Poppy Cedes

If you were in Florida this weekend hanging out for the same reason I was you may have noticed I didn’t say goodbye.

I hate goodbyes.

They imply I’m never seeing you again, and that you AREN’T just a blog away, a tweet away, an email away, a photo away, a facebook status away, a txt message away from me.

And I just can’t have that, so HI AGAIN! :)

This is my weekend recap post. Each and every thing that happened this weekend is equally as important as the others, so I’ll be brief-ish about all of them so that I don’t cry all over while I write.

Thursday afternoon Dawg and I took a plane to Orlando. We rented a car and drove it to the Altamonte Springs Hilton, checked in, settled in our room, then had dinner with (you know who I mean if you were at the party) The Photographer. She goes by a couple names, but she visits here as Mew. We went to Five Guys for dinner with her, her puddin’, her photographer sidekick, and a man that is seriously Adam Avitable’s doppelgänger despite neither of them seeing that in the other. Apparently last year Dawg and I met ALL of these people at the party, but we met Mew and Baby J when we were sober, whereas we met Local 23 and Han Solo Ringmaster at last year’s party while we were in the vertical blackout stage. This year meeting them sober was an absolute treat and I now consider this pack of unruly nerds my very good friends even if they don’t consider me their very good friends back. I mean, c’mon, after sharing Five Guys together we BONDED over butterscotch Jello pudding pop ice cream at Coldstone Creamery!!!! And the irony of this gathering is that both Mew and I thought the other person didn’t want anyone else to show up to the event so we were keeping it secret from everyone, but turns out we were only doing that to appease the other, so next year we will have A HuGe MewPopstar GaTHerIng and it will be wonderful!!! At Five Guys Mew mentioned that Adam had invited us back to his place for a sneak peek at the party decor so we went to his home to check everything out. Poppy approved. I even made some modifications to the Booze List which made it on there, despite it only benefiting me and his lovely wife Amy, which I will mention in the Saturday section. Back at the hotel we had Last Call drinks at the bar with Mikey! Although the remodel of the hotel is beautiful it irks every single one of us that the bar CLOSES at 12am, so let’s fix that for next year. (Actually, don’t bother, the new hotel hot spot for next year will be somewhere else, it is rumored. ;) At the very last few minutes of bar talk we saw Bella and Rachel slink in from their night with Hilly and Dave2 so we hung out a bit before retiring to bed with our sippy cups of beer.

Friday was breakfast of champions from the hotel coffee shop. The woman behind the counter made me an 8-shot espresso but charged me $2 for a regular coffee instead of $16 like she should have, so I gave her a $2 tip then Dawg and I went to Downtown Disney to meet up with Hilly, Floating Princess, and Karen Sugarpants for lunch at RagLan Road, churros at the Italian Ice cart, soap gazing at Basin, and Lego watching at the Lego store. I love Snackie AND Lisa, but it was revealed at lunch that Ms. Sugarpants and I had exACTly the same costume idea for Avitaween, so durrrrrrrrrrr I bonded instantly with her and now she’s my lifelong border babe friend and I can say nothing wrong about that woman ever ever EVAR. Then the ladies departed and Dawg and I shopped at the World of Disney store where I purchased a $50+ brown hoodie that appropriately says GRUMPY on it. After Downtown we went to the hotel for a little lay down then we went secretly to Publix and back to Coldstone Creamery where we bought tw cakes and two packages of cupcakes then headed to Faiqa and Tariq’s (yo, it’s pronounced thar-ick, not streety hood TAR-EEEK) where we got to see Baby Y!!!! as well as (oh boy, no pictures of this, so let’s try to remember everyone) Britt, Jared, Emma, Devin, Robin, Rachel, Ren, Marci, Heather, Tyler, Hilly, Dave2, Lisa, Karen, Becky, Finn, Mister, Stephen and Marianne (non-blogging friends of Tariq), and… um, who’dileaveout?! at which we had delicious food prepared by Faiqa then had cake and ice cream cupcakes and a beautiful dessert prepared by Faiqa in celebration of SPARKY’S 39th BIRTHDAY, SURPRISE! Not that she was surprised, she kinda figured it out when Robin asked her what her favorite cake is, but I don’t care, I was still happy we got to celebrate. At the end of this event we all sat in a big circle and made silly jokes and it was a wonderful bonding experience. Then we went back to the hotel where we saw (oh boy, I hope I remember) Adam, Blondefabulous, Employee 3699 (whose name I know but not sure I’m allowed to share), Employee’s daughter (whose name I know but not sure I’m allowed to share), and Kim!!! And Mikey and LW wandered in after their Blue’s Traveler concert, then Brad and Turnbaby wandered in after their karaoke! Then a very deeeeerunk Sheila came in for a quick hi and goodbye. :) Dawg and I wandered off to our hotel room so we could have “YAY! POPPY IS DONE BLEEDING!” sex then we went to sleep.

