Get Me a Free Shirt!

Hello readers, dearests!

A friend of mine and a friend of his have recently fired up a sweet t-shirt company based on their travels about the globe. They just unveiled their website, and it is phenomenal. Having been on one of those trips, the pictures on the site are not only familiar, I think I took one of them!

Have yourself a look-see, and if you like it enough, share it with your friends. As a show of support, this link will now also be featured permanently in the sidebar to your left. However, since I haven't updated the layout of this piece in, oh, two years, it may move in the near future now that I've resumed posting. I may even go back and delete old crappy posts. If you feel like sharing, tell me what your least favorite post is.

Backpacker Tees

Obligatory Photo Reel

Max, ready for his close-up.
Max, who prefers a firm mattress. Porcelain, even.
Max, after a heroin overdose.
Max, on a disco dance floor.
Max, giving me a rash on my face.
Max, believing "Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs" was a true story.

I'm a VIP, baby.

There is a concert tour happening this summer that I was so excited about that when I learned of its stop at A Casino Near Me, I had to change my pants. Twice. It is: No Doubt, back together, with Paramore opening. *swoon*
I managed to pull together 12 tickets in the same row so that I could bring my roommates, half my coworkers, my two favorite people in the whole world, and two of my midgets and rock the f*** out. It was a slow, trickling process, getting 12 people in the same place at the same time, so the early of us gambled for a little while to "earn" some free drinks on the floor. I lost $6 and Joe got his "free beer" (see below) and then by the time the show was starting we were all finally in some stage of eating dinner at the Summer Shack. The majority of us ate corn dogs. They were fast and we'd killed our time before the show pretty effectively...


After dinner, I put my camera in the room because I didn't want to risk having my baby taken away. So the next picture I have is this - a bunch of us hanging out in the hotel room, waiting for our ear drums to stop bleeding. Well, actually is the reflection of us hanging out in the hotel room, with another branch of the building through the window. Awesome photo. Patting myself on the back. The concert? Everything I hoped it would be. Everyone around me was hoping through the whole show that I wouldn't inadvertently punch one of them in the face in my crazed, surprisingly uncoordinated hopping around screaming in my seat.After the show, some of us went to do more gambling damage, some of us went for a walk in the woods, some of us went home because we are under the age of 15, some of us went to a bar 10 minutes before last call and were asked to leave with drinks in hand and unpaid tab, and some of us just disappeared back to the hotel rooms. Mariana won $650 on her first time at a casino, ever. We ordered room service around 3 am after a rousing game of "The Price Is Right" on the room service menu. You can't see from the tableset, but there were pints of Ben & Jerry's, as well.I throw one heck of a party...

A Day on Block Island

Rode over with the Cap'n in the wheelhouse! Did a whole little photo shoot of him, actually :)
Spent just enough time on the beach to not get sunburnt.
Realized the water was too cold to do anything in/with anyway.
Went fake-shopping (and realized the store that says "Home Made Fudge" painted on the front of the building is actually a mini-arcade...such a disappointment...)
And took the ferry home with 900 hormone-filled beach-bound high schoolers.

Ladies Day Out

This is: all the beautiful women on my mother's side of the family, having traveled to Westchester Co., NY to see the cute, curly-haired blonde in glasses and red boots in A Little Night Music, with the exception of her older sister, and my dear sweet Florida-bound sister Mariel. The play was great, though being exclusively about adultery and sex, was a little inappropriate for my 9-year-old Cupcake but she still enjoyed the music and dancing. If you are reading this and aren't in the picture and therefore didn't already see it, I highly recommend it. Very funny. At the White Plains Performing Arts Center.

Before the play, we had lunch at Legal Sea Food. That was sort of funny because Legal is a Boston chain, and I drove all the way down from Boston to eastern Conn, to NY to end up at a restaurant that there are 4 of within 20 minutes walking from my office. It was good, though. Closest thing to a Maryland crabcake [Ok, I have to share - I just typed "crackcake" without noticing] I've had since Maryland! Before lunch, I got my Diabetes On and tested my blood sugar, when almost everyone else at the table shouted "Test me too! Do me!!" So we went around the table and confirmed that everyone else in the family is, in fact, healthy. Gwen, though, curled up inside her jacket and shook with fear that I might prick her finger and TAKE HER BLOOD until I put the little test kit away.

On the way home, I kidnapped the other three people in the car I was in and made a pit stop at Paul's house for coffee and a hug. Dr. Bobby and Mama Jo were very sweet and welcoming, and we got to see the giant train set in the attic run! We only stayed for about 20 minutes but that added enough time to our trip that we needed to stop en route for dinner, so I manned the Nuvi to find several good restaurants that were...ooooooh, shit, right down that exit ramp we just passed... Finally we found an Outback which was awesome because I got to eat a Bloomin' Onion. That can't be that bad, right? Just a little flour? And fats are OK for me to eat... WRONG!! 241g of Carbohydrate in a single Bloomin' Onion. That's an entire day's worth of food for me...

And then we went home.