Navigating Hartford, Baking Cookies, and Pinching Cheeks (12/13/05)

Today I was supposed to be in downtown Hartford at 12:30 with a group of about 15 people and Jim. We were presenting a letter to our Senator’s office protesting his statements on the war. I was one of the organizers and had warned everyone last night to not be late because we had a press conference scheduled at a certain time. So wouldn’t you know it, I was late. Whit called me because she got lost in Hartford and I felt like such an idiot because everyone assumes since I live near Hartford that I know my way around it well.

(I don’t. I have a specific formula for finding anything in Hartford: I know where a few major landmarks are. I go to the landmark that is supposed to be nearest to my destination and drive in larger and larger circles until I find where I want to be.)

So here I am trying to give Whit directions to a place I don’t know how to get to and I get off the highway and she says I see you! There we are talking to each other as we both drive lost through the city (carefully using our hands-free devices which are now law in CT). We devised a plan that she would drive in one direction and I would drive in the other until one of us found where we were supposed to be.

I found the street first so I told her how to get there and we proceeded to drive down the street looking for our building. Only they had the road closed partway down so we had to detour. We eventually found the place but we were late for the letter hand-off. We did make the press conference so that was something.

I rushed home after that and quick baked 6 dozen cookies before I had to run out and meet friends for dinner. (See, I bake cookies as my Christmas present to most people because I’m a cheap bastard.) 6 dozen down, 11 dozen to go.

I met two old friends from my previous job, Nicole and Luci. We each managed separate stores for a horrible company that makes wonderful chocolate. They still work there but I like to hang out with them and hear about how horrible things still are so I can feel good about my decision to leave and gloat to them that they are still there. (Well, the gloating is done in my head because I’m not that mean.)

We got pretty drunk. We each had 3 of those mega-sized drinks and did a shot each as well so we decided to walk it off in the mall before driving home. So, having made this decision, we had one more shot each to celebrate how responsible we were being. We swung by Luci’s store since it was in that mall and said hi to her employees. Two of them I knew and two I didn’t. One was a middle aged lady that didn’t seem like much fun but the other one was this high school kid who had a great head of 70’s style hair and very pinchable cheeks. So I called him over and asked him to come real close and I reached out to pinch his cheeks but he was too quick and ran away. (The ones on his face, you pervs!)

Then we went into the Disney store where Nicole and I found these Santa hats with Eeyore ears hanging down. They are so adorable! So we bought them and wore them around the mall. As we were leaving we went through the bookstore and I had to stop and buy the Shel Silverstein books because ever since Whit, Ben and I talked about him I’ve been obsessed with finding his poetry. Apparently, my mom gave our copies to one of my other sisters because, you know, it makes no sense to give the books of poetry to the daughter that got a bachelor’s degree in English. No, no. Let’s give them to the one that majored in art or the one that majored in music instead. They’ll appreciate them so much more. All I’m saying is, then I should be the one to get the piano.

So then I drove home singing Christmas carols in my Eeyore hat and baked 5 more dozen cookies. 6 dozen more to do in the morning. Overall, a fun day.