inappropriate comments. I'm hoping I didn't embarrass her as much as I think I did. Honestly, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have been able to meet one of my blogging heroines (more on that below). Without giving too much away, I must say she looks quite fetching in a paper bag hat.

I got to see my gal Alice, whom I can safely say, I lurve MORE now (if that's even possible). She is now a must have at any event I attend. Funnily enough, she was staying with Pseudostoops, with whom I have a bizarre past connection with. Who knew that the vastness that is the blogosphere is actually a teeny tiny world?

As usual, any event I am involved in will include spilling and true to form, I spilled several times on several different people.

But! What is more important are the new connections I've made. I got to meet Sizzle, Nilsa & Lara; gals who were on my "periphery" but are now front & center. Honestly, I'm not sure I've laughed that hard in a while.

And OH MY GOD MOTHER OF PEARL, I was lucky enough to meet a few of my blogging heroines/idols.

Laurie from Punk Rock HR is one of my new favorite people (in real life, cause now I KNOW HER!) I am in awe of both her knowledge base and kindness to fawning, awkward fangirls. And she's hysterical, and little like me, and holy crap I need to fan myself.

Then!!! I got to meet The Bloggess. Can I just say OMG The Bloggess knows who I am. She's snortingly funny and didn't seem the least bit disturbed that I stalked her. I kind of can't say anything else because the whole thing is so exciting that I start to stutter.

And I got to hug Crystal from Boobs, Injuries & Dr. Pepper, and then I got to talk about boobs with her. I imagine it's like talking about hockey with Bobby Hull.

I'm sure that there is more to be said. But I'm hoping some other ladies will do it because, WHEW! I am exhausted!!! I have already started plotting for next year.

I call dibs on @animalcrackers to be my roomie!!!

Annnnd scene

Of course it hasn't taken me a week to write about my trip to D.C. That's soooo unlike me.

So Friday night was rockin. Saturday I slept in a bit and then took a short trip out to Georgetown. Had delish French Toast at Clyde's on a recommendation from the Moms. Wandered for a bit and then came back to D.C.

After a quick wash of the bits, I met up with Alice for dinner. And then it was off to the bar. I FINALLY got to meet my hockey soulmate @JacksCaps and holy majoly, she is a riot. I'm worried if I talk about her more, men in dark suits may show up my door, so I'll just shut my trap.

And then hoooo boy it was on like Donkey Kong. I finally got to meet some sexxxay ladies and some awesome girls I didn't even know about and now I can't live without.

There was drinking. There was most certainly dancing. There was uhhh.....this.

(photo edited to protect the not so innocent)
(no, I'm not pregnant. It's just a blousy top)

Finally, toward the end of the evening (well, MY evening anyway) I accompanied Alice, LiLu & Maxie to a strip club.

Yes, you read that right. A strip club. No, I haven't quite figured it all out yet. Apparently, it's quite the "D.C" thing to do. Maybe I've been missing it, but I would have no idea where the nearest strip club is. Aurora maybe??

At any rate....the entire evening was a rollicking success. It's looking like I'm going back for the "wedding to end all weddings".

I am the flower girl after all.

Friday night's alright for...

So, chickens, where we're we? Ah, yes...Friday night festivities. Well, after Alice figured out that it was me texting her, I got on the magic that is the Metro and went to meet mah gurl.

Needless to say, she is FRACKIN FABULOUS. Some other things about her:

*She makes a kickass pasta sauce (with nutmeg!)
*Her cats are adorable
*That one date? The crazy one? The text & voicemail is even funnier than you can imagine.

So then we went out to Reston for a quick blogger meetup (where I couldn't figure out what name to go by). On the way there, an old lady decided she just loved! my necklace. To show her appreciation, she firmly poked me in the sternum. And that's how you make a wee little Chicago girl jump 5 feet in the air and make her eyes look like saucers. Alice assured me that it is NOT standard Virginia behavior (thank goodness).

And then we take the magic Metro back to really get things going. And by "get things going", I mean me, losing my footing & tripping on the sidewalk.

Let's fast-forward a bit, otherwise we'll be here all night.

*I drink several Malibu & Pineapple's
*We get to witness some of the more awful/awesome Douchebag fashion
*I make a mid-evening shoe wear wardrobe change, due to several unfortch stiletto/wooden deck slat incidents

I'm also gonna bullet this one too...cause I'm tiiired.

*We meet two guys, one of which was cute-ish and did cool remote control-y weapon stuff.
*One of them gets into a debate with Alice over Women's Rights and divulges his "opinions" over how if women don't want to have a baby, but the man does, she should carry it for him and then just sort of "hand it over". No doubt misjudging the look of horror on my face, he says, "and from the look in your eyes, I can tell you agree with 90% of what I'm saying". Noooope, in fact, I disagree with about 99% of what you just said.
*Then, upon my discussion of how the Hawks have a large quantity of Czechs & Slovaks, he tells me that I'm awful and that it's racist to say things like that. Moving on.

Since I'm sick of typing, I think the rest I'm a-gonna save for my own little memory hope chest.

D-Shizzle...

People! The Metro! OMG, I could just die, especially since it's back to the rickety old El for me.he

Soooo...D.C. Twas AWE-SOME. Here's the play-by-play (ish)

My flight was pain free and the trip from the airport to the hotel was super quick and easy. I get to the hotel and all looks pretty good. I ask about the room service cause I'm too tired to go out to eat. Despite the fact that on the website it says 24 hours I am informed it is not. Ok, no biggie, I'll just eat in the restaurant.

I get upstairs to the room and it's much smaller than I expected. It's smaller than expected because there's NO FUCKING TUB. Uh, exsqueeze me? Needless to say, I am a tub person and this pissed me off for the entire weekend.

Fast forward to Friday. I head out for my White House tour. Now, without giving anything away, I had reason to think that this would be a bit more than the standard everyman tour. It was not. I already knew what the Red Room looked like, thanks to the Brian Williams special. The tour itself was a letdown. I'll leave it at that.

Then it's on to the Holocaust Museum. I had been here shortly after it's opening and it was mind-blowing. It was less so this time. I don't know if it's "overexposure" due to family history or what. I think my next journey into the Holocaust will need to be there, in person, on the spot where it happened.

Next up: Friday night. Where a complete stranger thinks I'm dead inside & I'm a racist. Sounds like fun right?

TTYL

I'm almost on vacation!!! If you read here regularly or follow my tweets, you'll know that I need...uh...an escape from my life.

And so, this time tomorrow I will be in our nation's capital, attempting to get the Obama's to adopt me (although, apparently they're out of town. No one asked me.)

But nearly more important than the White House & museums is the fact that I'll be in the same city with the rockin D.C. bloggers (too numerous to name here; rest assured they are all the shiz).

I'm hoping to return home rested & rejuvenated. My liver may be worse for the wear, we'll see.

Just the American part...

This is awesome sauce. I'm guessing the Artful Blogger will love this more than most.



I wonder why the penguin is wearing a shower cap?
(yes, I know he's supposed to look like George Washington)

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYBODY!!!

Is there such a thing as an Urban Otter?

I'm still not Positive Polly yet, but...

this is helping. Again...big props to Cute Overload for brightening my slightly hazy day.