Poppy Cedes

Representatives from Tennessee (my mom and stepdad), Long Island (Dawg’s aunt, uncle, cousin, and cousin’s girlfriend), New Jersey (Dawg’s ex Pudding, Pudding’s Wife [PW], The Wolves, and Gwennie the Sky Terrier), and Queens (me, Dawg, Mama Dawg, Hollywood, Mr. Clean, Soco and Coco the cats) were at the Dawg Family Thanksgiving Dinner. During this momentous occasion Pudding’s Wife kept telling me she was adding my mom as her Facebook friend so she could send her nudie pictures. Of herself or of the lovely Native American woman who wallpapers her phone, I’m not sure, but in any case I started yelling, “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE GOING TO BE MY MOM’S FRIEND ON FACEBOOK BEFORE YOU ARE MY FRIEND!” (because screaming at Thanksgiving dinner in the Dawg family household is a perfectly acceptable behavior, and I’m not even kidding).

Two days later we were driving my mom and stepdad to our humble abode to see their furry grandchildren when my mom reminded me of this whole Facebook PW adding my mom before she adds me as a friend debacle and I started screaming at my mom “YOU BETTER NOT LET HER SEND YOU NUDIE PICTURES! NO NUDIE PICTURES!” to which she sagely responded, “I cannot help who chooses to send me nudie photos, I can only choose to not look at them.” My mom is so smart.

Tonight when I got home from work I had a Facebook request from PW sitting in my Gmail inbox. I promptly added her as a friend as Dawg was walking into the apartment. I greeted him, gave him a minute, then sat down on the couch and proudly announced, “PW added me as a friend today!” to which he screamed “SHE BETTER NOT SEND YOU NUDIE PICS!” to which I sagely responded “I cannot help who chooses to send me nudie photos, I can only choose to not look at them.” And Dawg, too, had the same epiphany I had in the car on Saturday.

And then I went and suggested my mom as a friend to PW on Facebook. So far no one involved in this story has exchanged any nudie photos, to the best of my knowledge. :)

Photos of my Thanksgiving weekend are here and here. Enjoy!

Went to see some wrestling with Dawg.

Had an awesome time.

Swooned over Roddy Piper, DX, and Undertaker. Booed at Miz, Cena, Swagger, Orton, and Seamus. Chanted with the crowd and heckled the people around me who kept chanting the wrong guy’s name.

Coulda touched Shawn Michaels in the street after the show if I reached my hand out and risked being SWAT team assaulted by his six bodyguards… after we were finally allowed anywhere near Dawg’s truck which was parked in with the wrestlers, oops. :)

One of the top 10 best events of my life. See some wrestlers over at flickr. It’s ok to look, they’re pieces of pretty meat, they like it when you call them pretty meat.

Tomorrow night the lights will go out in Madison Square Garden. And when they turn back on Dawg and I will be in the same room with our maker:

And I will scream my little head off with glee. :)

WWE RAW airs Monday at 9pm Eastern on USA. Watch for us.

So, a Thursday in the not too distant past I showed up for Karl’s radio show with special guest Sheila. And in the chat room appeared Vahid.

One innocent question from me to my geek brethren, something in the phrase family of “what Netbook do you own?” and now I am the proud owner of the Samsung N110 Netbook.

I CAN COMPUTE FROM THE COUCH NOW! AND THE BED! AND THE KITCHEN COUNTER! AND THE FLOOR! AND THE… toilet. (what?)

And the shower! But why would I do that.

It even has a sucky camera! See?!?!

And Poppy did rejoice.

And so did Dawggy, because I can sit next to him now AND sit next to you, too.

Today Dawg and I are travelling to the East to hang out with the lovely Miss Bellaventa. We will go to Dylan’s Candy Bar where there is a Saturday cupcake bar, we will shop for boots (while Dawg goes off to do Man Stuff), and we will eat and, presumably, Chipotle’s.

I am SQUEE for this.

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!

