I got to hang with the cool kids

Yes, I am a week late in posting this. To recap: last Friday, after trekking around NYC for two days for work-related meetings/site visits (10 event sites in 2 days -– it can be done, if you have the right footwear, and plan a path that bypasses the NY Fashion Week venues), I met up with some fabulous bloggers:

(l. to r.) Naomi of Design Manifest; moi; Leigh of Marvelous Kiddo with cutie-pie W; get-together instigator Raina of If The Lampshade Fits; and Alicia of Alicia B. Designs. Also in our party but traveling incognito was Alexis of The Studioist. This photo and numerous others patiently taken by the dapper and gracious Nick of Cupboards).

Now I’m the last person who will intentionally meet up with complete strangers for the night, but herein lies the difference: I felt like I already knew these ladies. I’ve been reading Raina and Alicia’s blogs for 3 and 2 years, respectively, and when the meet-up lineup was announced, I happily perused the archives of the other blogs so I could get a sense of the assembled company.

It was a great meet-up! I asked my contact at the Hudson Hotel to assist with making us a reservation in their Library Bar and we enjoyed prime seating in front of the fireplace on a cushy leather sofa and less-cushy ghost chairs.The music was a little too loud but we all managed to chat for a few hours about blogging, design, crazy commenters, our respective hometowns, Alicia’s recent move and engagement, Naomi’s new apartment in Philly, what makes a good dinner party menu, etc. etc. like a bunch of old pals.

 
Raina and I at the end of the night – a little giddy, a little exhausted (according to my camera this was taken at 2:38 am!), and apparently both fans of large necklaces. Another photo by Nick.

I have on past occasions waxed poetic about the value of all you readers, lurkers, commenters, followers and the online community we have built for ourselves, but there is something satisfying about actually meeting people you’ve “known” online and having it really click. When I tried to explain the nature of this meet-up to some friends and co-workers, their non-bloggy brains could not process it. “Wait, you’re meeting people you haven’t met yet? But you know them? But you haven’t met them?” I finally had to describe it as akin to meeting a bunch of pen pals.

Thanks again ladies (and Nick) for a great night and I hope we can do it again!

A Christmas Trololo

I can’t decide which is more disturbing:

The masks
The audience singing along
The addition of Santa hats

For the original Trololo weirdness (so weird, yet you can’t stop watching) go here.

For Sherri: Le Chat Botte

When I posted the original version of this video, Sherri said he looked like he needed a monocle. Apparently someone else thought he needed a whole outfit and a Mexican sidekick:



I find this particularly amusing because for a recent charity fairy tale costume ball, The BF went as Captain Hook (reprising this costume) and I went as Puss In Boots. I wore more clothes than Monsieur Le Chat above though, and everyone thought I was a pirate or a musketeer. Didn't matter, we had a blast.

Thanks to Papasan for the link.

Merry Merry and Happy New Year!

‘Tis the Seventh Day of Christmas, and my true love gave to me 12.1 megapixels and 4x optical zoom, which is not as melodic as seven swans a’swimming, but will mean much better pictures on this ol’ blog o’ mine. So everybody wins!

Wishing a healthy, happy 2010 to all my dear bloggy friends, and you lurkers, and you Google Readers, and people who find me by googling “Sara Richardson’s baby Robin” and “Rockin’ Robin” and “handsex game” (and no I don’t know nor do I want to know what that is. Or how it relates to my blog). Also, given my web stats, a LOT (and I mean a LOT, like in the hundreds) of people got White Trash Ghetto Toffee for Christmas this year, so Happy New Year to them, as well. Thank you all for stopping by my little corner of the interwebz and being a part of my life.

I sign off for the year with this serendipitous photo smackdown:

My 2009 Christmas card* vs Yours Truly, circa 1968:

No wonder I was so attracted to the card in the store!

*That is NOT me, that is a photo from 1935. My parents weren’t even born yet!

I’m thinking Freddie Mercury would’ve approved…

I love me some Muppet rock-n-roll.

Fall Swap Booty!

Wednesday was a tough day (actually the last 4 weeks have been tough, tons of work prepping for three big conferences coming in the next 5 weeks, lots of travel, ignoring everything and everyone except working and sleeping, blah blah blah (sorry BF, family, dear friends, cats, your blog, for being so neglectful)). A long 12-hour day at work, lots of big and little fires getting put out, no time for lunch, and then at the end of the day we find out Kelly the Fab Assistant (who recently got promoted so she is Assistant no more, yay!) had her car broken into in our parking lot, for the second time in two months. It was just a poopie day all around.

