Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a lass named Alynda. Her blog was named "Alyndabear". Which is her nickname, you know Alynda (her name) + bear (bears are cute) = Alyndabear. Some of us may have wrongly assumed that her blog title was pronounced "Aly 'n da bear" but those people would be wrong and also possibly a little slow in the head. Because, seriously? ALY N DA BEAR? That makes almost as much sense as Operation Pink Herring. Shut up.
Anyway! One day a long, long time agoMs. Alynda+bear announced that she had just booked a holiday (they call them holidays in Australia... trust me, I know these things) to the United States and said she'd like to meet up with any blogger-friends who might live nearby. "I would be honored to make your acquaintance," I told her.
Ok, actually, it was more like this:
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I’ll totally meet up with you in DC!
Because some of us cannot leave a comment without using either the words "totally" or "dude". Or both. Sometimes the situation warrants both. Dude, don't look at me like that.
And the days and months flew by, and Ms. Alynda+bear was in Washington, DC. A mere 40 minutes from OPH Headquarters. And I totally met up with her in DC.
Oh, the universe tried to keep our meetup from happening. First, it gave her an evil roommate for her trip who refused to pass on phone messages, so that when I got into my car on Sunday morning I thought there was probably a 50% chance that I would show up at the Air and Space museum at 1pm to hang out with myself and the copy of New Moon that I brought with me. (Oh, yes. That wasn't embarrassing AT ALL when my bag was searched by museum security.) Then it made me chug a big cup of coffee, chased by an even bigger bottle of water in the car. And then! Then it made the Orange Line metro hold me hostage for FORTY MINUTES while we single-tracked our way to NOWHERE. By this time I had to pee. Bad. Really, really bad. And I was also way late with no way of contacting Alynda+bear to tell her I was on my way, but at that point I did not really care about standing up a blogger who had come all the way from Australia. No, I really just cared getting off that damned train before both my kidneys gave out.
But I soldiered on! Finally, FINALLY, we arrived at an actual stop and I fled the train in search of a bathroom (even though I was now 25 minutes late and still five stops away). I switched to the Blue Line, which zoomed along to the Smithsonian stop in no time at all. And when I arrived at the Air and Space Museum, forty-five minutes late (DAMN YOU ORANGE LINE, DAMN YOU COFFEE), the lovely Alynda and her equally lovely friend Kirby were still there. Janet (also lovely) joined us and we had a (lovely) lunch were I tried to keep the fawning over Alynda and Kirby's Australian accents to a minimum. I failed.
What can I say? I totally adore an accent. Dude.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:38 pm