Finding Joy in Snarkville

And I was sad.  I’m sure Karen would have been delightful as Prince’s wife for th evening, but sadly she couldn’t make it and I was then required to sort out my hair AND dress up.  The evening was nice, if not a wee bit long and drawn out.  I’ve had a whole 5 hours of sleep and thus I shall give you my thoughts and suggestions from last night.

1. My hair behaved.  And we are all happy for that.  Once I get the photo that was taken and approve its look, I promise to post it.  I went for a wild curled look (or Texas Beauty Queen drop-out hair — ok, fine I had BIG hair last night, happy?), while lovely to look at, was not something I’d suggest touching — I think there’s half a bottle of hairspray in my hair.  But I had good hair.
2. I went with a formal suit-like affair.  Navy satin skirt (to the floor, with sweep train) with an off-white satin jacket.  As scared as I was about over dressing, I was not in fact overdressed.  Oh, sure there were a few women there in “garden wedding” attire, but they were few, compared to the column dresses and sparkles.  However, I must pause to note that for future reference one of the ladies there might want to make sure she can keep her assets INSIDE her dress. (Oh my.)
3. The barkeep didn’t know what a “Cape Cod” was — nor truly how to make one.  I’m not exactly sure how you can screw up a drink made up of vodka and cranberry juice, but he did — it came out as this sickly red/brown color and was ok at best.  For the luxury of drinking this one (after I explained how to make it), he charged me $9.  Um — ok, but seriously, if you are charging more than $5 for a drink — you need to know how to make it.
4.  There was a Social Time in the schedule.  I’m not kidding.  I may have said to more than one person, “Enjoy me now, after Social Time is over — I’m not nearly as much fun.”
5. Prince had one person that I HAD to meet.  So he introduces me to her and says, “This is the one person who may be more adamant about her name than you.”  We bonded, formed a club only using our given names, giggled, and did each other’s hair.  It was a moment.  Probably more so because I have proof that I’m not the only freak in the world who wants to be called what I want to be called.
6. No one mentioned the “Karen” thing.  It seems that they fixed the seating chart and the place card before my arrival, thus totally eliminating Prince’s other wife.  And I was sad.  I was all ready with all sorts of snappy comments — that I couldn’t use.
7. Then the thing began.  The first part was cool and all pageantry.  While I need to remember that though I was stunning in my outfit, next time (should there be a next time) I need to wear something I don’t have to worry with for all the standing up and sitting down.
8. Next up was the eating.  Eating I can do.  Pouring salad dressing — not so much (though I, nor any of the people at my table, wore it).  But we ate.  I looked around my table at one point, realized that I was the only girl — and thought, “Karen would SO know what to do in this situation.”  I sat there and attempted small talk.  I need practice at small talk (There is one person who does small talk worse than me — Prince….and he freely admits it.)
9. I wore one of my most comfortable pairs of heels and yet, with all the standing/sitting/standing/sitting, my feet were hurting.
10. I have a palm sized bruise on my left hand from all the clapping.  I’m tired of clapping.  I think I shall make my trademark that I only golf clap from this point forward.
11. There were three speakers.  None of them should make their careers doing anything that involves speaking publicly. No, I’m serious.  The first guy was ok, so I was hoping it would get better.  It got worse.  One of them was reading his speech with little intonations and inflictions that he’d have to stop as he turned the page and find where he was again.  I don’t think even HE was listening to himself.  (His jacket also did NOT fit and it bothered me.)  Finally, the featured speaker of the night got up.  I had higher hopes for him as he has real personality.  When he was off his pages he was a great speaker — when he read his speech, he could could not find a point in a bucket.
12. Note to anyone who must give a speech EVER, do NOT read a speech to people.  Don’t read me your powerpoint slide and don’t read me your speech.  If you feel you MUST write out every word you are going to say, still don’t read it.  Copy it off and hand it out  — that would be far less painful.
13. Finally, the evening wrapped up and we came home at 11pm.  This was thrilling, until I remembered it was Wednesday – I was out late, drank red wine (which normally equals headache for me), and I had to work today — means I see coffee in my future.  The other thing I’m thrilled about is that I don’t have to go to the airport at midnight tonight — like someone in my house does.  Perhaps, Karen would do that for Prince?  She’s good like that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 8:20 am and is filed under Snark for Snarky Sake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.