But then I got home and there was a big box waiting for me…

And inside were all kinds of amazing goodies from the lovely and talented Raina… my swap-ee in The Claw’s Fall Swap Party…

Many of them with a birdy theme – magnets, soap, napkins, makeup case… Hmmm, however did she know I like birdies?…  ;-)

And BTW Raina did you know two things I am mildly obsessed with are fancy soaps and cocktail napkins? Seriously, I have an entire drawer in the buffet solely for cocktail napkins. Thankfully I actually have people over for cocktails or it would seem like one of those weird hoarding things.

{Zoe approves of the pillow. Don’t let that “Village of The Damned” look fool you, she’s a real pussycat.}

Thank you, thank you, my lovely bloggy friend, for all the beautiful goodies!

My Swap recipient was Le Claw Sherri herself, and I sent her a box o’ Connecticut goodies, possibly committing a felony in the process.

Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy

This is not new, but it’s new to me. So funny and, sadly, so true.

Thanks to this fabulously talented friend for posting it on Facebook.

I found the bit about flying especially relevant: today I flew to/from Washington DC for biz. There & back -- with meetings in between -– in less time than it would have taken to drive round trip. Yes, Louis CK, that is amazing. The airport I flew out of, however? Not amazing. The Fisher Price airport is more sophisticated than the crazy place I flew in and out of...

Have an incredible, amazing, awesome, easy, superlative weekend

Whoosh!

Every day I tell myself I’m going to finish one of the many blog posts I’ve started, and every day my day goes by thisfast. Just like these guys. But without the accurate landing.

It's like slip-n-slide, only better

Here’s another reason to always pack clean underwear

Knock wood, I have (or more accurately, an airline has) lost my luggage only once. And it wasn’t really lost, it just took a later flight than I did, thanks to bad weather at my connecting airport.  I know there are some poor souls who’ve never gotten their luggage back, and stacks of luggage that never finds its way home. And while the premise makes sense, in a Goodwill/Salvation Army Thrift Store way, I am a little creeped out by the bargain-hunting that goes on at the Unclaimed Baggage Store, mostly because the goods at a charity thrift store were donated, while the merchandise at UBS is “donated” by default. The UBS site claims they have found antiques, art, expensive electronics and gemstones in lost luggage.

Admitted voyeur Luna Laboo has been buying lost luggage, photographing the contents and posting it on her Is This Your Luggage website, hoping to reunite the goods with their owners.  Most of the cases contain clothes, but one on the site includes some souvenirs and gifts from Mexico or South America or maybe just the American Southwest.

Here’s a tip to keep your luggage both off her site and out of the Unclaimed Baggage Store: use a real luggage tag, not one of those free paper ones the airline hands out at the check-in; put two business cards in your luggage – one taped to the inside bottom of the case, and one in an inside pocket of the case. And maybe a third in an outside pocket. Oh, and stop tossing your loose diamonds and emeralds in with your dirty socks, okay?

WWJTXT?

If God had a cellphone back in the day, he could have saved Moses the hike up Mt. Sinai:

1. no1 b4 me. srsly.

2. dnt wrshp pix/idols

3. no omg's

4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)

5. pos ok - ur m&d r cool

6. dnt kill ppl

7. :-X only w/ m8

8. dnt steal

9. dnt lie re: bf

10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.

ttyl, JHWH.

ps. wwjd?

Via McSweeney's. Also, you can now follow God on Twitter, but he's a little snarky.

All atwitter over Mr. Darcy

Some clever person in Twitterland has begun posting Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice in 140-character bites. Now, before your inner purist screams out "sacrilege", consider this: Jane Austen is known for her "realism, biting social commentary (now known as "snark" - Ed.) and masterful use of free, indirect speech, burlesque and irony". Free, indirect speech: A style of writing where the author's first-person descriptive blurs with their third-person perspective. Sound familiar, bloggy peeps? Were she born 200 years later, methinks she would have been a blogger (and twitterer) ........................

.........

Hmmm.. Oh, what's that? Sorry, I was busy looking at this:

{Mr. Darcy as Colin Firth. Oh, wait, I have that backwards.
Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. sigh}

With thanks to Julia @HookedonHouses for the Twitter find.

