Tykes on a Plane

With all the news about America’s Newest Hero, the guy that finally had enough abuse from airline passengers that upon landing, he commandeered the plane’s PA, told everyone to fuck off, grabbed two beers and pulled the escape chute and dashed off onto the tarmac to make his escape.

His story, though not directly related, reminded me of a post I did about the bane of my aviating existence: little kids.

I wrote a thing about it on my old site a couple of years ago and have been tempted to revive it here a number of times.  The last time I was thinking about it, Ginny from That’s Church went and did a post about how tough it was for her to fly with her young kids, and how much she appreciated the kindness and sympathy of strangers to help her through the ordeal.

So I thought I’d better sit on it a bit longer.  I mean, I’m generally sympathetic to the parent’s plight in trying to travel with kids.  I know all Mom wants is a quiet flight too. 

But Jesus, I didn’t pay $300 so I could listen to screaming for 2 hours, or get my seatback kicked every 7 seconds, or have some little monkey staring and babbling at me, smearing jelly and crumbs all over my pants, or God forbid, have to get a diaper change from 3’ away while captive in a stuffy plane cabin.  Chances are; I’m either hung over, or about to be.  I need rest.

So I wrote this post right after flying back from somewhere or another and getting my last nerve ground right down to a pulp.

*****

I’m just back from a short vacation, and I’m working on a new Law of Nature:  “The perceived cuteness of a child is proportionate to emotional connection.”  I call it, “Urchin’s Law.”  Consider the chart below:

Connection	Perception of Child
Your child	Approaches “deity”
Child of sibling or close relative	Has looks of an angel, wisdom of Buddha
Child of close friend	An angel, with just enough devil to pay back your friend for their prior indiscretions
Child of distant relative	Instrumental in carrying on the family name, not much else
Random child in street or store	Target practice
Child on a plane	The Anti-Christ

This whole thing occurred to me on my plane-ride home on Southwest Airlines.  I was checked in early, with the coveted “A” boarding pass, which allows you to board among the first third of the passengers.  This is important to me, as I strongly desire an aisle seat, which allows me to stretch my legs and trip any prospective terrorists running down the aisle, before pelting him with stale nuts

So I’m in my aisle seat, with some other slob on the window, with the middle open.  Now the stewardess wants to know who will move up so that a woman with her 2 kids can sit together.  At least that’s what I figured out she said later.  I had my headphones on so all I heard was “Whonk whonk whonk,” like it was Charlie Brown’s teacher.

The Window Slob jumps at it, and next thing you know, here comes the lady with her entourage… a little blonde baby boy, a little blonde boy toddler, and a safety seat the size of a Barca-Lounger.  I stand in the aisle for about 20 minutes while a team of experts straps the Barca-Lounger into the window seat.  Mom and the baby, who looks like a quality control reject from the Cabbage Patch Company, sit in the middle.  Finally I can ease back into my aisle seats, and am free to resume defense against running terrorists.

Having determined that the plane is terrorist-free, I pull my hat down over my eyes, turn up the MP3 player, and commence napping.  And for most of the flight, it was fine, save for a lot of bumping and squirming, but I try to remain tolerant… I know it’s a tough gig schlepping a couple of rug rats across the country.

About a half hour from home, the screaming starts and thus begins the Descent Into Hell.  The little one starts and stops, but mostly just screams… the older one keeps up a low moan, punctuated with an occasional shriek.  Each shriek pushes the younger one up an octave.  Here I am, strapped into this speeding metal tube, thirty thousand feet in the air, along side a couple of Howler Monkeys.  Pretty soon I’m tempted to stand up, claim control of the plane in the name of Allah, and maybe bait an Air Marshall into throwing a couple of shots between the eyes… me, the mother, the baby… whomever.  Just make it stop! 

To complete the job of screwing me, the stewardess picks this as the time to ask us to turn off all electronic devices. I took this to be their personal payback for me not listening to their important safety lecture about how to undo a seat belt.  The headphones were the only buffer I had, so now I’m getting the full force effect… a couple of dentist drills in Dolby 5.1 Surround-Sound.  Maybe if I offer to hold one of them, she’ll be too busy with Toddler-Demon that she won’t notice me stuffing Baby-Demon into an overhead bin.  Hey, I’d use the one holding all the pillows… I’m not totally insensitive.  But before I could act, I felt the thump of the wheels touching down, and by the time the reverse-thrusters stopped, the screaming was over.  Maybe this is a new way of ensuring that all flights hit their ETA. 