Dawg and I took the LIRR from Kew Gardens into Manhattan instead of dealing with the crazy subway schedule changes for this weekend, so we got all the way into the city by 4:15pm and checked in with the Houndstooth Pub who, ironically, had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the KISS party. Note to Houndstooth Pub event coordinator: You might want to mention your events to your bar staff. ;)

I made a reservation for a long table for 10 people for 5:00pm then Dawg and I went outside so he could smoke and we could wait for people to show up. Of course Robin and Rachel were the promptest! Way to go, ladies! We all went inside and waited for more people. Next to show up was B.E. Earl! And then guest of honor Ren!!!!!!! And then Bearette with Baby E (who slept the entire time, save the last 5 minutes of his stay but was so adorable, as always). And then YKnot aka Wild Bill the Pirate, who we didn’t know was showing up, so that was entertainment in itself (see below :).

We ordered food and drinks and had a merry time and made our trips down the three sets of stairs to the bathrooms and back up the three sets of stairs. We were loud, crazy, and rambunctious but didn’t get kicked out. When we were ready to leave Bearette and Earl had departed and YKnot needed to take off for an early morning so the rest of us travelled to Serendipity 3, waited an hour for our name to be called (Carter? Carrrrrrrrter! … nope, not Carter), and when I finally got inside and sat down and saw the Frenchified menu I ordered! … an omelette – East meets Western, but without the ham, thanks.

Other evening highlights:
Riding the LIRR with Dawg
Throwing relevant-to-our-conversation DX signs with Dawg in front of the pub
Telling our Houndstooth Pub server “Hi Roger, I’m Stefanie, and this is my boyfriend. But these two lovely ladies (pointing to Rachel and Robin) are single!”
Comparing proper footwear with Ren
Trying to convince YKnot that he was at the wrong party cuz we were having a blogger party, not a twitter party (it was a very TC08 “Delmer Moment”, hehehehe :)
Having an intellectual conversation with Bearette completely separate from all the raucousness behind me
Hanging with my ladies Robin and Rachel
Trying not to laugh at what Earl does for a living :D
FROGS LEGS
Pumpkin pie martinis
Deeeerunkenly calling the Serendipity 3 male host a bitch for telling us we had to wait so long for a table ( I DO NOT RECALL THAT. )
Talking loudly about how Lady Gaga, Julia Roberts, and Gene Hackman (I meant Richard Gere) had to be in the limo outside of Serendipity 3
Ordering an omelette at a place famous for its frozen hot chocolate :)
Getting to hug my friends on their way out of my evening, knowing I’ll see them again :)

The evening flew by, it was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see everyone’s photos!!!!!

Here are miiiiiine:

Dawg and I saw this video on our local news several nights ago. When we saw it our news channel gave us no hint of how it would end. I believe this is what led us to bawl our eyes out harder than you will when you watch this:

(If you don’t cry then you are having pre-PMS or you are a robot.)

I had meant to look for a clip of it and post it, but I’m very forgetful of tasks I don’t write down, although the story itself stayed with me and I thought of it many times in the days after seeing it. Yesterday Tense reminded me of this clip in a tweet so I had to share.

Also, Hilly got a new kitty after her dear, beloved FC passed due to complications from feline cancer. Meet Velma Jinkies:

This stranger named Spider was so happy about the news that he ran out and got this tattoo! :

Ok, not really, but that sounded fun. And now I totally wanna get a few geek tattoos, as well as one that says:

Oh, and Dawg and I are going to see the Gotham Girls in their championship match on Friday, November 21 at Hunter College. I AM SO PSYCHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last but not least, RenYC is this coming Saturday at 5pm at Houndstooth Pub in Manhattan. If you want to go and haven’t told me already please let me know. I will be sending an email to all who want to go, but if I don’t know you’re going then you won’t be on the email. And don’t you want an email from me? Of course you do!

This weekend Dawg, The Terrorist, and I drove to the Tropicana in Atlantic City, NJ for a little R&R.

I offer you the trip in photos and video, along with a little explication.

Ladies, if you want to be hit on constantly then you go on a trip with The Terrorist. I warn you: He also hit on a crack addict prostitute (elaborated on at the end of this post). His standards for flirting are: anything with a vagina, and sometimes he’ll hit on men for practice.

(Side note of seriousness: I adore The Terrorist, he is a great friend. I feel bad if I let you think he isn’t an awesome guy because he truly is. But if you ever get to meet him and he flirts with you just to get in your pants then you’re not meeting the real man behind the one night stand. Just sayin’.)

