This post is protected by the soapbox.SUPERSTAR Member's Only Club.
In order to read this post you must be an approved member. If you have registered and are still seeing this message after logging in and feel like you have been hanging around here long enough to have access, just email me - I may need to bump up your membership a notch!
Login • Register Now

I am so super excited. Dena and I are going to be flying to Helen, Georgia in October for a fun-filled, all girls weekend during Oktoberfest. Apparently, Helen, GA is THE place to be during Oktoberfest and so that is where we will be! I got an email from my friend Renee and her sister inviting me to the Girl’s Weekend:

You’re Invited to Attend
Girl’s Weekend 2007
for Oktoberfest in Helen, Georgia!

When:
Fri & Sat October 5 & 6

Details:
The idea is to get away with “just the girls” for a weekend in October. Since Oktoberfest is only 3.5 hours away from Charlotte (45 min. north of Atlanta) it seemed like the perfect location for this year’s festivities! I mean what could spell out more fun than beer (or I am sure other alcoholic beverages for those who do not drink beer), cool weather, and loads of things to do in the mountains??? Since the trip is still in the planning phase, I need to get an idea of who all is “in” for the trip. Check your calendars and RSVP by Tuesday, July 10. That gives you one week to talk to any other potential invitees (feel free to invite other people), take a look at your personal finances, and then decide if you can make this year’s trip. Just to give you an idea in the way of $$$- I hope to keep the cost for lodging at around $75 per person. The rest of the costs are up to you- depending on how much you like to drink and where you decide to eat. At the bottom of this e-mail are a few websites on the area. Check them out and then make your decision. Remember: RSVP by Tuesday in order to save your spot. I need to book our lodging ASAP! Let me know if you have any questions!

I am excited about going to Oktoberfest, but I am REALLY excited to see my friends Kerry and Renee. Kerry, Renee and I met when we all worked at Bennigan’s together, before kids, back when we were still in, or recently out of college. Here is a picture of the three of us at my wedding, which is the last time the three of us were together at the same time:

We hit it off and became the best of friends FAST. Kerry is a Wild Woman - and her humor reminds me of Cheri Oteri, which is why we hit it off immediately. Renee, was different. She was so quiet and shy - Kerry and I did not know if she was going to be able to hang - but MAN WERE WE WRONG! Renee is a closet Wild Woman and she kept us laughing all the time. We spent our summer days at the beach and our nights at our favorite bar O’Sullivan’s Irish Tavern, where we would bet each other on who could win at chugging pitchers of beer, and eat Trash Can Lid Nachos till we could not move! When it was nothing to push your tab and your credit card across the table to one of the others and tell them to pay it, cause you were too wasted to read what it said. The best nights always included either Kerry’s husband Barry (yes Kerry & Barry - it’s so cute) in his red swim trunks, ending the evening out by opening the front of them to show us what he had to offer OR Kerry and I waiting until Renee went to the bathroom, so that we could sneak in there with a pitcher filled with water to dump over the stall onto her head as she was trying to hover over the toilet to pee!

Some of my favorite memories are with these two girls. Like the time we taught Renee how to shotgun a beer and laughed till we peed our pants watching her try over and over until she was completely soaked in beer - or that same night, holding Renee down and cutting her bra off her with scissors as she screamed that it was one of her “good bras” and that “we were gonna be sorry.”  Then there was the time that they decided to bet me on who could do more shots of rum, except they were not drinking rum, they were filling their shot glasses with water…but I was too drunk to notice - man was I sick the next day. Kerry and I used to show up at Renee’s house ALL the time, unannounced, with other friends in tow and tell her that we had decided to have a cookout at her house and that we hoped she did not mind. I am sure her hubby LOVED us!!! And you can’t forget the Karaoke - oh god the Karaoke, and in coconut bras and grass skirts!

It was one of the saddest days of my life when it was time for Kerry and her husband to move to Pittsburgh, PA. Renee and I helped them load the U-Haul, then we sat around the empty apartment and passed around a champagne bottle as we cried our eyes out and talked about our favorite times together and how much we were going to miss each other. It makes me tear up typing this. Renee was next. She moved to North Carolina and all that was left here was me. We have all seen each other since, but it is never all three of us at the same time, except for at my wedding.

So you can see why I am so excited to see these two girls! Thank goodness we are grown-ups now and won’t be acting like drunken fools….or will we?  Ugghh, I am so excited!!!