Now before everyone starts explaining how babies cry because of the change of altitude during descent, let me just say this:  Bullshit!  There was a baby about 10 rows up, and didn’t hear a peep from him.  I’ve also flown with my nephew when he was a baby, and he was practically perfect.  (See chart above.)  That’s why I feel safe in my conclusion that these children were evil, and sent to torment me.  But I’ll get even though… they’ll be sorry when they’re paying for my retirement and early-bird dinners with record FICA deductions.  

Mwaa ha ha haaaa… Revenge is mine…  

The Belle of the Firehouse

OK, let’s lighten the mood, after that last political spleen venting and get back to telling stories.  Dad, I know you’ve been waiting for this one… why, I don’t know, because you know the flippin’ story in the first place.

I try not to spend too much time dwelling on my marriage, now 13 years in the past, back in Albany NY.  There’s no real up side to carrying around a lot of anger and upset.  When I have to think about that period of my life, I try to remember the good parts.  And this story was definitely a good part… for me, anyway, because it’s been one of my story-telling staples ever since.

I was at work one Sunday in February (retail job) and got a call from Future Ex.

“Well,” she said, in her New York honk that sounded exactly like Carmella Soprano, “I almost died today.”

I was like, “Holy crap, what happened?” 

Here’s what happened.  We had a small, unfinished laundry room area just off the downstairs family room.  The washer and dryer were up against the wall.  There was no drywall… just the unfinished studs.  That left a gap between the appliances and the actual wall.

That afternoon, she dropped our rechargeable screwdriver down behind the dryer.  She was fairly tall and slender, so she figured she might be able to reach behind and fish it out.  So she climbed up on the dryer and began reeeeeeeaching down behind it, blindly grasping for the screwdriver.  She reached further and further until all of a sudden, her weight shifted and took her past the balance point pitching her headfirst into the space behind the dryer; the wall studs on either side of her.

She was trapped with one arm forward and one arm back, so she had absolutely no leverage to push or pull herself out.  She was stuck there, with only her long legs waving back and forth from behind the dryer, like stalks of wheat waving in the Kansas breeze.

So I had to ask her the main question that had been racing through my mind, “Oh my God, what were you wearing?”

She said she was wearing a long t-shirt and sweat pants, which was a huge relief.  See, that’s about 2 articles of clothing more than she usually wore around the house on the weekend.  Her normal attire was a long t-shirt (maybe) and a scowl; nothing else.

“Thank God”, I said, “so what did you do?”

She said she yelled for her 9-year old son from the other room and asked him to call her father, who lived 10 minutes away.  He said he’d be right there.  But she began to panic.  She was getting light headed and began to actually fear for her life.  She said she thought she could die from being in this position.

I was like, “Are you kidding?  You can’t die from that!  Have you ever seen a headline before that said, ‘WOMAN DIES FROM BEING UPSIDE DOWN TOO LONG’?  The last person that happened to was St. Peter, for cryin’ out loud.”

OK, I didn’t really say that out loud.  On the phone I said, “Oh, dear, that must have been so scary.  Then what happened?”

She didn’t think her daddy would get there soon enough so she then directed the boy to call 911.

That’s when I lost containment and busted out laughing.  She explained how the fire truck came screaming up, a half-dozen of local firemen came tromping down the stairs, saw her stork legs waving from behind the dryer, and yanked her out of her domestic bear-trap.

All I could think was “Thank Christ she had some pants on.”

The firemen rescue her, chuckling the whole time, she’s wobbling around trying to apologize AND not fall on her face from all the blood rushing away from her head, all the while fretting about how they’re tracking mud on the carpet.

I’m sure they talked about that one down at the firehouse for YEARS to come.

Photo by dragonman

She seemed to be pissed at ME for not being there.  I told her it was much better that I wasn’t there, because I guarantee I would have pulled out the video camera first and shot a couple minutes of tape.  Probably would have won 10 Gs on America’s Funniest Videos too.  Damn… maybe I should have been there.

When I told my dad this story, I thought he was going to shit himself laughing.  And in fact, later that month, at a company meeting where everyone was supposed to introduce and tell a funny story about themselves, Dad said, “I don’t have a funny story about me, but let me tell you what happened to my daughter-in-law.”  He killed the room with that story.