Saturday morning we pooled together with people for breakfast at TooJays. These people, in fact: Mister, Finn, Ren, Kim, Rachel, and Robin. Had a great meat skillet breakfast with bacon and Coke (NOTE TO SELF: NO SULFUR WATER NEXT YEAR, bottled water ONLY) and hilarity did ensue. Directly after breakfast it was back to the hotel for me and Dawg for 30 seconds during which time I do believe I hung out with Ren and (um, yah, blanky) until Dawg came down from changing his clothes so we could go meet with Jenny and Andy at Mimi’s Cafe!!!!! Dawg and I let them do most of the talking because THEY are our NASA friends and we LOVE listening to them talk about NASA! Not sure why, but at this point in the trip I never, ever took another photo so there are no photos of me with Jenny or Andy or the swag bag she made for me. :( I has a sad. I don’t know what I was not-thinking. But the chicken caesar salad was lovely! :) And seeing them again was spectacularly awesome. I hope one of these years we’ll actually get to go toward NASA to see them instead of them always coming to us. After we saw them we headed to the Halloween store for Dawg’s party costume where I almost picked up some army boots but decided they were neither cute nor comfortable enough to substitute for my hot stiletto boots in my costume. We then took a trip to Walgreen’s to purchase the remainder of Dawg’s costume, some makeup for me, and some Charmin for Adam’s, since rumor is that he ran out of TP last year. We then went back to the hotel to mentally prepare ourselves…

…and then it was time to get ready and go to Hilly’s house so we could meet Jinkies and I could get my makeup applied by Hilly! Ended up not using any of what I bought except the nail polish I had put on ALL BY MYSELF LIKE A BIG GIRL before arriving. But Hilly covered up my chin zit perfectly and gave me the sultry, smoky, sexy, slutty, trashy eyes I’d been hoping for and that was a rap. Oh, btw, I would totally have stolen Jinkies but I think Hilly would have noticed. Also, thanks again to Hilly for laying out a towel on your bed so I could put my fishnets on “correctly” without getting cooch juice on your bed. That’s just rude to do. And also thank you to Ms. Sugarpants for having the most adorable Canadian version of my same costume so that when I went slutty and you went furry we barely looked like twins!

Ok, party time! We all headed to Adam’s and … then a party happened. A lot of people I love and admire were all in the same house together. We had alien-themed mixed drinks from PJ the Bartender and I even had my secret stash of Stella! beer because I had handwritten it onto the Booze List and Adam indulged me, Mew took lots of wonderful pictures of everyone (I think I was asked to be in 4 or 5 separate photo shoots… go, Poppy!), I ate a lot of amazing food, and had a lot of crazy conversations with people. This seems like the shortest part of the post (uh, dur, cuz it is) but I just feel like you need to experience Adam’s party for yourself. Start saving up now because you won’t regret going to an amazing party with amazing friends. Make sure to bring a snack for the late night munchies and a package of TP for when the house stash runs out. :)

At about 3am a bunch of us wandered off to Denny’s. Don’t ask me who, apparently 2 mixed drinks, 2 beers, and a tiny bit of disgusting appletini were enough to give me tunnel vision. I just know I cried at the very loud music overhead until they turned that shit down, the food in front of me was DELICIOUS, and I was in the corner so I didn’t really get to talk that much, but I still had a great time. Then we went back to the hotel where we had “POPPY IS DRUNK!” sex (it’s fantastic, by the way) and then it was time to SLEEP!