When I was in elementary school, there were no big dances to look forward to – there were skating parties!  Good old fashioned roller-skating parties!  Every year there were two of them sponsored by our school at the wonderful Haygood Skating Center.  I abso-freakin-lutely LOVED going to skating parties.  I loved playing four corners, limbo and shoot the duck.  I loved the couples skate to the hottest Journey songs!  I loved the whole shebang.  BUT, what I loved most was getting the rink pizza with my friends and the big old sticker vending machine in the front of the rink that gave me beautiful gems like this for my sticker collection (yes, I was a collector):

One skating party in particular, my mom would not give me money for pizza and a sticker.  She had made meatloaf and told my sister and I that we would be eating it or else – and that was the end of the conversation.  Well that was NOT acceptable in my book, so I made an executive decision and went into her purse and took a five dollar bill.  After dinner, she took us to the skating party, and she went to the Blue Hawaii to meet some of the other mom’s for appetizers and drinks while we skated.  Things were going smoothly; I skated the night away and played all the skating games.  I skated the couples skate with my super cool boyfriend Kevin Braun.  I ate pizza with my friends and shared with my sister and after pizza, I bought her and I our shiny prism stickers from the vending machine.  When she asked where I got the money for it all, I told her that I had found the money next to the curb outside, when we were waiting in line to get into the rink and she totally believed me.

When the party was over, we waited out front for my mom to pick us up (back then it was nothing for our parents to just ditch their six and eight year old children at a public skating rink).  We weren’t in the car five seconds and big-mouthed Kelly blurted out all about us getting pizza and stickers.  When my mom asked how we got them, she kept blurting about the five dollars I miraculously found.  My mom looked right at me and said “Hmmm, that is funny, I am missing exactly five dollars out of my purse, which I did not have at the restaurant to leave as a tip – they wouldn’t happen to be the same five dollars, would they?”  I was busted and got a nice spanking with the wooden spoon when I got home – but you know what?  It was totally worth it!!!

When I was younger, we had a Whiz Wheel, also known as the Krazy Kar - we had gotten it for Christmas one year. It was orange with huge black wheels and we LOVED this thing. It was way better than a big wheel or a stupid bike and you had to seriously have some skills to operate the thing (not to mention some major arm strength), mostly because the brainiacs that designed the thing failed to include any type of rubber on the tires, so when you got it out on the street, it would always skid out, cause there was nothing to grip the asphalt. There was a true method to get going on this thing. You had to start out slow, so the tires would not skid, and slowly build up momentum so that you could really get trucking down the street. Once you got up to maximum speed, you could lock one of your arms, causing one of the wheels to lock up and it would totally spin you out, which was nothing short of AWESOME! My sister, brother and I fought constantly over who’s turn it was to ride it. I don’t remember what happened to our Whiz Wheel.

A couple years ago, my sister and I started reminiscing about it and could not for the life of us remember what is was called and I have been searching ever since - until now! I finally found it and low and behold, you can still get them here or here, although from what I can see, they certainly have not fixed the whole rubber on the tire issue.  I am SO ordering one for my kids!!!

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I peed totally naked in front of two grown men?  No?  Well you have to know this about me, you just have to!

One night, when I was a senior in high school, I was at a keg party with my boyfriend and we were on our way to a glorious night of beer gluttony, when all of a sudden I felt sick – not puke up miller light sick, but high fever, color gone from your face sick.  My boyfriend had to take me home.  For the next couple days I laid around on the couch at my parents house with an extremely high fever.  Finally on day three of the fever and when I didn’t really recognize who my dad was, he decided to scoop me off the couch and take me to the ER.  Once at the ER, it was discovered that I had a severe kidney infection and was very dehydrated, so I was admitted to the hospital for a couple days.  My mom brought me some stuff from home to make me comfortable during my stay – pajamas, a cell phone, etc.  The pajama outfit that she happened to bring me was a one piece, flap over the butt, J. Crew Union Suit that I loved at the time because it was so warm and comfy.

Well, during my second day in the Portsmouth, VA Naval Hospital, I had to pee, so I got out of bed and wheeled my little I.V. machine into the bathroom.  This particular bathroom had a window in it and the blinds happened to be pulled up.  I briefly thought for a moment “should I close those blinds” – but I quickly dismissed the thought when I remembered that I was on the 7th floor of the hospital and that the window happened to be facing the Elizabeth River.  So I unbuttoned my union suit and dropped it to my ankles and sat down to take care of business.  As I was sitting there, naked on the toilet, I noticed something starting to shimmy down in front of the window.  It was a window washing platform with two men inside ready to wash my bathroom window.  So there we were, me completely naked on the toilet with my union suit around my ankles, clutching my I.V. machine and them on the outside of my window with their squeegees in hand, staring at me.  Did they turn away? NO, they just stood there, staring.  They actually had the nerve to smile and start waving at me.  I had to finish up, clean myself up, lift up my jammies and re-button myself as they stood there smiling like idiots, watching me the whole time.  It was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

This kind of crap ONLY happens to me.  I mean seriously, what the hell are the odds of two window washers coming down the side of a building and stopping at my window on the 7th floor at the exact time that I happen to be naked, peeing on the toilet?  You cannot make this stuff up people!!!  So, the lesson learned?  NEVER wear a one piece pajama ensemble to the hospital.  Make sure that you have a top and a bottom, or a gown that lifts up – anything to keep the top part of your body covered when the bottom part cannot be!  Oh, and ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS close the blinds!