Since I still have some room here, let me tell you the follow-up story to this, because I always tell them as a pair.

We had a house that had a ground-level deck behind it.  There was a little 6-foot hill directly behind the deck, which led to a heavily wooded back lot.  It was like our own little “woods,” with a clearing for horseshoes and a tree swing.

One nice Spring Sunday morning while I was talking on the phone with my parents, she decided she wanted to go all Earth Mother and prance around our backyard wood, naked as a jaybird.  I’m looking out there and she’s flitting around, looking at flowers, examining strange tree-fungus and stuff.

I continued with my phone conversation for a few minutes more, but the next time I looked out, I didn’t see her.  At first.

Then I saw her peeking out from around a big tree, her eyes as big as saucers.  She began frantically pointing to her right.  The neighbors were pulling up their driveway, coming back from church.  Our yard had a lot of privacy, but not so much that they wouldn’t see the blinding whiteness of the Earth Mother out there in all her glory.

She gestured wildly toward the downstairs and I picked up her meaning.  I ran downstairs and threw open the sliding glass doors.  She came bolting out of the woods, down the hill and straight through the doors into the house, like a pasty Olympic sprinter.  ZOOOOOOOOOM!!

I almost pissed myself laughing, and Dad had another story for the next meeting.

Unrelated Housekeeping Note

You may have noticed the visual changes around here… I updated the basic template I’ve been using since I started the site.  It really used to bug me about all the empty, wasted space that was on the far left and right of the screen.  I HATE wasted space.  If you ever saw the walls of my apartment, you’d understand. 

But I didn’t like how the main writing space was all squeezed up.  It made my already longish posts seem that much longer.  Anyway, I hope you like the changes.  I’m still just as long winded, but at least you won’t wear out your mouse finger getting through it all.

Odd Bits - Weekend Edition

It’s been a great week in political What the Fuck!

First, I saw a CNN Poll that said that 41% of Republicans believe that Obama was definitely or probably born in another country. 

Sigh.  We’re still there?  I guess it just goes back to that “Opposing fact only hardens beliefs” post I did a couple weeks back.  How is the country supposed to get on with business if almost half the people believe an out and out, provable falsehood?

What the hell are they looking for?  I’ve seen the birth announcement in the local Hawaiian newspaper.  The State of Hawaii has released the common birth document that is made public for all such inquiries.  Hawaii is actually one of our states!  It says so right on the 2009 quarter.

These idiots won’t be satisfied with anything short of a personal declaration from the Lord Jesus himself.  But of course, He was a “foreigner” too, so I imagine no one will listen to Him either.  And if he comes here via Arizona, he’ll probably just get picked up and thrown in jail.  I wonder if they have any Aramaic translators in Arizona?

Ground Zero for Common Decency

Cassie from Sisters from Different Misters sent me a video clip from The Daily Show where Jon Stewart takes the House of Representatives to task for voting down a bill providing health car for sickened 9/11 First Responders.

Think about that.  Is there any possible reason that our country not be treating these heroes with anything they may need, after what they’ve done?

Apparently, there is, and they are the usual suspects:  money and politics.

You know how the Republicans have been shit-canning everything the Dems try to do, on the basis that it adds to the deficit?  Well, this bill is paid for.  So what’s the objection now?  They claim it raises taxes.

That would also make sense, if you were a Republican, except that as usual with them, it’s not true.  What the bill does is close a loophole that allows corporations doing business in America to avoid paying US taxes by maintaining offshore shell offices.

So in short, the Republicans booted this bill to protect their corporate benefactors, at the expense of the people that risked their lives and livelihoods by rushing to dig out a smoking pile of rubble and got seriously sick from it.

Nice.  This is the party that loves America, family values, the Lord, the flag and apple fucking pie (if you pay attention to their PR), and they’re basically waving their private parts at the firemen, policemen and construction workers that they use feature so prominently in their advertising, in the name of protecting the profits of the giant companies that make money here, hand over fist, but duck paying their taxes.

 

Even more disappointing to me is that the Democrats allowed it to happen, by using a parliamentary maneuver that made it require a 2/3 majority to pass the bill.  In return, they removed the option for the Republicans to add amendments that would be embarrassing to them.  This is where the “politics” comes in.

