Could MacGruber Win You $100 Dollars? Movies, Money, Oh My.

mmmm RDJ fortified with iron

This past weekend the babysitting gods sat around and laughed heartily at and openly mocked me and my husband while around our fair city Iron Man 2 opened on many, many screens.

Obviously we did not get one measly glimpse at the uber hot Tony Stark, save for passing a poster at the theatre on the way to the grocery store -- which for the record DOES. NOT. COUNT. Yes, I'm not bitter at all, not one drop.

Instead we watched a perfectly good movie on our TV that had Viggo Mortonsen who is a totally acceptable replacement for Robert Downey Jr. Plus I must admit that watching a movie at home is a heck of a lot more comfortable and efficient than going to the theatre. For starters I don't need to put on pants.

The Big Tease

Okay, if you came here from Oh, The Joys, WELCOME! But if you didn't come from there you must go visit The Bloggess in order to make any sense of what is going on below so go read her post first (that is, if you are going to BlogHer this year -- if not, you probably won't care to read the rest.)

Because only someone who has followed the yellow brick road, uh I mean teaser trail, understands why I'm screaming out just one random-looking word, like this one:

NOW GO HERE ASAP: The Velveteen Mind

Why are you still here?

This isn't a BlogHer Recap (alternate title: Viva La Siesta!)

Random lines from posts I've started but failed to finish:

(1) Hi. My name is motherbumper and I'm a "booyah" abuser. As in, I use the word "booyah" to punctuate too many thoughts in a "yada yada yada" kind of way.

(2) My deep-dish and uncomfortable thoughts on free stuff. When it comes to free stuff, I don't go looking for it but don't get me wrong, booyah! I luuuurve free stuff. Hell, if swag lands in my lap and it's of use to me, into the bag it goes. In fact, I pack light going to BlogHer because so many generous sponsors and party hosts give tokens of appreciation for attending their party. Attending being a very key word in that sentence. It is never expected but damn it's nice and I know it's going to happen. But if it didn't happen, it wouldn't change my weekend.

Anyhow, the swag thing at BlogHer was weird this year. There was a very small number of the generally awesome population acting like freaks. Freaks as in committing blackmail over shoes or like in my personal experience while working the door at The People's Party where I witnessed something small but strange. This incident kind of set the tone for me on the subject of free stuff over the weekend.

Let me explain it the best way I can: As a hostess of The People's Party, I was handing out drink tickets and big welcoming smiles and/or hellos to everyone I could reach as they surged (literally SURGED) through the doors. When the surging had died down to a well-heeled stampede, I witnessed a woman come in, make a beeline to the swag bags, grab four (!) (as in two on each arm), and then promptly turn around and march out. The only reason I remember her so specifically is she totally didn't make eye-contact with me when I tried to hand her a drink ticket -- she put her hand up in a blocking / dismissive way and marched on by. So I watched what she did because I was taken aback (what can I say, I'm sensitive). When she breezed on past me after her bag scoop, I stepped outside the door to watch her leave and she proceeded to walk away from the party crowd towards what I'm not sure... the elevators? Her friends? They weren't anywhere near the party, that's for sure.

I told myself, she's probably just grabbing it for other people and bringing it back to the room. I seriously tried to convince myself that she did because I didn't want to get pissy at my own party like my name was JLo or something. But then I thought about all the people who were here, not getting or caring about bags, and staying because they were there to meet people. Because you know, that's the purpose of The People's Party.

But my observations are full of total conjecture and it was just odd to watch. I could be totally wrong. Maybe she had already had her free drink and her friends had sent her in to grab the swag they didn't get the first time around and ten minutes was enough time at the party for all of them.

Yet I couldn't help myself and felt compelled to record this encounter because regardless of her reason / plan of use with the bag, it was somehow appeared more important to her to grab the free stuff than to just come to the party and meet with other bloggers. Instead she appeared to be doing a free stuff recon pre-party attendance. Because the free stuff is just a nice perk, not the purpose. It left me with an icky feeling.

(3) BlogHer is a mindfuck.

(4) Can't wait to do it all again in New York.

(5) Damn everyone looked good at BlogHer this year. Especially you.


(6) All Hail the Unicorn Cake from the planet MamaPop!

(7) This week during my BlogHer detox, I had grandiose plans to clean and reorganize this entire home while SB and G were out of town but after making a mental list of everything I needed to do I took a nap.

Then I woke up, decided to add doing an internal cleanse while eating nothing but fruit and veg because I don't have to prep any meals for others all week, and felt proud that the nap gave me such clarity. Viva la Siesta! Then I promptly sat on the couch, ordered a pizza (online! no human interaction! if I could have shoved an envelope under the door with the money, I would have!), and after eating more than half of the damn thing, I fell asleep.

So to recap: this week I've accomplished nothing but a post about Joe Jonas having his heart smashed in seventeen places by Camilla Belle (which I first read as Camille Paglia and let me tell you, I was very confused) and also I managed to go pee. Oh and I also managed to make myself into a Mad Men avatar (what do you think - did I get it right?)

(8) BOO-YAH!

well heeled women make strange post fodder

For the past three hours, I've been wearing my high heels that I recently purchased. The reason I have been wearing them to do the dishes, play tea party, and do the laundry is due to a life-lesson learned back in days of yore.

