Indeed, I am alive!

We were in New York this weekend for TARCon, only without the Con part. Thanks to my lovely (and by 'lovely,' I mean 'dumb') job, we couldn't stay to watch the finale with everyone or stick around for the post-show festivities. Fortunately, the time we did spend with our friends out-funned the few hours that we may have missed.

So get this. On Saturday morning, we met up with Amy and Michelle (longtime college friends and practically sisters to me) in the East Village. After a great breakfast together, we went our separate ways. I went to see Beauty and The Beast with Donny Osmond (who is now back in my good graces - I've discovered that I only like him when he's performing from a script. Give the man a microphone and allow him to improvise, and I cringe...). Before you laugh at my choice of show, understand that a) I went to enjoy the show in the company of good friends, and b) John Tartaglia from Avenue Q played Lumiere! Awesomeness! Tony went to visit a friend and play XBox360 games for, oh, six hours.

After the show, Monica, Lucy, Kim, Donna, MaryJo and Linda went back to their hotel to check in, chill out, and get things ready for our TARFlies lunch the next day. In all the times I had been to New York, I'd never been there at Christmastime, so I decided to walk over to Rockefeller Center to see the decorations. Holy. Crap. You know the quintessential aerial view of Times Square on New Year's Eve? That's what Rockefeller Center looked like. It was a zoo. Cops on every corner trying to direct traffic, pedestrians clamoring for an inch of coveted sidewalk. I pulled a Clark Griswold - looked at the tree for about three seconds, turned around and left. I figured I'd go back to the hotel to hang with the crew and help put goodie bags together.

On my way there, I crossed 6th Avenue. I heard a familiar voice. Directly in front of me was my friend Amy - the same friend we had breakfast with that very morning - with her friends Kelly and Stephanie. What the hell are the chances of that? And that wasn't the first time something like that has happened to me in New York City, population...A LOT. Last year when we tried out for WSOPC, we saw our friends who also auditioned drive by us on top of a double-decker tour bus as we walked down a random street in the Village. Weird!

The four of us fought our way through the throngs of people over to the French bookstore in Rockefeller Center to retrieve Michelle, which was no small feat. We headed away from the teeming hordes as quickly as our feet would allow and ended up enjoying a nice cocktail on a comfy sofa at the MOMA lounge. It was fantastic to have the unexpected extra time with them to catch up.

Saturday night we all enjoyed a terrific dinner at a Thai restaurant near restaurant row, thanks to Kim's good sleuthing. She always finds great places to eat! By then, Beth's flight had gotten in and she was there to join us for dinner. YAY! I also got to meet Meggin and her husband, (who thankfully turned us on to the gas stations of 10th Avenue, thus saving us from certain stalling in the Lincoln Tunnel), and Eron and his wife Judy.

On Sunday, we picked up a fellow TAR fan in New Jersey and headed directly to the TARflies lunch at Puglia's in Little Italy, which, as always, was fantastic. MaryJo, Donna, Lisa, Tom, Tony and I stuffed ourselves silly with gnocchi (nyah nyah, non-vegans!) and had a great time talking about everything from our cats to recipes to Britney Spears' va-jay-jay (hee, Lisa!). Monica and her elves put together a slew of goodies and prizes (Lucy won a kick-ass Phillowcase), and we all had a blast catching up and laughing with good friends. And of course, our favorite racers treated us to some extreme silliness in the form of conga lines and dancing to the soothing sounds of JORGE!

Tony remarked that as soon as Jorge! broke out with "Volare," Papa Paolo and I both immediately broke out and sang along. Duh. We're Italian. Do you think we can just sit there and do NOTHING when Volare comes on? (I was a little disappointed that the other dining room got treated to "Eh, Cumpari," but what are you gonna do?)

TAR 9's John (who we now refer to as JOHNLOWETAR9) was especially entertaining in many, many ways.

Chair on head? Check. Glass of wine nearby when refreshment is needed? Check. Calling people bitches from across the room? Check. LOVE. HIM.

We had him call Melissa from the lunch, since she has such fond memories of their encounter at TARCon 9, where John shared with her his affinity for Amish...quilts. Yeah, quilts. He programmed her number into his phone and promised to drunk dial her sometime soon. From what I understand, he was showing everyone his cocks at TARCon, so I'm a little disappointed that we missed out on that. If you want to know what I mean, you'll have to check out John's myspace!

Al, our emcee, was hilarious and declared war on the west coast TARConners, Tammy, Billy, Carissa and Kelley Gaghan were completely adorable and sweet (seriously, those kids are the nicest and most polite kids on the planet), the Paolos were a hoot (we missed Brian and DJ!), Kenny was fabulous as always (hi Pepe!), Meredith looked lovely, and I finally got to meet Andrew, who is a doll. (And I got to see my new buddy Alex again, who is a Racer friend and complete riot. Yay!)

We were all thrilled to meet our beloved young TARfly, "Tris," who at 13, has an intelligent mind and sense of humor (not to mention proper grammar and writing skills) that rival most adults. When the Sorrento Cheese Carolers (gag) came in to regale us with song, Tris broke out with, "That's worse product placement than on TAR!" Heh!

One of my fave TARFlies, TJ, gave me the most awesomest CD, like, ever. One night, we'd gotten on the topic of American Idol, and specifically, Diana DeGarmo's uncanny ability to yell "C'MON!" or "C'MON, Y'ALL!" in the middle of any song, no matter how tender or melancholy the song might be. TJ put together a brilliant compilation of Diana DeGarmo Fantasy Songs, in which she would bust out with "C'MON, Y'ALL!" at inappropriately inopportune moments. Some of my favorite selections include Metallica's "Enter Sandman," "Anarchy in the U.K.," Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot. HA! TJ's hilarious!

Let's see, what am I forgetting? I'm not putting up any of my own pictures because a) they turned out shitty and b) I look shitty in all of them. So there.

And no matter what anyone tells you (*cough*Lucy*cough*) I did NOT eat that meat!

Though we missed TARCon (*sniff*), it was a great time by all reports. Of course, most people only reported about how HOTTTTTTTT (with eight million Ts) James and Tyler are, so for all I know their judgment was clouded. Heh.

I think that covers it! The weekend was fantastic and all too short. Can't wait for TARCon11!