When the hell are they going to stand up and proclaim, “We’re not taking this shit anymore!  You fuck with this bill and we’re going to run the clip of you voting ‘no’ or attaching superfluous amendments every hour on the hour, come November.”

Watch the Jon Stewart clip… it’s classic.  He builds the case like a freakin’ District Attorney.  And if it doesn’t piss you right the hell off, you may be seriously lacking a soul.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

And why, may I ask, has it been left up to the goddamned comedians to bring this stuff to light?  I never saw a single story on this in the paper, online, or on the news.  Something tells me that the politicians on both sides want this story to be buried even deeper than their integrity is.

 

Propping Up the Indefensible

At least the week wasn’t without some good news.  A federal judge overturned the noxious Proposition 8 referendum in California, which barred gay marriage. 

I love the fact that the judge did it with hard, cold facts and reason, boiling down the Prop 8 supporters’ argument to “it’s icky and my religion says it’s wrong,” which fortunately for the rest of us, is not the basis for the law of this land.

I spelled out my position on this issue last November, back when the citizens of Maine enacted a similar referendum, in that case, overturning a new law.  If you’re new here, you should click the link and check it out.  But suffice to say; I think gay people have every right to marry and be just as miserable as the rest of us.  Nothing they do in their bedroom or in front of a judge is going to diminish anyone else’s marriage or life.  People should stop worrying about what others are doing with their lives and maybe work on their own lots in life.  Maybe then they can do something about that 50% divorce rate.

When in doubt, mind your own fucking business.  That’s Bluz 3:17.

Type Cast

To end on a lighter note, near the end of the day, yesterday, my cube neighbor at work was telling one of my bosses about how I make her feel inferior, because all she can hear from me is the sound of my very rapid typing.

Later I told her not to feel so bad… what she doesn’t know is that half the clicks come from my feverish working of the backspace button.

The "Other" Event

While judging from the previous post, you’d think I was only in Pittsburgh to meet up with a bunch of bloggers, the weekend was actually about something totally different; family.

Saturday was the big family dinner to celebrate my parents’ 50^th anniversary.  My dad’s family is all right there in Pittsburgh.  Mom’s family had to come from Chapel Hill NC, Madison WI and San Jose CA. 

Mom’s brother Joe drove out in his Prius.  He drove.  From California to Pittsburgh.  Uncle Joe is a “car guy.”  Loves cars and driving… always has, always will.  I remember one time he drove out to Green Bay WI to visit the folks back in the mid 80’s.  That time, he took his Ferrari.

In that circumstance, I understand making the drive.

Anyway, we’ve had a number of family get-togethers over the years, but it’s always one side of the family or the other.  Nary does the twain meet, at least not since the ‘60s, when so many of us left Pittsburgh.

I was late coming into town… I got a late start and using Cassie’s directions, took a bit of a longer route, but avoided any major traffic snafus.  Immediately upon landing at the hotel, I was summoned to go directly to Segnari’s for the weekend’s first monster fish sandwich.

After dinner we all went back to my Aunt and Uncle’s place, about 10 minutes away.  We retired to the deck, had some drinks and noshed on the usual snacks… (as if it was possible that we didn’t get enough to eat at the restaurant!)  But there was fruit, a bowl of nuts, pepperoni cheese and crackers, etc.  OK, that’s what most of us ate, except for my brother Ed and brother-in-law Scott.  It seems Tastykakes are a bit of a delicacy to Scotty and are hard to come by where he lives.  So Ed picked him up about 9 boxes, 3 of which they opened right there on the deck.  There was quite a compare and contrast session, with a discussion of the merits of white cream filling vs. chocolate cream filling vs. solid cake.  Rather, make that “kake.”

My poor aunt couldn’t believe her eyes.  She doesn’t understand the chocoholic tendencies of my brother.  (His specialty is opening up two Oreos with double-stuff and making one with quadruple-stuff.)

The next morning, Mom, Ed and the boys went down to the Strip District, where mom’s siblings and their kids were staying.  I originally thought we would all go down to the shops and eateries in the Strip District market, but they had decided that it would be best to visit Schenley Park, near the campus of Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh, so the kids could run around some.

The first order of business was to get a picture of all the second-generation cousins, none of whom had met each other before.  It probably would have been a better idea to take the pictures later, after everyone had acclimated, because at that point, it was like herding cats.  Every time my cousin’s wife got one uncooperative kid in place, another one would bolt.

