And Then...

Huzzah!! Happy NaBloPoMo Day, my friends!!

That’s all I’ve got.

And you know what? It counts. :)

For those of you not in the know, today is not only the first day of November and All Saint’s Day (shouldn’t that be All Saints’ Day?!); it’s also the first day of National Blog Posting Month, better known as the questionably-catchy, “NaBloPoMo.”

The goal of NaBloPoMo is to post a blog entry every day in November. Seems easy enough, yes? I can tell you from experience that it’s a little more nerve-racking than one would think. I have an alarm set on my Outlook calendar to remind me to write every day. I have an alarm set in my phone to remind me to write every day. What I don’t have is an endless list of interesting topics to write about. And now thanks to a Big Brother move at work, I can’t surf the internet looking for ideas. I can’t find cute/funny/disturbing pics and/or videos to help support my ramblings. I have to fit this exercise into my free time when I already have trouble working exercise into my free time…

So why do it, you ask? Because I might win a prize!! Yes, it’s true. The folks that started this nonsense scan the participants’ blogs to see if they’ve written every day and then throw the names into a virtual hat and some lucky bloggers are selected to win prizes. Of no significance. I’m pretty sure someone won a spider ring last year.

So why do it, you ask?

I don’t rightly know. Writely know?

Well that’s enough of that. And really, I could stop right now. Write now.

But I shan’t.

You can’t make me. All you can do is stop reading.

Guess it’s just me and Bert now….

So Bert, I took The Girlfriend up to DC to see Sting this past Saturday. I know!

But first we had to run a 10K that I was ill-prepared for. And then we had to skip the beers and chili we so rightfully (writefully? Please make it stop.) deserved after the race because we were pressed for time. And then we had to get caught in a frigid torrential downpour as we walked over a mile back to our car. And then just when the car was packed up and we were ready to go, we had to discover that my dear old dog SH*T THE SH*T OF ALL SH*TS on the front passenger seat of my car (!!!) and I had to clean it up fast enough so that Girlfriend wouldn’t back out of the trip. And then we had to pull a U-turn on a one way street and travel the wrong way down the one way street into a major intersection in order to avoid a lake that had formed across the one way street. And then we had to drive out to West Bumblef*ck to drop off the pooping machine at the home of the two kindest people on the planet who agreed to watch her so I could take Girlfriend up to see STING in DC! And then we had to hurry ourselves to DC in the middle of an October snowstorm. And then we had to sit in separate seats on opposite sides of the theater because the concert sold out in 30 seconds and yours truly could only find individual seats, but wanted Girlfriend to see one of her favorite singers so much that sitting separately seemed like a small price to pay. And then I had to beg and plead with an usher to let me sit with Girlfriend when the single seats on either side of her remained empty after the show started. And then I shuffled back to my seat to watch the concert alone and to beg the Asian woman sitting two seats over who was devastated that Girlfriend and I couldn’t sit together to PLEASE get up off the floor and return to her seat and that Yes, I realize if you sit on the steps there’s room for Girlfriend in your seat and that's unbelievably kind of you, but the usher won’t let her up here without a ticket!! And no, thank you, I don’t want any trail mix right now… And then I was finally able to sneak up to Girlfriend’s seat and see how happy she was and we were finally able to hold hands and watch The Sting for a couple songs. And then we stopped by the White House which was temporarily orange to say Hi to the Prez and I almost lost Girlfriend to the Occupy DC tent city. And then we hiked a mile-and-a-half in the freezing cold up to the Shake Shack and stumbled upon what looked like a mob of hungry hamburger eaters but was really a huge Halloween celebration outside the Shake Shack. And then we ate our delicious organic beef cheeseburgers and drank our divine chocolate shakes and then we hopped in a cab back to our hotel.

And then my head hit the pillow and I looked at Girlfriend and I thought about how very thankful I was and how this was the best day and the best trip I had ever been on. And since I had been on all the other trips I had gone on and they weren’t all that wonderful (please see Rome If You Want To, Rome Around the World), the only new variable I could identify was Girlfriend.

And then I smiled.

And then I probably snored.

Until tomorrow, Bert.