CliffsNotes (The Long Version)

I’ve been covering for my sales rep at work for more than a week now, hence why I haven’t written a blog since the month of August started. Before things get too crazy this morning, I will try to provide a "brief" update of my weekend.

Thursday: Fashion First Revealed
I attended Seattle’s third annual boutique fashion show at the Premier, which was completely awesome. I’ve never been to a real fashion show before (unless you count all the slutty freaks parading their shit up and down First Avenue in Belltown every Friday night), and I was pretty excited. Although my first instinct told me to take Jeanna, who I think worships fashion even more than men (although it’s a close call), I decided to take my mom, who had been staying with me for the past week.

As we walked in the door and down the red carpet to pickup my free (thanks to the STC) tickets from will call, the first thing I noticed was all of the beautiful people. And since the event was specifically 21 and over, no snotty little brats were around to ruin the ambiance. We got some $8 well drinks and wandered around the booths picking up free stuff, including a nifty light up pen from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and a free cocktail courtesy of NWsource.com.

After socializing with a few of my co-workers for a while, we grabbed a table in the VIP lounge and people-watched. My mother was in complete shock. “Everyone is so skinny, trendy and put together,” she said in awe. “You would never see people like this in the suburbs. When I go out in Olympia, I’m the hottest one there!” And these were only the people who had come to watch the show, which started a while later. The models were another story all together.

Before I get to that, let me tell you a little bit about the extravagance of the event. Since we did not have ultra VIP tickets, we had to join the masses in standing room only, but managed to snag a spot right at the beginning of the runway, behind the last row of seats. That’s what a $40 ticket got you. (Oh, we did get a $50 gift certificate to Calidora Skin Clinic). However, the people in front of us had paid $150 for a VIP ticket featuring seating in the first six rows on either side of the NY style runway. They also had access to the catered VIP area and received a Sephora goody bag, which I was almost tempted to snag and hope no one noticed, but I chickened out. In front of these people sat the $500 VIP ticket holders, who were treated like complete royalty and received the best seats in the house. There were only 10 available which provided center front-row seating, and an over-flowing deluxe goody bag from Sephora valued at $850 and filled with fabulous items from the retailers and sponsors involved in the event (including a diamond watch!) I was drooling.

As the show started, I felt totally glamorous, like I had walked straight out of an episode of Sex & the City. (However, after watching size-zero models for more than an hour, I have officially decided to never eat again.) Fashion First provides Seattle-area boutiques the opportunity to showcase their apparel and accessories on the runway to their loyal consumers and to members of the media. The show featured Seattle's hottest boutiques and designers including Mario’s, Sway and Cake, Riveted, Cintli Jewelry, Ottica Seattle, Encanto Barcelona, Karan Dannenberg, Canopy Blue, Promesse, Nuvo Moda and more. It was completely unreal. I would say I’d feel comfortable wearing about 50% of the apparel showcased on the runway, although I can probably only afford about 0.01% of it. Here’s a list of what’s hot this fall:

Top 10 must-haves for Fall 2006

• Dark or gray skinny jeans (and pants)
• Big, billowy tops or voluminous sweaters
• One blazer or jacket with distinctive details
• A short, textured or patterned cocktail dress
• Jewel-toned short or tall boots
• Necessity! One jumbo sized leather handbag
• One short and/or one long vest
• Cheetah-print lingerie
• Several long, layered gold necklaces
• Menswear: Skinny jeans (try plaid) with a trendy sport coat

Check out photos from the show here.

The whole event was completely amazing, but I have to admit something: I normally consider myself a fairly small person, but the models in the show made me feel positively GIANT! Every single one of these girls has to either have an eating disorder, or a severe cocaine addiction. However, I did have one small consolation -- even skinny girls' asses jiggle when they strut down the runway in teeny tiny spandex shorts. Just goes to show that just because someone is skinny doesn't mean they are physically fit.

Friday: Recruit Class 92 Graduation Party
Jeanna was kind enough to invite me to join her at Fado’s Irish Pub in Pioneer Square to celebrate the graduation of the Seattle Fire Department’s Class 92. Her friend Andres had just finished 13 weeks of training, and he and his fellow firemen were more than ready for a night on the town. Seeing as firefighters are just plain HOT, I was pretty excited to flaunt my new “single and ready to mingle” status. Jeanna, Larisa, Vanessa, Angela, Jessica and I started the night off with cocktails at Jeanna’s apartment and then headed downtown. (I wasn’t really sure I belonged, because my name does not end with the letter A, but I figured I could consider myself “Sara” for the night and call it good).



The bar was already hopping by the time we arrived. I have to admit I was kind of expecting to see dozens of firefighters dressed up in their life-saving gear with axes slung over their shoulders, but no such luck. As a group of six hot women, we were immediately accosted by several interested men, and the girls began to split off and head to the bar, fueled with the desire for free alcohol. Surrounded by hot firefighers, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a vast sense of lonliness, which I proceeded to fill with intense amounts of alcohol. Thoroughly intoxicated, I proceeded to dance the night away. Andres managed to kiss about every single woman in the bar, and then puke in the doorway on his way out. Glad I missed it.

