And then….

So, that first night, Erica (DramaMama) Colby (Veil, of the HollyWood Roses, and soon to be the driving force behind 1980 666) and I chatted until 2 am or so, we went to bed (separately, GOSH!) but not before they’d introduced me to the COOLEST thing EVER when it comes to take-out/delivery service: Yummy.com.

Unfortunately, they aren’t in Alaska. Or anywhere else. But what it is, is a grocery store – Erica ordered online, and thirty minutes later they delivered diet coke, wine, cat food, cookies, and the best damn BLT sammiches I’ve ever seen – made fresh, with like 1/2 pound of bacon on it! All for the delivery price of 3 bucks +price of the groceries. I was STUNNED. I swear, if I had that, I don’t think I’d ever leave the house. *L* It was most awesome.

So, the next morning, which’d be day two, I drug my exhausted butt outa the uber comfortable bed (Did I mention my own room and bathroom? Yeaaaaah baby) and downstairs to see what we wanted to do. We decided to grab lunch, naturally, and bum around before we headed up to the Griffith Observatory. Where’d we go for lunch? The one and only Grub. Yeah, THE Grub, home of the one and only Baddabing Betty!

First off – I was ETERNALLY amused that the restaurant was on SEWARD street. That made my day. Then, then we walked in, and RIGHT THERE was Betty herself – from Top Chef season two, with that infectious smile and warm hug and excitement to meet me (ME! Like _I_ was the special one!) and make my lunch.

Erica had the Mac and Cheese, while Colby and I opted for the After School Special – which was tomato soup and a grilled cheese sammy that makes my mouth water to THINK about it – and then there were the cookies. Oh. My. GAWD. (I’ll be doing a full review for Reality on Bravo soon, so keep an eye out for that.) UNtil then, get a load of her beautiful smile…

After lunch, it was off to the Zoo parking lot, to catch the shuttle, to go right back past where we had JUST driven, to get up to the Griffeth observatory. I can’t WAIT to bring the kids there – it is MOST awesome.

Where else can give you the ability to call the kids with these choice words.. “Hey boy! I walked the orbit of Uranus!” huh?

While there, we saw many funny things. I decided to move to Pluto, because I only weigh 6 pounds there. I made some old dude almost choke with laughter when we saw a meteorite that is said to weight 395 pounds and I popped off with the comment “Funny, that looks NOTHING like my ass…” We discovered that We! Are! Here!

And also, that Erica and Colby are entirely too cute for words.

There was all that cool stuff, and ALSO we discovered that Einstein was a dirty old man – He GROPED me!

See, getting hit on all over the place. There are many other pictures in the Flickr, so go enjoy them. After that, we decided to go get Colby’s prescription (he had surgury on his ankle a while back) and then order dinner in. In the process, we totally made The Boy and Girl Jealous beyond all comprehension, when we first drove by, then decided to stop into LA Ink, home of Kat Von D.

While there, it was discovered that one of Erica’s friends and ex-employees at her tattoo shop in Michigan will be working there in a couple weeks. She promised the kids to go back and get autographs and better pictures while Kat isn’t working (since I took that one on the sly. heh.) I did get the girl a t-shirt, and the boy a poster, and every one was UBER excited about the whole thing. Including me. I’m such a fangirl. I mean Betty AND Kat Von D? Yeah, baby!

So, we ordered in for dinner, and then just relaxed, watched some Survivor, and hit the sheets early-ish. (…again, SEPARATELY – GOSH.)

and then….

The Adventure Begins…

Boy are ya’ll all demanding and shit. *L* Alright, alright. I’ll get started – BEFORE doing my work and everything. How’s THAT for love?

Day One – after getting up and getting the rugrats to school, making sure my exhaustive ‘what to do if…’ list was completed and handed out to appropriate parties, making sure there was cash brandied about to further bribe my family to take care of my kids, seeing if I could lift my baggage (yes, but thank goodness for the wheels that negated that need), grabbing and rereading my ticket confirmation number, and counting my spending money, cuddling the furry kids, etc… after all of that, and Nana’s call to see if I was ready (Yes! no, wait, yes, ok, maybe, YES!) – she picked me up and dropped my behind off at the airport here in Kenai. There, the lovely lady checked me through all the way to LAX, so I wouldn’t have to hit any other counters, just waltz right through security (assuming I didn’t get SHOT for having one container with 3.1 oz of hair goop in it..) to the gates, to the planes, and to my vacation.

It really was ALMOST that easy.

