Mortimer's Mom

Girls get together and talk!

I just spent a lovely evening with yet another blogger. The internet is a funny place, where you end up bcomeing really friendly with people that live far away. And then you mention to those people that you will be in their neck of the woods and have to decide if you want to meet them or not.

A while back, I made a plan to get together with A Girl's Gotta Blog. It was a loose plan. I was coming to Miami, she lives here, we were going to hook up at some point. Today, she came to the house (invited!!!) with not 1 but TWO bottles of wine and we talked in the sun room for a good hour. The girls (mine) were in their typical 2/5 y.old behaviour, putting on a big show, being sweet and totally wired. Hubs was kind enough to give them a bath to give us some space. After I put them to bed, we took our chat on the road and went for a bite and more talking.

It's hard to believe we didn't actually *know* each other before tonight, and I hope she'll head north someday and we can hook up again in my neck of the woods.

Sometimes you need to plug it and unplug it

That my friends, are words to live by. It was the advice of the hotel desk clerk when Melissa and I pointed out that the WIRELESS connection wasn't working...... Think about that one for a second. Yeah.

It's early afternoon and we are resting in our hotel rooms because

a) we got up at 4 am
b) it's cold and rainy and most of the cool vendors didn't open

So we are recharging our batteries and hoping to make a second pass at it later this afternoon. We did get a bunch of good stuff this morning: some oilcloth bags and aprons, some really good pieces of vintage fabric and chenille bed spreads and even some actual oil cloth fabric by the yard. And we ate delicious BBQ. While watching scalp surgery.... you had to be there.

Best moment of the day thus far was shared by Bobbi Jo and I, who happen to be sharing a room. We were just leaving Michele and Melissa's room to head into ours and stepped into the elevator. The door closed. And the most horrendous smell of fart assaulted us! It was still there when we went downstairs to the business center 20 minutes later.

We are now relegated to using the business center computers, because I can't figure out how to unplug the wireless internet. Oh, and Bobbi Jo keeps crashing her browser by attempting to open a second tab.... we are apparenlty trying to break the Texas Internet.

it's 4:40 am, what are YOU doing?

I'm sitting in Shelba's kitchen, drinking coffee made by her husband, using her cousin Melissa's couputer, chatting with Bobbi Jo.

Poor Melissa! I don't think she knew what she was getting herself into! At dinner last night, she relised just HOW MUCH we actually know about each other from the computer..... she's still wrapping her head around it. Though she fits right in. Really, she does. She and Bobbi Jo are wearing the same pants this morning. And apparently, i missed the memo, because all 3 of them are wearing white tops. I went for green. I'm feeling self conscious....

So we are filling up with coffee and hitting the road. Expect snippets as the day goes on. And to Mystery Blogger, thanks for the airport pickup, delicious lunch and drive the check out houses. THAT was fun!

Oh! and I met Julia!  From Uncommon Misconceptions! That my friends, is going WAAAYYYYY Back. To my first IVF. She was absolutely the sweetest.

it's a packing miracle!

All my clothes fit in a backpack, with wheels.

H&M yielded a lovely green tote purse for 30$.

It also yielded a super cute tunic-dress, which will enable me to travel in comfort (with leggings.... sorry!) AND style. I was totally planning on flying in my "yummy-mummy uniform" of Lululemon yoga pants and zip jacket, but now, I can arrive in Texas looking a bit more fashionable and still be comfy on the way.

The un-sellable bin in the backstore yielded a couple of zippered pouches that I used to organise my ipod and assorted wires (charger, camera battery etc) so I can pretend I'm actually an organized person who doesn't usually travel with a big ziplock bag.

A piece of sewing elastic and a double sided sticky dot was fashioned into a believable lense-cap attachment to I won't lose it all the time.

Except for actually putting my toiletries in the FAA approved ziplock bag, I am ready to go. With only 2 pairs of shoes (one on my feet, one in the unbelievably well-packed backpack.)

It's only 4:30 pm. I'm not leaving my house til 4:30 am. what the heck am I supposed to do now?????

PS: thanks to modern mobile technology, expect brief updates from the trip. Grand retelling of stories will wait til Sunday night. Also, sometime tonight, expect a Swap Button to appear on Ubercrafty.

now for some REAL drama: PACKING!

Maybe you'll notice that I added a new category: Real Life Encounters. Tonight, I had dinner with Alisa from Mimosa. This is our 2nr real life meeting. The first time, I was a new mom and she was still doing paper-chasing. Now we are both moms and we've been through a lot over the last 3 years, but we had the BEST time. We shopped, she picked out some clothes and I critiqued them, we had wine, we had dinner, we had dessert and unfortunately it was already time to go.....

It is T-... crap I suck at math! But it's Tuesday night and I leave before the sun is up on Thursday morning to go meet up with Shelba and Bobbi Jo and Melissa and Secret Blogger and who-knows-who-else-we'll-run-into and it suddenly dawned on me: I NEED TO PACK!

Now, normally, this would be a non-issue. But here is the problem: I have a very tight connection to make on the way down, so I think I should go carry-on only to ensure swift passage at the hell-hole that is O'Hare. But you see, the new carry-on rules allow only ONE carry on and a personal item, which I have established can be a briefcase/purse/laptop-bag. But because I am not Mrs. Figby, I don't own either a big-ass purse or a trendy hobo tote. And I actually in fact do not own a carry-on-size suitcase on wheels, just an actual carry on.....

Also, along with the essentials for 4 days in hot weather, I must find a way to pack an EMPTY duffel bag, because (honey, turn away if you are reading this) I plan on shopping while I'm there. And bringing things back....  OK, I could just buy  cheap suitcase there, but you know, cheap suitcase in Texas isn't cheap suitcase in Beijing.....

Furthermore, the dilemma is WHAT to actually bring... because I have been wearing a parka and boots for 7 1/2 months now (only slightly exaggerating there) so even a balmy 72 could cause me to sweat profusely and find myself needing to change. Shelba gave me great tips (I'm pretty sure she was just kidding about the crocs....) but it's still a bit of a puzzle how to make that fit in there. Thankfully, I do not need to bring anything nice, since you know, I'll probably buying a thing or two or five....

The final pre-packing problem was solved yesterday. It occurred to me when contemplating packing a pair of cropped jeans (yes, I own capris. shoot me) that i was suffering from sever Kanuck Winter Legs Syndrome. So I hauled myself to the Schmall, where poor little Myriam had the pleasure of waxing my legs and giving me a pedicure. The interesting thing is that I'm not very hairy, but she did manage to wax off about 3 layers of dead, dry skin. So now instead of pasty white, I'm slightly pink from the newly exposed skin! It sets off nicely with the coral on my toes and the green/blue bruises from the ski boots!

I leave you with the ultimate cell phone photo: flip-flops in the snow. Which is why Kanuck Girls don't get pedicures in winter... How do you get home? And I'm not kidding, it actually snowed again yesterday. Fresh snow. It will NEVER end.

PS: Lemonade Stand Quilt Swap is now at 18 and I set up a Flickr account. Keep it up!