As closing time approached, we argued about what to do next. I was a big fan of going in search of a hot dog vender, but Jeanna quickly convinced me that mac ‘n’ cheese triangles at the 5-Point Café would be a much better choice. (If you’ve never had them, you’re totally missing out. Mac ‘n’ cheese, deep-fried to perfection, magically shaped into bite-sized triangles… it’s a little piece of heaven). The 5-Point was massively crowded at 2:30 in the morning, as usual, but we managed to snag a table with some random guy Angela befriended and proceeded to eat his entire plate of nachos before the waitress arrived to take our order. He didn’t seem to mind. Feeling incredibly sick to my stomach, we finally began the walk home. I made the decision not to throw up my precious fried cheesy goodness before crawling into bed at around 4 a.m. I managed to sleep for three hours before Jeanna called to remind me that we were headed out in about an hour for our camping trip.

Saturday: Camping at Lake Entiat, Part 1
A couple weeks ago, Jeanna and Kelly took the initiative to plan a camping trip in Eastern Washington, our first of the summer (excluding the Gorge, which doesn’t really count). It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that we realized everyone invited had bailed in favor of Seafair. Unphased, we packed up the car and headed to Lincoln Rock State Park, an 80-acre camping park on the east side of Lake Entiat, created by Rocky Reach Dam blocking the flow of the Columbia River north of Wenatchee.

After about four hours and two minor detours, (one of which that included Kelly driving the wrong way down a one-day street), we arrived at the campground. The park, a popular place for swimming, water-skiing and respite from the hot sun, was named for a basalt outcropping said to resemble the profile of Abraham Lincoln. It was absolutely gorgeous. Set down in a valley, the hills completely surrounded us, and we could see the crystal-clear lake from our campsite, which was grassy, had moderate shade, and was fully equipped with a picnic table, fire pit complete with grill, and even a water faucet. This was my kind of camping. We set up the tent as quickly as possible, changed into our bathing suits and headed down to the lake. Kelly, the genius camper that she is, had brought a giant air mattress complete with air pump.

We dragged the air mattress and a floating cooler filled with beer down to the lake and tied ourselves to a buoy in the middle of the lake. The weather was glorious, about 90 degrees, and we proceeded to drink beer and bake ourselves in the sun for the rest of the afternoon. An adorable small boy took a liking to us and chatted for a while, insisting that we were far too young to be drinking alcohol. “You’re only seventeen,” he announced. Great, like I don’t get that enough, now an 8-year-old is telling me I look like a child. Kelly offered him a Bud Light, but he declined. Smart kid.

We headed back to the campsite as it neared dinnertime. We managed to start a fire all on our own (yay for independent women!) and cooked up some cheesy bratwursts for dinner. My hangover was finally starting to wear off, so we kicked it up a notch and opened a bottle of champagne. Several rounds of cards later, we were all thoroughly toasted. Since it was pretty much dark by then, and all the families camping at the adjoining sites appeared to have gone to bed, we headed back down to the lake to sit on the dock, where we were less likely to bother people. Sitting on the dock chatting and listening to Kelly’s outrageous stories from when she lived in Iowa was probably my favorite part of the night. Also when we got lost walking back to our camp and managed to thoroughly freak ourselves out thinking both cops and Wolf Creek killers were stalking us. However, we managed to survive.

Sunday: Camping at Lake Entiat, Part 2
In classic camping style, we woke up the next morning at the butt crack of dawn. Kelly drove to a nearby convenience store in search of bacon and eggs, only to return with some weird deep-friend sticks containing eggs and sausage. It tasted pretty good dipped in ketchup. We packed up the campsite and headed back down to the lake. We anchored onto the dock and fell asleep for most of the morning, waking up every now and then to roll over. By noon I was completely baked and felt brave enough to dive into the icy water. We alternated between swimming and sunbathing for the rest of the afternoon. I think I spent about ten hours in the sun this weekend, which I can prove with the righteous sunglass marks burned into my face. Awesome.

We finally dragged ourselves out of the water and headed home via the scenic route – Highway 2. Jeanna knew of an awesome 50s diner on the way, and by the time we got there I was so hungry I could have eaten a whole cow. I didn’t even care about how trashy I looked as we entered the restaurant, with my greasy hair, yesterday’s makeup, and wife beater with no bra. I’m really learning to appreciate girl’s only trips. No one to impress.

I restrained myself from ordering everything on the menu and settled on pasta and the most giant rootbeer float I have ever seen. I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach, because I only managed to finish about half it. Oh well, the restaurant, besides being adorably cute with 50s décor and music, was also incredibly cheap. I highly recommend it. I’m going to go back there at least once this summer.

Monday: The Aftermath
I woke up this morning realizing it’s day 10 – he hasn’t called. At this point I’m going to admid that he isn’t going to. I feel completely devastated and humiliated. I can’t belive I spent an entire year convincing myself that he felt the same way about me as I did about him. It’s definitely going to be a long time before I re-enter the dating scene, it’s just far too painful. It is getting better, one day at a time, but the bottom line is that I miss him. I can’t even explain how greatful I am for my friends at this point in my life. Without them to distract me, I would never get through this.

Thanks for a great weekend, Ladies!