Times like this make me glad I’m just an uncle.

Soon, we got a soccer game going, which I did everything in my power to avoid.  I was successful, too, until my Uncle Gordon came out of the game, very firmly put the clamp on my shoulder and said, “You’re in.”

Not exactly a regulation soccer ball…

We played 5 on 3, kids against the grownups.  By my scoring, we won.  (My scoring = I didn’t pass out.)  I am NOT a soccer player… never played as a kid except for once in gym class… but I had at least one semi-moment of glory.

A ball popped way up in the air, right to me.  I had no choice but to try to head it, which I did, and it turned into a reasonable shot on goal.  Don’t laugh!  How many shots on goal did YOU see during the World Cup?  Hours could go by without one, and I had one in my first 5 minutes.  So there!  And so what if I saw stars for the next couple of minutes!  Remind me never to try that with an actual soccer ball.

After the soccer, Uncle Joe decided we needed hot dogs, so we made our way by car and on foot to a hot dog/burger/beer place near the Pitt campus. 

The Cathedral of Learning, on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.

On the way, we also crossed through Carnegie Mellon and encountered this… thing/sculpture/bit of pop-art.

I don’t know what it’s trying to be, probably trying to intimate that an education would lead you to the top, but it was cool. 

Another thing I noticed lots of in downtown Pittsburgh that I don’t see so much of in downtown Baltimore; flowers.

Once settled in for lunch, I sat across from my nephew, Daniel, who ordered a cheesesteak.  Who knew it would be as big as a horse’s leg?  I told him, “you have to expect ‘Pittsburgh proportions” when you order a sandwich here.”

The thing must have been 14” long.  I’d have liked to know for sure, but I didn’t have anything handy to measure it against.  Well, OK, I did, but it would have been rude to bring that out in public.

On the walk back, Ed and I found the last remaining remnant of the old Forbes Field.

You don’t see many ballparks anymore with outfield walls that are 457’ away from home plate.

We went back to the hotel to fetch Mom, who had ridden with the others.  This led to the line of the night:

We were trying to peel Mom away so we could get going.  Ed still had to load a bunch of pictures from our thumb drives onto his laptop, for display during the dinner.  He told Mom, “Come on… I still have to set up the audio-visual stuff.”

Mom said, “What audio-visual stuff?”

I said, “The Count Basie Orchestra is very specific with their PA demands.”

Riffing on that, Ed said, “And I have to show Tony Bennett to his room.”

To which Mom said, “Show him to my room.”

We got back to the hotel and got cleaned up for the big soiree.  The room was done up very nicely.  My sister and sister-in-law did a beautiful job with the decorations.  Plus, they’d gotten the hotel to give us a projector and screen to use for the old picture slide show.  (We were just going to set the laptop up on a table.)  This way, we could just let the old shots run all night and everyone had the chance to see them.

Ed approached me and suggested that since I’m the oldest, I should do a toast.  I wasn’t sure… I didn’t think that just because I came along first that I should automatically get to be spokesperson, and said as much.  I didn’t exactly decline, but I didn’t exactly jump at it either.  I spent the next hour chewing on what I’d say, and trying not to get too many drinks into me and making the notion of my speaking clearly to the group, moot.

Right after we sat down for dinner, I began to wonder where I should stand, so I wouldn’t have my back to half the people in the room.  Just as I was about to seek Ed’s opinion, he got up, went to the front of the room, dinged a glass and began the toast.

“I know I’m not the oldest, but Bluz deferred, so you can probably read his toast in his blog…”

Great opener… He then went on to give a far more collected, funny, elegant and perfect toast than what I had been tossing around in my head.  Sometimes things just work out for the best.  No regrets!

Still, I know I have to work on giving clearer signals.

After Ed spoke, my dad got up to say a few things.  He said, “There are two reasons we’ve managed to be married for 50 years.  For one, I married an angel.  And the other… I traveled a lot….”

Afterwards, Mom got up and said, “Everything he said is true…”

The rest of the night was a yummy dinner (prime rib for me… no fish sandwich tonight), then circulating and trying to talk to so many people that I haven’t seen in ages.

Daniel was killing me though.  First he spent dinner talking with me about his new-found love for AC/DC and 80s music.  Then he killed the night by entertaining his much older cousins with more music talk and discussion of the Revolutionary War.

Daniel being entertaining.