You down with Bert, Ernie? (yeah, you know me)

I try to limit my gangsta rap intake to once per decade, but this just cracked me up:


[found via KK1820 on twitter]

It's like LiteBrite, but with legs

So you're a shepherd in Wales, and maybe you're a bit of a tech geek, and you have these extra LED lights hanging around, and you and the lads want to have a bit of a laugh on a Saturday.



The Atari one is my favorite.

I heart you

Yup, that's exactly what you think it is. Happy Valentines Day.

By the talented Thomas Cheng

Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger

Research firm Prince & Associates Inc. carried out a survey of 191 men and women with a net worth of at least $20 million. More than 80 percent of the men said they planned to give lower “allowances” to their mistresses, and almost as many would offer fewer gifts.

In tough economic times, the incentive to become a kept lover may increase. After all, other ways of making easy money are looking less certain by the day.

“I foresee a growing desire on the part of many people -- male and female -- to be kept,” Prince said in an e-mailed response to questions (by Bloomberg.com, not by me). “A bad economy like the one we’re experiencing will only make the good life ever more attractive.”

More ridiculousness here.

I Miss The Muppet Show

It would make this recession so much easier if The Muppet Show was on again, don't you agree?

Rockin' Robin, tweet tweet tweet

Rockin' Robin, as sung by the Jackson Five, was the bane of my grammar school existence. John Turner used to sing it to me every day on the bus. Also, lots of jokes about Batman and Robin, Robin (robbing) the bank, Robin Hood, etc. Hilarious. But the song was the worst. Over and over, every day. Kind of like the way it is stuck in your head now. He rocks through the treetops, all day long...


Third-grade angst aside, lets talk about tweeting. As in Twitter. As in I am in a self-taught crash course in Twitter via a personal account so I can start Twittering professionally for work (is that an oxymoron or what?). I was trying to avoid this, but apparently all the kids are doing it, even in the business world, and I figured its safer to muddle my way through on my own before I create a profile for work and drag our sterling reputation into the muck and mire of social networking, late to the game though we may be.


Besides Julia @hookedonhouses (and thanks again Julia for my first tweet) do any of you Twitter? Got any advice, tips, or tweets for me? You can find me at @abirdinthehand.




He rocks in the tree tops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and singing his song
All the little birdies on Jaybird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet


Rockin' robin, tweet tweet tweet
Rockin' robin' tweet tweetly-tweet
Blow rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight...

West wingnut

The West Wing is my new crack.

I have no idea where I was from 1999-2006, when the show originally aired. Well, I know where I was, I just can't pin down the specifics of why I didn't watch it. It has all my favorite things - great writing, witty banter, smart female characters, realistic plot lines and a talented cast and crew to bring it all together. I'm sorry I missed it the first time around, and although I've caught a glimpse or two on Bravo, it's not the kind of show where you can jump feet first into one episode and know all you need to know to understand it (like Law & Order). Add to that the following:

1. Continued media/blog speculation that "the West Wing is coming true" with the election of Obama and his appointment of Rahm Emanuel (alleged inspiration for the "Josh Lyman" character on WW),


2. there is nothing on now that Mad Men is over for the season and Lost won't be on until January (!!)


3. my increased need for escapist entertainment during this, the busiest season of my work year


4. my neighbors, Meg & Mo (aka Two Ladies In Waiting) and Lyrical Uncertainty & his wife Muffin, blathering on about their mutual love of WW and arguing over whether a certain incident happened in season 2 or season 3


5. the fact that said neighbors have most seasons on DVD

... and you have a recipe for me becoming a hermit. I watched 5 episodes in one sitting yesterday.

Ooh! And because I love floor plans almost as much as I love maps, look what I found online:

Gotta go. Episode 10 is about to start, and The Lounging Party is waiting for me.

Swapimus Autumnus

Sherri over at The Claw held a little Fall Swap and here are the goodies that came to me from the shores of Maine via Erin at Only A Movie:

In addition to a lovely book by Anna Quindlen and fantastic mix-CD (Brandi Carlisle! Paolo Nutini! Glen Hansard!), she included two "Maine" products: French clay soap from Beane's of Gorham and a wonderful terrycloth cosmetics case (lined with gorgeous vintage floral fabric) by PixieGenne. Thanks Erin! I love it all!