Well to make a very loooong night’s story short – Saturday evening I went out with VT, her brother and Argyle (so called because of the argyle sweater he was sporting – it was actually kind of cute…but just too easy to make fun of and me being, well, me …I did!) to Adams Morgan.

I had met argle and VT’s brother (VTB) on Halloween. They came over to my apartment for a pregaming party I was throwing for Barbie #1 as she was moving the next day. Because Barbie #1 has been my best friend my first year as a DC resident – I went all out: bought bottles of Champaign, cooked. Ok, I didn’t technically ‘cook’ – I chopped up vegetables, mixed up some low fat dip, put some salsa in a bowl and cut up cheese. Anytime the food preparatory process is more complicated than open, microwave and eat - I consider it cooking.

And so I opened the door in my oh so cute costume – took a deep breath and assumed the role of hostess with the mostest J I served, refilled, shuffled and smiled and since I did not end up going out with the bigger party – I hope I did my part to give Barbie a proper sendoff (this IS relavent information...keep reading). Apparently it made quite an impression on these young gentlemen (you'd think they'd never seen cubed cheese before) and they though I was the most charming, calm, sedated and accomidating gal they'd ever met. (snicker).

So imagine VTB and Argyle’s surprise when they saw me out in true Saturday Scarlett form – buying rounds of Jell-O shots, going drink for drink with the boys, cracking jokes, making the bitchiest of observations and dancing like Fergie’s London Bridge was a comin’ down.

Half way through the evening, they expressed their surprise – their very pleasant surprise that I was not, in fact Martha-F*cking-Stewart which VT and I thought was the most hilarious thing we’d ever heard (and I’ll bet it will give many of you a chuckle as well).

Anyhoo… we started out the evening at the ever popular Reef, followed by the afore mentioned Jell-O shots at Millie & Al’s, a trip to the ever div-y and fabulous Dan’s Café and ending the evening at Nola's.

I was a Nola’s virgin at the start of the evening, now I feel like ….well….like I’ve been around the twist and back.

As I walked in…a cute guy started staring and smiling – being a bottle of wine, 2 jellow shooters and lord knows how many miller lites in, I smiled back and a few minutes later he came over and full on GRABBED MY CHEST. I’m sorry, is there a culture in which people say hello in this fashion? I was so shocked, my involuntary, knee-jerk reaction was, in fact just that: an involuntary knee-jerk reaction.

I kneed him ('where it counts') so hard that…well…he doubled over and I thought he was going to cry. Did I mention that my therapist says I have anger management issues? Well, I walked away without apologizing and felt…very un-sorry. And kind of good.

The evening perked up when the cutest guy I had seen in a very long time walked into the bar. He wasn’t good looking ala Brad Pitt or Clive Owen…but more along the lines of adorable ala Chris O’Donnell and looked just like Michael Ball (for those who are theatrically non in-the-know, please see the attached picture). The cute, teddy bear type you just want to curl up with forever. *Sigh*

He smiled. I smiled. He came over – there was no uninvited gropage, and he said, “I’m sorry, but you are so cute”

(blush…big, Scarlett smile)

“Thanks, I was just thinking the same thing about you”

Friendly banter,blah blah blah, I live here, I live there, I do this, I do that

And then he kissed me – soft, sweet…weak in the knees kind of kiss.

“What was that for?”

“Just felt right”

“Yes it did”

Blah blah blah – and he asked for my number. And I gave it to him and kissed him good bye.

I doubt he’ll call. Boys never call. Right? It's been 24 hours already and I suppose if he were going to call...he would have by now.

Ugh – this is why the giving out of numbers is never good – because they never call and you wonder why and then you’re disappointed, and it all culminates in one big therapy bill and a year's supply of anti-depressents. No. No. Much better to just cut and run.

So to recap: There was drinking, shattered images of domestic goddess status, physical assult, romance and a jumbo slice. Frankly, it was just the recipe for a wonderful Saturday evening.