We also managed to get a more coherent and cooperative kid cousin picture:

Daniel and Sammy bookend the lineup in their coordinated outfits.  Daniel’s “Spiccoli shoes” kill me.

Throughout the night, I found myself violating one of my primary rules… you know… the one about mixing alcohol that I wrote about here?  I was mostly drinking gin & tonics, which are my go-to wedding drinks.  But then there were bottles of red and white wine on the tables too, so I latched onto the white wine during and after dinner.  Once the event was over, Ed, our sister Ann, Scotty and I went over to the hotel bar for a couple late beers. 

Now I don’t mean to sound like I was really drunk, but by the end of the night, I had a crush on this chick in a beer ad:

Nah, I’m just kidding… But back when I used to collect beer cans as a kid, we loved finding new “Olde Frothingslosh” cans.  There was a whole series with this lady on the front.  It was kind of a joke beer: “Olde Frothingslosh, the pale, stale ale.”  I got a kick out of seeing an ad for it in the bar.

But the next morning was a little brutal.  Like I mentioned in the prior post, I woke up with a cracking headache.  Luckily it was nothing that a breakfast buffet and a little time didn’t cure.

Well, you already heard all about Sunday so no rehashing is needed here.  My initial plans called for staying around on Monday to go see the Pirates/Reds game at PNC Park.  The only drawback was that there was no one to go with… all my out of town relatives were heading back home, and my Pittsburgh relatives were either occupied or had jobs and stuff.  So I ended up just coming back home early, which worked out because it gave me a whole day to write the D-fish Fry post.

With all the traffic troubles and construction that had been tying Pittsburgh in knots all weekend, I opted for a different route home.  I took I-79 south to I-68, which took me back east across the northern border of Maryland.  That’s a much more scenic route than the dreary old PA Turnpike, but the real up side is a complete lack of traffic!

This is what it looked like, practically the whole way home.  It was about 40 miles longer, but I made it in 45 minutes less time, with almost no stress.  Had the cruise control on about 75% of the time.  On the other hand, I would never use this route without cruise control!  The whole time you are either going up or down a hill.  Maintaining a consistent speed is almost impossible to do manually.

So… it was a great weekend all around.  Friends!  Family! Fish Sandwiches!

Now what am I going to look forward to?

Ooh, I know… Podcamp!

We’ll see…

The Darwinfish Fry

Let’s see… what happened this week…?

There was my trip to Pittsburgh, a family excursion out to Schenley Park before my parents’ big anniversary party and then the party itself… but first, let’s talk about…

Note:  All pics are clickable to bring up a larger, more eye-rocking version.

First of all, I guess I’m the last participant to write about it.  You can find Cassie’s recap and the now-famous “Sweet Jesus” story on Sisters From Different Misters.  Also Carpetbagger, AskCherlock, and Bitchburgh have provided their takes on this precedent-setting gathering of Pittsburgh-based bloggers (plus me).

Sunday was a tough day for me from the get-go.  Still in bed and hung over to the bejesus, my brother-in-law Scotty called my room to get me to come down to breakfast with he and my sister, my brother and his family, and an old friend of my dad’s.  Fifteen minutes later, I appeared to join the party.  I could sense the presence of bacon in the room, so I hit the breakfast buffet with full gusto.

That might have been a slight mistake, because after a quick detour to chill at the hotel pool and spa, we headed over to my Aunt’s house for dinner.

Yes, dinner, before my other dinner.  But if you’ve ever eaten with an Italian family, (or if you’re in one) you know that it’s futile to try to avoid eating.  You can say “no” a dozen times, but still a plate will be set in front of you and food will appear.  I didn’t even try to fight it this time; I just tried to take small portions.  (I was unsuccessful, but I tried.)  I had some rigatoni, some grilled chicken, some hot sausage… I forget what else.  Luckily I had about 2 hours before my intended dinner at the D-fish Fry at 7:00.

I planned to leave early so I could get to the restaurant early and be sure everything was set up properly.  (Remember, I’m the Planning Guy… I seek to leave nothing to chance.)  But right at 6:15, I got a text from Ginny of That’s Church, saying that she just sent me an email. 

“Uh-oh… that can’t be good news.”

So I scurried into my aunt’s den to access my email.  Yep… bad news.  Ginny’s husband was out of town, due to be back by 6:00, but was running 3 hours late.  She wouldn’t be able to get there before it was over, so she had to cancel.  Also, I saw an email from Burgh Baby, who also had real life interfere with her plans to join us.

