We put the OY in Oyster Festival.

 It started out innocently enough. Me and KB, a nice New Jersey Jewish Girl, with me, the NY/CA/NH/PA/GA girl. There were lots of signs telling us where to go. Uphill. OY!

 There was the handbag check. False bottoms would have worked, as she barely checked and the guy in front of me snuck in his water bottle by jamming it under his flabby gut.

 This dude thought he was pretty cool. And the angry chick? She was just singing. She only dropped one beer and fell down once while we were near her.

Look, deer and beer. Get it? I got a free Jagerbomb from the biker dude at the Bloody Mary tent. You do not want to know more.

 This guitarist was sort of like Ozzy. Well, in that he had bad hair and was British. The band was called The Whizzers and Something?? OY!

 These guys grilled a whole truckload of oysters. they were hot. The oysters. not the guys. The guys were sweaty.

 These girls are saying, "But that's not what an oyster looks like. It's supposed to be on a plate with lemon and a fork, and a side of rice." OY!

 There were fancy table coverings everywhere. I felt like a Princess!

 KB found the ugliest oyster ever. We mocked it, then we sliced it open and ate it. Sorta like a girl fight.

 The celebrity anti-tongue salute. OY!

This is my finger 8 hours later, waiting for the MARTA train. The knuckle swelled up and bruised in another 3 hours. We are blaming the Oyster shucking knife. OY!

 This is our bucket of remains. Some others added to it and one guy came around and tried to steal our previously stolen lemons. Hey. What happens at the Oyster festival, stays at the Oyster Festival... unless you're reading this.

 We walked away from this place when it had a thirty person line. and then came back to try again, because hello? your tents are only serving BUDWEISER. OY!

This girl was telling her date how she wants him to um, dance with her later.

Maybe she will dress like this. Wait. Is that a snow shovel? OY!

  We went to a corner bar first. Across the street was this beautiful sight. I took bets on how many Midtown Hipsters would try to drag that back to their loft.

 We went to sit in the sun, up there, with some new friends. We ate meals that we forgot we ate. Thanks to the receipt crumpled in the bottom of my purse, we remembered later, and also noticed we paid for a shitload of drinks and someone's lobster roll. OY!

I won this shirt. Some old man tried to knock me down and take it. I gave him the stink eye and he backed off. Later, I gifted it to a guy at the bar as a prize for having the bushiest beard not on Duck Dynasty. I don't think he wanted it either.

 Here we are trying to look at two different cameras for a photo op. We had just tried promo Fireball shots. Yep. OY!

 This. Is. A. Midtown. Bartender.  You may look away now.

 It gets prettier at night, you notice?

Artful attempt number 503, according to my I-phone camera roll. OY!

 So that was an early start to my birthday month. Next up, Comedy night and strange dancing people: When Highland legs meet Latino feet on a skinny white girl. Stay tuned.

Forget about the kids... throw yourself a HUGE Birthday Bash.

Since I turned 40, I took over my birthday party planning.
I decided only I knew what I wanted.
Is it selfish of me? 
 I choose to think not. We are our choices, right?
 And I wanted a celebration of getting through another year on Earth to be fun, adventurous, something unique. And I wanted to share it with my friends- people who I feel are all three of those things.
We have done rooftop dining and comedy clubs, paintball wars and Mexican food, obstacle rope courses in trees and ESPN zone, road rallies that ended at a place where an Elvis impersonator fried our catfish, then sang to us. We have played Whirlyball fortified with jello shots and taken houseboat lake cruises followed by so many wine laden courses at a shmancy restaurant that one girl took a potato home in her purse- forever giving us the term, "A tater for later." 


 The list of friends has changed a bit over the years, as people move away- both physically and emotionally, as life demands more of our time and provides less outlets...
 as calendars are more full of stuff we have to do than stuff we want to do.


So, this year, we tried to take all the work out of it. Toss your fav beer in a cooler. Get sitters for your kids. Stand in your driveway. And let's go have fun.

yes. it was a charter bus... and pretty darn big. The same one 50 strippers took to Miami two weeks earlier, earning 30k each for 5 days work and tipping the driver a record 5k.

 no kidding.

 Um. That smiling girl? She's not a stripper. But the guy in the hat? he might be.




 Because I am all about theme and that shit, we bought this beer.

 
Because we were going to this place for music, crafts, beer and fun.