As soon as we got there we did pre-check-in where we stood on line to reserve our hotel rooms then we played a couple of slots while we waited for Pajamas and his Girl of the Day to show up. I know Pajamas from the vollies corps, but the guys who aren’t at the stage of life to settle down typically bring a girl to have fun with while they’re there, and that’s the type of girl Pajamas brought so I shook her hand and could pick her out in a line-up, but I didn’t get to know her. (If I see her 4 more times I’ll ask her what she does for a living, if that makes you happy.) Pajamas and his flavor of the weekend were on their way back home so we said goodbye to them and I played my Enchanted Unicorn game until I lost my $20.

(Side note of seriousness: Pajamas is a great guy from what I personally know about him. NYC is just a weird beast of a place where guys don’t seem to settle down until they’re “old” so in the meantime they are essentially perceived as woman grinders, as in they go through a lot of them. And Pajamas is young enough where he’s still grinding through the ladies. Some day I’m going to sit Pajamas and all the other young’uns down and tell them what it’s like in Vermont, how the “game” is played, and all their minds will be blown to bits.)

Terror, Dawg, and I went to The Fiesta buffet to eat a lot of food. I had carving station flank steak and roast turkey, corn on the cob, a baked potato, salad with blue cheese dressing, and a chocolate mousse with a Coke to drink. I tried a cheese ravioli with lobster sauce, but as happens EVERY time I try seafood I hated it so I gave the ravioli to Dawg who was very much enjoying the seafood with Terror.

After food we went back on line to get our room keys, at which point I used my newly acquired Diamond Club card coupon for a free room upgrade to get us one of the newly renovated rooms in the South tower of the Trop.

That photo is of him sitting on his hotel bed, watching the Sex and the City movie rather than going downstairs to play the slots with me and Dawg. Yes, he came all the way to a hotel to watch TV. But his room was comped, so what the hell does he care if he’d rather cry over Carrie’s wedding dress? He agreed to make a reservation for us all to have dinner at Red Square at 7:30pm then Dawg and I strolled the boardwalk and I snapped a few photos:

…but the sound of the ocean is what I needed to take home with me so I took this video:

…and cried the whole time. The ocean is a very bittersweet experience for me.

We sat down on the boardwalk and just people watched until dinner time then we met up with Terror and went to Red Square for salad, steak, and Russian vodkaaaaaa:

After dinner we walked back to the casino area to put $20 at a time into colorful, musical machines of fun.

[INSERT PHOTO OF CASINO FLOOR HERE USING YOUR IMAGINATION SINCE PHOTOS OF THE CASINO FLOOR ARE FORBIDDEN.]

I got hit on by a crack addict who ordered a Midori sour with a cherry from one of the MANY waitresses who never, ever gave me the time of day (note to self: next time wear a hat that says “I want a free drink and I tip better than the old pervy guys”) even though I dropped $250-$300 overall into their shiny machines that night, then the guys decided to play the tables so I brought Rebel back up to the hotel room then played some slots on my own and wandered back over to The Quarter to see what other trouble I could find, but Dawg called me to tell me he and Terror were done losing at the tables so I went back up to the room with Dawg and we had fanfuckingtastic sex on the edge of a tall bed and went to sleep. (Yes, Finn, apparently it always is. I apologize to you.) (No photos of that either. :)

The next day I got all dressed up in my next day outfit, including my Bongo jeans I hafta squeeeeeeeeeeze into then found out that we weren’t playing any more casino games, but in fact were leaving the hotel. After we were all packed up Dawg tried his hardest to get Terror to answer his damn hotel door then Dawg and I went downstairs:

and I shopped at James’s for taffy and chocolates to take home then got a yummy bacon, egg, and cheese on a Kaiser and a small hot coffee at Adam’s deli (SUPER GOOD). After we left the hotel Dawg drove us left onto Atlantic…

People in Atlantic City are kinda crazy. The tourists, sure, but the locals definitely. Some prostitute was screaming on Atlantic Avenue then came over to the Dunkin’ Donuts the 3 of us were in and started screaming for a cab driver because no cab had driven by in a half hour to pick her up and she had $500 in her titties and she was sober and somebody better drive her to where she needed to go, and everyone just laughed at her and called her a crazy bitch so she left and wandered into traffic, almost getting hit by more than one car, then sat at the bus stop instead of getting on the bus that was at the bus stop. Only on Atlantic Avenue… (We have an Atlantic Avenue near us in Queens, and the same savory crazy people hang out on it! :)

And that’s the trip, folks!

Full photo set is here. Dawg will have his own photos up eventually. :)