Once many moons ago I procured the most excellent of fancy shoes - stacked suede clogs embroidered with dragons and flowers -- and loved them like no other (well, at least since the most awesome of cowboy-boot shoes that I ever owned -- deep red with black flames -- remember those cowboy boot shoes? Oh the ninties were strange indeedy). Well those dragon clogs had only been worn in the store and privacy of my own apartment for all of two minutes, before I jumped in a cab to a fancy-schmancy party on-board one of the Tall Ships.

Upon arriving at the dock, I made it up the gang-plank only to discover something horrible - FOOT SWEAT. My feet were sweating like little raging bulls and I COULD NOT WALK in these shoes. If I tried to move, the sweat from my feet felt like I was trying to navigate on ball-bearings and I'd fall backwards. These shoes didn't allow my feet to breath (serial killer clogs methinks) and the sweat was beyond belief. So I only wore them when standing still slipping them off and leaving them on the floor next to my friends while tip-toeing over to the bar/buffet, while praying no one noticed my huge social faux-pas of being bare-foot while on-board a dignified ship full of dignified people. What did I think this was? A hedonism cruise?

Of course we were taken on a tour of the ship and some smarmy sailor had already taken a liking to me (I think it was because I was least mobile - due to feet - and it was like the weakest of the herd kind of love) and trying to maintain protocol while not being rude, I hobbled around best on my geisha-killer shoes with that seaman dude trying out his weak English on me. For the record, I hate the ladder steps in all ships - so undignified. Gotta say tho', the disco on-board this ship was impressive. Also made me suspicious since there was no women stationed on board. Must get lonely at sea, eh Billy?

Anyhow, ever since that miserable experience all new shoes are road tested before the actual racing event. So today, I do laundry, dishes, and dusting while wearing these:

So far so good but if you see me hobbling around at BlogHer, take pity and DON'T HIT ON ME. Bring me slippers and alcohol and I will love you forever (right down to taking a ladder and sneaking into your home in the middle of the night to sing while skulking around your bedside - NOW THAT'S LOVE).

I've got one hand on my ego but can't find my id

So I want on a roadtrip this past weekend. I drove down to BlogHer Boston as part of the GM car pool and I was in a car with this lovely lady and her completely edible son. He tastes like gingerbread and smells like new baby, and while I did not eat the aforementioned baby I may have nibbled around the edges.

For the record, I did not nibble anyone else, but I did sleep with this tempting mama because I'm easy like that. And maybe I rubbed up in an inapproriate way with this little sugarpants vixen, and then I told this double agent that she has a nice a*s, and then I inspired this chick to tell me about how well hung Dustin Diamond is, and that left me wondering how she knew.

I also spent time drinking with a huge group of ladies I will have to link to - because they are that cool - but because I haven't unpacked yet *cough* lazy *cough* and found that precious precious pile of cards that promise rabbit-hole like adventures (as in fall in and come back up for air four days later from reading complete archives), I cannot link to them at this time. My memory is shot, my inbox is full, and I'm full of about 40 posts that are stuck in blogstipation. Usually when I'm blogstipated, I have nothing to say but this time... I have too much.

Where to begin... how about the first few hours of the roadtrip?

Approximately three hours into our journey, I almost had Catherine arrested at the border after demanding - nay strong-arming her into taking a picture of the most hilarious sign ever - a sign that had the unfortunate placement of being right above a border patrol guard who was about to ask for our passports and why the hell should he let us into his country.

Guess what? You can't take photos at the border crossing. It's a no-no.

How do I know this fact? A border guard read us the riot act for taking the picture.

While praying that the riot act was just a lecture to scold us and not a preamble to "bend over and cough", these were some of the thoughts that raced through my head:

• we mean no harm, please let us in nice man
• screw that, he's an a*shat
• OMG - he wants the camera
• he can't be serious
• OMG - he really wants the camera
• SH*T he is serious
• woah, I totally must remember to blog this

Yes, we had to pass over the camera. After fumbling with the camera, trying to set it up so he could see the offending photo, an action that seemed to take excruciatingly long, we handed over the camera with the potential international incident.

He examined the photo, taking it in at every angle, and made some thinking noises. After he passed it back, out came the wagging finger and the "learning points" synopsis of his lecture on not taking pictures at the border. Because it's baaaaaaaaaaaad.

Then he finally started to ask some standard questions:
Border Guard: Purpose of your trip?
me: We're going to a conference sir
Border Guard: What is your profession?
me: Blogging, I'm a blogger (I kept rambling and muttering incoherent crap)... I'm going to a blogging conference... (something incoherent - kinda like one of my posts)

Meanwhile Catherine was saying perfectly normal non-trigger answers that he couldn't hear because I was in the drivers seat and squirming like a freak with four balloons full of heroin in my stomach.

Border Guard: What?
me: Blogging
Border Guard: Clogging? You're a clogger? Where are your shoes?
me: ???
Border Guard: You clog?
me: Blog, I do stuff on my computer. (I'm now squirming like the balloons have ruptured and I'm about to become the next storyline on Law & Order)

After a bit more of an explanation was made, it was still obvious he just didn't fully understand what our purpose was (in life or in visiting his country), and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he did not like us but it was clear that he had no real reason to hold a couple of exhausted looking folk dancers who do stuff with computers.

Border Guard: I don't know what you do but don't take anymore pictures of borders ya' hear?

I stepped on the gas and sped into New York state before he could change his mind. Dude totally never noticed the baby, sixty-eight parakeets, and side of beef we had crammed in the back seat.

BOOYAH! Totally worth peer-pressuring a friend into sparking off an international scandal.