See, we had the beer and the fun. You gotta rank things of importance.

This guy might be smelling the port-a-potty or that could be the gyro booth.

There was a MELLOW LOUNGE. I am not sure what was there. i was trying to play Eagle Scout and keep a large group intact. Let it be known, I was kicked out of Girl Scouts and made a really crappy Brownie, so whoever thought i should be in charge maybe also knows why Sweetwater calls their beer 4:20.
 Uh-huh.


After a while, we got back on the bus and took the scenic route to a teeny little theater in a questionable neighborhood. The theater dude encouraged us to BYOB. Man, does he know me or what? And we even shared with the actors on stage during the drinking game portion of the show.
 yes.
 The drinking game portion of the show.
I will have to upload that section on YOUTUBE tomorrow.

 these guys were great, and with a competition type format, it was full audience participation.

We went dancing afterward, and just to ward off the hangovers, we ate some spicy messy food.

We only lost a few people along the way.. somehow, I think that's a record. And for my bus riding pals, here's a song:

Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
Cause I speak of the pompitous of love

People talk about me, baby
Say I'm doin' you wrong, doin' you wrong
Well, don't you worry baby
Don't worry
Cause I'm right here baby, right here, right here, right here at home.

thanks for coming out to play

Taking Grandma to a Neil Diamond concert?

There’s this thing about public gatherings, especially concerts. They are noisy and messy, complicated and exciting. They can be wonderful adventures or terrible disasters but they always, always yield a tale or two, sometimes what happens at a concert can change your life forever--that guy in row thirteen, the t-shirt vendor from LA, the scalper who upgraded your shitty ticket minutes before the warm up band started.
But sometimes, attending a concert doesn’t change your life- it merely alters it for a short while- kind of like LSD.

Last night, I went to see Neil Diamond at a newish arena by my house. The four gal pals I went with have all been there for other concerts. We are all old enough to figure shit out and basically knew what we were getting into- and except for failing to make restaurant reservations, we thought we had the thing nailed.

As always, hindsight is 20-20, so let me offer a few tips:

• Parking across the street in a grocery store parking lot is a good idea- if it's not raining and you are not wearing new spike heeled boots AND have not just drunk 3 pitchers of Texas Margaritas in less tha an hour.
• You should know: The average age of Neil Diamond concert goers is approximately 95. (Think walkers, oxygen tanks, blue hair and the subtle undertones of urine-stained pants and imminent death.)
• Even though the signs and the site and the tickets say no cameras or video or water bottles, you can still sneak all that crap in and take pictures with your phone and make very very funny voice recordings while waving your phone in the air like you don't care. the video camera light might be a giveaway...
  
• Floor seats are great for dancing and for getting up to go the bathroom, but there is no place for your coat and you won't find a cupholder on the back of a folding chair, which means you will definitely spill your $12 drink.
• Those leather pants you bought to wear to Duran Duran five years ago are probably not going to get the same attention at the Neil Diamond concert. Just sayin'.
• You may want to think twice before helping Neil sing. Like when he starts to sing a soulful rendition of Play me.. "She was morning And I was night time I one day woke up To find her lying Beside my bed I softly said..." and a big pause here...
  in which you yell in your best cheerleader-from-the diaphragm-20 rows back voice: COME TAKE ME! Your friends and only the cool people will laugh and hoot.
• Double Premium cocktails in tall plastic cups get you more drunk than single generic cocktails in fancy glasses.
• Old guys in front of you do not want to hear you scream "WOO! Woo-Hoo! We love you NEIL!"
• Old guys in front of you will get their arm smacked by their old wives when they turn around and say to you, "Lady, is that really necessary?"
• You will find this so funny that you will continue to do it-- all concert long much to the amusement of the two cool chicks behind you.
• Old guys who tour stick to the same playlist as previously published. No surprises.
  
• You finally figure out that you need a better cover story when trying to get backstage, or more money to flash around.
• Try to remember that while you are in party-mode, the rest of the world is in school and work tomorrow mode and your tiny little boring Georgia town will not have a decent bar open for miles, even when you press your face against the glass door of the bar in which an employee meeting is taking place and beg. ( We still love you, Bob.)
• If you end up at a smoky bar on the outskirts of town, be sure to feed the jukebox, text friends in other time zones, do tequila shots off body parts and always, always, dance with the dorky dude in the striped shirt.