There was only one thing going through my mind at that point:  “Squeee!  I got a text from PittGirl!!!”

A lot of us were excited to meet her, but I was anxious to tell her (again) about how she was the reason I even started blogging in the first place.  Hers and Burgh Baby’s sites were the first blogs I read regularly.  She was my inspiration (as described in my first post), and I found most of my current blog-friends through her site’s comments and links.  I consider her the Fairy Godmother of Pittsburgh Blogging and wanted to tell her so.  Both Ginny and Burgh Baby do so much actual good in the community it almost makes me feel guilty about the collection of rants, stories, and potty jokes that make up my blog.  Almost… then I snap out of it.

So I thought I was going to be late but ended up arriving right when I intended, at 6:45.  As I walked in, I could see that Cassie and Carly already had things well in hand, as our long, giant table for 15 was getting the finishing touches.  And right off the bat, they had to show me the picture from the restroom (as seen on the Sisters site), featuring 2 toilets side by side and no dividing wall.

The sisters are just as dazzling in person as you would expect from their blog.

Cassie is a non-stop ball of energy and fun, even pregnant, and immediately went to work sucking all the air out of the room with her commentary.  Not that I’m complaining… she’s highly entertaining.  Cher thinks that she should start a stand-up act with the stuff that happens to her.  I agree.  And as a sideshow, she can display her freakishly long fingers!

That was my first order of business… see just how long they were, and lo and behold, they were as long as mine.  (I’m 6’3”, she’s 5’8”, which is still tall, but dayum!)  The pic doesn’t do them justice… they’re like long pale spider-legs.

The quote of the night, besides her Sweet Jesus story, was Cassie saying, “I beat my husband all the time.”  (OK, she was talking Wii, but still…)

Seriously, Cassie will always be special to me because she was my first non-family/friend commenter and earliest supporter.  As I told her, “you always remember your first.”

Carly is the quieter of the two, but I’m sure that’s not for lack of trying, just lack of opportunity.

Like an older sister, she probably prefers to supervise from a distance while baby-sister runs wild.  But she is as poised and striking as could be.  Now if only we can get her to post more often!  She promised…

Dawn and Dan came in next…

Dawn is a frequent commenter here (as “DG”) and was the only one there that didn’t have a blog.  I felt kind of bad because all night long they had to answer the question, “And what’s your blog?”  But they were fun and charming to talk to, and we’re all trying to press them into starting one.  Hey, they’d have an immediate group of supporters, right there at the table.

There was no mistaking when the “Cherlocks”, Rich and Cher, walked in.

Rich, as promised, I did not use either of those “other” shots I had when you were wearing that unfortunate choice of emergency eyewear.  You’re welcome!

The Cherlocks have been my biggest supporters and cheerleaders and for that I’m eternally grateful.  Cher first commented on my post about being whacked on cold medicine and creating my Poisoning Pigeons in the Park video last September and had been coming back ever since.  Their own blog is a rare oasis of sanity and civility, whether discussing politics, economics, or their own stories.  Everything Cassie said about them, (in her recap) I echo with gusto.  And to boot, Cher is a local girl… local to the area in which my dad grew up and my aunt currently lives. 

I tried to get my folks to drop by for a few minutes because I knew they would love to talk to Cher and Rich (as well as everyone else).  But given the nature of how everyone was in town up at my aunt’s to see them, it would have been difficult for them to duck out.

For some reason, most of the blogs I follow are written by women.  I don’t know why… it just turned out that way, but one giant exception is Carpetbaggery.  Mr. and Mrs. Carpetbagger came in next. 

They are transplants from the Chicago area and live in a fixed up former bar and speakeasy in Lawrenceville.  The funny thing is that he is from the exact same suburb I lived in back when I was in 3^rd and 4^th grade, Glen Ellyn IL.  Small freakin’ world!

Bagger writes about the same kind of things I try to do… a little of this and a little of that, but always with an entertaining way of making a point.  I wanted to talk with them more than I was able to, but they were sitting on the other side of Cassie, so there was only so much oxygen to go around.

(Cassie never misses out on a chance to point out how old I am compared to her, (and as I learned last night, even her MOM is younger than me!) so I am perfectly within bounds to tease her about the speed and quantity of her talking.)