Being the woman of size that I am (Read: fatass!) I needed a seatbelt extension. No surprise there. I was wearing all black though, for it’s additional slimming properties so as to avoid someone going “AH! FATASS! BUY ANOTHER SEAT!” which, thankfully, no one did. Cuz hello – SPENDING MONEY! (grin). Anyway, on the teeny tiny plane from Kenai to Anchorage, I mistakenly sat in the exit row. Now, I have no problem with that, and the cutie patootie co-pilot had no problem with that either after handing me my extension and making sure i felt I could handle the emergency exit. Meanwhile, the official transporting the kid in shackles behind me told his charge “I tell you what I tell everyone I transfer. This is the key to your shackles. If we go down, I’m throwing this to you, and hauling ASS outa wherever we land. Every man for himself!” Niiiiiiiiiice…..

Fortunately, we landed safely, with the kid still shackled, and no need for me to act upon my sacred duties of Emergency Exit Expert. I take full credit, as I stared at the wing the WHOLE WAY to make sure it stayed attached to the tiny plane. I doubt my counterpart on the other side was as diligent, but we made it safely so I won’t complain.

At some point though, I did think I’d lost my cell phone from my bra. That would have sucked. I found it though, so everything was a-ok. As I exited the teeny tiny plane, the co-pilot sheepishly pulled me aside and said “I…kinda got in trouble. I guess I shouldn’t a let ya sit in the EExit row, cuz of the extension. Guess it could get caught in someone’s feet as they moved by or something. Now _I_ didn’t care, but they do, so just so ya know and everything and well, welcome to Anchorage?” I assured the young man that it was just fine, and we had a good laugh. Specially me, as I was thinking that it’d be funny to trip up someone with my extensions so that I could squeeze out first. Maybe that transporter dude – give the kid in shackles a fighting chance and all…

So I walked with the lady with bad knees, to make sure she made it inside the airport without being run over or anything, and then it was on to security and the OH SO LOVELY espresso stand just beyond it…

Security went without a hitch, me an’ scooter got through just fine. I got my coffee and a muffin, and found my gate, and settled in to find the free wi-fi and bum around online while waiting for my flight. Fortunately, I decided to check and make sure I was at the right gate about 40 minutes before boarding time (as the lovely Lady in Kenai had checked them all for me) and discovered that they had changed gates, at some point while I was in the teeny tiny plane. Well. Won’t make THAT mistake again! So, I gathered Scooter and hiked back to the first gate from gate 10 and confirmed with an agent that THIS was the correct one, and all was good with the world.

So, I finished my coffee, went to pee, read some, and finally answered the boarding call. I was sat next to this poor Skinny guy who was very nice, and even laughed at my jokes. I told him that it was ok to push me over if I got too close, and he assured me I was fine. We chatted, then he slept and ate, and I read my book, and we made it without incident from Anchorage to Seattle.

In Seattle, I hit the bathroom, the coffee shop, and found my gate (double checked this time!) and called to check in with the folks at home. Once on the flight I was delighted to discover I had a whole row to myself, which meant no arm rest biting into my copious amounts of hip and thigh, and the ability to turn around and put my feet up and read in comfort. The trip passed without incident, and with a giggling flight crew that had ENTIRELY too much fun for the whole trip.

Now, this next part requires a little bit of background story before you get this – and other references too. Every single trip alone out to CA, I have been hit on by BBM. That’s Big Black Men, of course. It’s usually a comment, sometimes a conversation, and the first time a proposal for the man’s brother, because he ‘needed a good woman, an’ baby, i can tell yous a good woman!’ You might think I’m kidding, but I’m so not. *L* At GayDays in Disneyland, a beautifully flamboyant black gay man decided I was funny, and he wanted to be my sugar daddy. This, coupled with all the lapdances from gaiboys I was getting, had TBF staring in shock most of the weekend. So – with all that in mind… I give you THIS trip:

I called my DramaMama from the plane, and let her know I was on my way to baggage claim and would meet her there. I found her as I rounded the corner, calling out “Anyone looking for their DRAMAMAMA?” which made me LOL, of course. After a hug, and finding my bag (easy because of the hot pink duct tape markers, of course), we headed outside and to the car.

I had BARELY set foot outside of the door when I heard “Slooooooooow down, beautiful!” I looked up and to my left where the voice came from, and sho’ nuff, there stands a BBM with a wide grin, giving me the once over. I said “Well hello there!” and he said “You have a mighty fine stay with us, ma’am.” and I said “God, I sure do LOVE LA….” and was rewarded with another grin, as I walked off with DramaMama, to the car. I of course related my previous experiences with BBM and she was in stitches by the time we got to the car.

So – safely in LA – check.
Found Drama Mama – check.
Hit on by BBM – check.
Discovered the drama my DramaMama was involved in for the day – check.
Loving LA and my vacation already? CheckCheckCHECK!

Loving the fact that I could see the Hollywood sign from DM’s balcony? Check.

Stay tuned – more fun to be written about in a bit…..