Sunday morning we woke up late and headed over to Adam’s to properly say goodbye to him and pick up a gift that Mew had left there for us then we headed to Cracker Barrel for a little lunch and to drop off the rental car then catch that plane back home. (I spent the entire plane ride watching women’s billiards and popping my head over the seat looking for Bella who was in the front of the plane, but never found her. Dawg spent it sleeping. :)

Today I didn’t work but… that was probably a very good thing because I slept until 11:30am and felt blue all day from not being with everyone anymore. I miss everybody already. Boooo to that, can’t wait to see you all again! :)

Here are the photos I did take during the trip. For photos of the actual party please visit the Avitaween pool.

Thank you again to Adam and all who helped organize that damn party. You definitely outdid yourselves!!!

See some of you soon, see the rest of you later!

I am so excited about RenYC tomorrow. Looks like it will be a smallish crowd of us, but that’s totally fine because it’s easier for everyone to feel included in the conversation. I will be bringing the Red camera. :) And drinking. :) :)

I went to the lady doctor on Thursday afternoon. It was an incredibly wonderful experience in which I learned that rapid HIV tests are now done with a mouth swab (so I had one done by a super nice woman who I am guessing is 12 years younger than I am… wow), and that I have to get poked four times with four different sticks of doom in order to check for everything that needs to be checked for. I was also prescribed a different birth control pill after being told the one I have been on specifically causes mood swings in a lot of women. If this new pill stops the crazies I will be praising it to the world.

The office I went to is in the area neighboring Chinatown so I got to walk around Chinatown a little bit afterward and noticed I had a voicemail from Verizon. Apparently my personal phone contract had expired in September. I emailed them a nastygram earlier in the week saying “OMG MY CAT THREW AWAY MY PHONE AND I WAS WAITING FOR MY CONTRACT TO EXPIRE AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME IT EXPIRED AND YOU SUCK” so despite having just continued my plan without consulting me they have now cancelled my account/plan/phone with no penalty to me. Which is a very good thing, because I think the people of Chinatown don’t need to hear me be psycho.

Things at work are going well. The people upstairs adore me and the salespeople I care at all about sing my praises loudly across my floor through the cubicles and into the ears of the evil salespeople. I was very productive, knocking several important projects off my whiteboard list this week, and that’s even with taking time off for professional development (the Apple certification studies continue) and with taking a half day for the aforementioned appointment.

Speaking of work, I was having a pretty rough day today physically because my cervix is bruised from my doctor’s appointment. At 3pm Dawg called me to ask me what I was doing… because he was downstairs with a piece of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting from Make My Cake. I ran down to him (ok, ok, took the elevator down, whatever!) and grabbed the cake from him then gave him lots of kisses before he drove off to go back to work until he had to work the event at the Garden (FDNY vs. NYPD boxing). I was actually headed upstairs to disinfect a computer, so I had to just hold onto the cake until after I was done with that then I went to my desk and started eating the cake… and apparently was making inappropriate sounds so loudly while eating this DELICIOUS cake that the guy in the cube next to me stated something to that effect. (Thanks for the cake, babe! :)

Don’t you wanna come to New York City and hang out with me and a bunch of other people, including REN? Cuz I want you to.

Yes, this is the big announcement.

RenYC details are becoming … firmer. :) We now have a date (Saturday, October 10) and a location (Houndstooth Pub, 520 8th Avenue @ 37th Street). And I’m gonna hazard the time estimate at 5pm for pre-party, 6pm party TIME.

The best part about this location? There’s a KISS PARTY at the pub that day from 3:30pm to 12:00am, and we can RSVP to it!

So far I know about the following people wanting to attend this event:
Ren
His wife?
Poppy
Dawg
Sparky/Rachel
B.E. Earl
Bella/Robin
Cissa?

Anyone else want to make the trip to Manhattan to see Ren and the Gang? Lemme know so I can get a head count. Please RSVP before 1 minute ago, or Friday, September 25, whichever you prefer.

And then in two weeks from then we can see each other again at Avitaween! How perfect is that?

Fuck, man.

Can it be true?