Really… it was the table.  I should have found a way to have it arranged in a circle or something because if you were at one end of the table, it was like if someone was two-people down from you, it was as though they were in another room.

That became more of an issue when the fabulous bitches from Bitchburgh came blowing in.  These three, Hot Mama, Wormy, and Mindbling (with their men in tow) brought a giant jump of energy into the room. 

Mindbling (left) is stuffed with child and is due in September.  That’s her man Maverick with her, with Hot Mama on the right.

Wormy and Chilla sat with Mindbling and Mav down at the other end of the table and Hot Mama and Papa sat up on my end, so I got to hear the story of Bitchburgh from her.  (It evolved from Mindbling’s own blog.)  We got her to have Wormy tell the story behind how she came by that, um, unusual web moniker.  (Long story short, it rhymed with “Permy” and evolved from there with Bling refusing to let it die.)

Later in the evening, Wormy switched with Hot Mama and brought her Cheshire Cat grin down to my side of the table so I got to talk with her a bit.  In fact, she spotted my notebook, on which I had some notes jotted down in case the conversation lagged.

Hey, I’m Planning Guy, right?  What if after all the build up, we all just sat there staring at each other, grasping for things to talk about?  I wanted to have something handy to toss out there.  But thankfully, we just hit the ground yapping and never stopped all night.

Anyway, Wormy called me on it and insisted I cover all points with her.  Mostly it was just blogging things about why we started blogs, how obsessively we track hits, what we think about buttons and regular themes (which none of us seem to use) or what we think of people that just show up in our hit counts for copying our pictures.  Y’know… nuts and bolts blogging stuff. 

Then we were entertained when Wormy and Bagger engaged in some extra-marital bumping, right there in front of Mrs. Bagger. 

It was like Wild Kingdom for phone geeks.

All too soon, Cassie and Carly had to go… they had a long trip ahead of them back to Slippery Rock.  The only plus was that since they were sitting in the middle, all of us could shift down, thus getting the people at the ends of the group closer together so we could have a more communal conversation.  Plus there was obviously more oxygen available with Cassie gone.  (I’m sorry, Cass… that’s the last time I bring it up.)  (heehee)

I never realized how far so many had to come to show up in little Coraopolis.  Maybe next time I can find a more centrally located place.  But the fact that so many came out leaves me humbled and awestruck.

There’s so much misunderstanding about what we do, by people that aren’t involved.  I don’t know how many times someone wondered if we would all just sit there texting each other.  And I kept getting asked, “You’re going to dinner with these people and you’ve really never met?”  And of course, people still think this is all like some kind of blind dating scam, where when you think you’re talking to some hot chickie, it’s really a fat dude in his mother’s basement.

What I try to tell people is that this is what I was meant to do.  I’ve spent my life looking for outlets to write, inspire and entertain.  Apparently I just had to wait for PCs to be invented.  (And then many more years for me to learn what the hell to do with them.)

Bagger said it best in his Friday post in anticipation of the event: “This isn’t computer dating; it’s a community of souls and minds who enjoy expressing themselves and sharing the expressions of others.” 

The people I met Sunday night are supporters, inspirations, mentors and kindred spirits.  But I can no longer call them my blogger friends… they are just… my friends.  And I can’t wait to hang out with them again.

Thank you so much to all that attended.  You made my year.  (Hands clasped, Ed McMahon bow…) 

(That’s a guy that used to be on TV, Cassie, but you probably weren’t allowed to stay up late enough to see him…yinz kin look it up.)

All pictures not from me were taken by The Cherlocks.  No prizes for guessing whose is whose.

Wait for it...

Wow... what a weekend.  Had a ball with both events and will post about it all tomorrow.  Got home at about 4:00 today and went to work processing all my pictures.  Now I'm whipped and need a rest for a while.

In the meantime, please check out the most recent post from Cassie at Sisters from Different Misters.  She's providing a complete rundown of the Darwinfish Fry Gala Event.

But since the only picture she took was in the bathroom, you may consider this one tonight.

Click the pic for a larger view.  From the left, around the table: frequent commenter Dawn (to the right of her husband's shirt), Carly, Cher and Rich from Ask Cherlock, Mindbling (in the gray hat, with Maverick behind her) Hot Mama, Chilla across the table, Wormy (hiding behind) Carpetbagger and Mrs. Carpetbagger, and Cassie.