Yes, it’s TRUE!!!! Ren from Renagerie will be storming the Big Apple on Saturday, October 10 and wants to have dinner and/or drinks and/or conversation with YOU. Want to come along and see some other fantastic blog friends you know and love while Ren beats his chest and grunts in the corner? (Or, plays with his camera and drinks beer, the more likely scenario.)

Location will be: (somewhere super awesomely rad in Manhattan)
Time will be: (6-ish-PM)
Date will remain: Saturday, October 10
Guest of honor will remain: Ren

Geez, people, catch on!

He’d love to see you there, and quite frankly so would I, so you need to show up if you’re in the general vicinity. Leave me a comment to express your interest.

Had a rejuvenating evening with my boy and am feeling a lot better. Just in time for my monthly Tuesday-Wednesday with just me and the girls while Dawg goes off to learn Kumbaya a little bit more than the month before. (Thank you, Mom, for asking.)

The red line of DC Metro had a pretty bad accident Monday during the start of rush hour. I rode that line while I was there. The article also references a 1982 accident at the Woodley Park-Adams Morgan station, the starting point of the red line that B and I rode on. I feel all Final Destination all of a sudden. I’m not absolutely certain, but I’m guessing that NY Metro was assessing the situation in DC, which caused my ride home to have long delays for no apparent-to-us reason. I appreciate that, in retrospect. Always good to make sure not every Metro system is a target of something at the same time.

Ok, that was nice and cheery. Let’s change the topic to SpaceTweep! I am an editor there, thanks to Jenny! Did you know she and her husband work for NASA? They do. And they rock.

Aaaaaaaand, yes, I’m riding the NYC Metro (that’d be the subway) today. Go, me!

Way back when I lived in Vermont I used to post to this blog about 4 billion times a day and respond to EVERY comment that anyone ever left me, because I was so bored with my entire daily life of non-challenge and both personal and professional/bureaucratic apathy that I had the time to do so.

Now I am lucky to have the time, gumption, and something I consider worth posting about each day. And all that time I used to have for responding to comments is now spent working at a job that actually requires my brain power on a minutely basis or I’m underground where I don’t have access to the interwebs. So when I do have time for blogs I tend to read my friends’ and family members’ blogs and leave comments there instead.

I used to feel bad about my inability to respond to your comments anymore, but then I finally let my mind freestyle for a bit and came to the realization, which I just semi-defended-by-just-passingly-mentioning-on-Sarcastica’s-blog, that I am the one who initiates a conversation here and you, my dear friends, are the responders! And it’s your choice to read what I say here and leave me a comment, so it needs to be my choice as well to have anything witty or responsive to say to you in return.

I hope I just expanded your thought on the matter, or helped you realize that I am singing in your same chorus.

If you don’t agree, feel free to leave me a comment saying so! (Sneaky, aren’t I?)

I am guest posting at Wayne’s blog today.

You should go visit.

See you there!

Back home in NYC, and it’s awesome to be back. We had a recap show last night and I am still uploading photos because flickr uploadr is extremely unreliable. Who’da thunk. Check my stream to keep seeing more photos. I have a Santa Fe set and a Food of of TC09 set that are both filling in nicely. I didn’t add any more pics to the BeerHer set but there are a few more in the TC09 set which I’ll move to the TC09 group later. Thanks again to all the planners: Jenny, Dave2, Vahid, Brandon, and Dustin! I am late for work so linking… yah, linking.

Happy Tuesday!

BeerHer and TequilaCon 2009 fucking rocked.

Well, that was short and sweet!

A few of the 700+ photos I took this weekend are up on flickr, but the rest will go up sometime over the week. BeerHer is here, TC09 is here. And that sunburn I’m sporting at TC09 is all to be blamed on The Cross of the Martyrs. Damn martyrs… hehehe. Other stuff we did this weekend: Relax at the outdoor fireplace with my friends, visit Loretto and San Miguel churches, eat a fucking fantastic chile relleno burrito at The Plaza, watch pigeons, have a weird experience at the Georgia O’Keefe Museum so that Dawg refused to go in but I went for a 10 minute lookaround, visit the Five and Dime about 5 or 10 times, and eat wonderful-to-me pizza at The Upper Crust across from The Pink Adobe (next to San Miguel Mission). Good stuff. The perfect weekend. It is so absolutely gorgeous here. Visit before you bite it.