 

As mentioned in part one of Scarlett's weekend Saga – Friday night I attended (after much cajoling*) the DC blogger happy hour. Where there was much drinking, laughing and later on dancing. After we migrated away from the Big Hunt, Hey Pretty, Velvet and I made our way to an establishement a few doors down that we were told was more ‘low key’ and so visions of tables and pitchers of beer danced in our heads. Velvet exchanged her cookies for our cover at the door (why does that sound dirty?), and we made our way into, well…i'm pretty sure pitchers of beer weren't on the menu. Shots of Whiskey, however, were.

So after my first shot of Whiskey ever(her idea, not mine), HP and I tried to keep up with the dancing queens (i.e. KassyK and Circle V). I’m afraid we lost Velvet sometime between Vogue and Jessie’s Girl but we said farewell to all my new favorite people shortly after.

After that the details of the evening start to get a bit hazy.

I remember being in an Irish bar in Chinatown, flirting with the singer so that he’d play the songs we wanted him to. I remember getting hit on by a guy who was in town for the green convention. He was a snowboarding, vegetarian, tree hugging, northface fleece-clad, only used recycled paper type of guy (who happened to look like eric bana). But I had to tell him, sorry buddy, I’m more of the steak eating, leather wearing, more preservatives, bring on the pesticides kind of woman….so I don’t think this is going to work.

By the end of the night, HP and I were closing down a bar in Capitol Hill, everyone else had called it a night and we were still gabbin away. Guys hovered, bought us drinks, lit our cigaretts but we just said ‘thanks’ and kept right on talking. Isn’t it nice when the company you’re with is more riveting and worth while than any guy trying to pick you up and so you’re so much less receptive to it?

The verdict? HP is smart, pretty, brutally honest, and wildly funny all wrapped up into a compact little package with an attitude to match.

Hello cliché….I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Frankly,

*I-66’s word

Friday night was my first official DC Blogger happy hour. I know there are going to be many ‘recaps’ posted but here are some of my fuzzy memories.

First of all – I must say that I was nervous for a number of reasons. I felt like the math geek being invited to a party with all of the cheerleaders and jocks. Would they like me? Would they be nice? Would they be mean? Cliquey? Or conversely, would THEY turn out be not quite as fabulous as their ramblings, musings, rantings,, and sagas would lead me to believe?

So after much heming and hawing I decided to go because:

#1. 66’s cajoling** efforts needed to be rewarded as did the fact that I could no longer exchange witty electronic banter on a daily basis with him without having met in person!

#2. I have adored Hey Pretty ever since her ode to the container store and she promised to hover with me in a smoky, dry humored haze in the event that the cliques were out in full force

#3. Velvet promised to go with me and basically hold my hand while I put down my laptop and stepped into the real world.

Long story short, can I can’t remember having a better time with a better group of people.

I JUST LOVED EVERYONE SO MUCH!!*

66 was just as sweet, friendly and polite as I had expected. Perhaps more so even.

WonL is just a firecracker of friendly fun, running around, talking to everyone, taking pictures, etc. TOOO cute.

Hey Pretty….HP and I definitely held to our plan of quick, sarcastic, smokey hazed, devilishly honest conversation. And our evening didn’t nearly stop after we said goodbye to our fellow bloggers (a subject for another post).

Velvet was her usual, sweet self and she even BAKED COOKIES! To a domestically challenged urbanite such as myself, this is truly impressive (I don’t care if you DID just take them out of the package and put them on the cookie sheet…you don’t use your oven for storage and obviously know how to turn it on! Which is more than I can say.)

Circle V is even more gorgeous in person than her beautiful pictures and so nice.

View from Dupont is a little bundle of energy – and we have even planned a debaucherous fieldtrip so definitely stay tuned for that one!

Ashburnite was hilarious and was apparently given blogging orders from a mutual friend to look out for me as I would be nervous J

Good at Drinking Bad at Life was also charming and is, in fact…good at drinking

There is no way to describe Brunch Bird as anything other than completely elegant and lovely.

And then there were the Reds…my fiery haired sisters of the blogging world.

Red is just beautiful inside and out and with more crazy stories of dating than I do! Seriously…when are we going to hear about serial killer???

And KassyK….I must say I’ve never considered myself a groupie, hell, Matt Daemon bought me a beer and I kept my cool…but I must admit, I was so very very excited to meet this woman. She is perhaps the sweetest, coolest girl I have ever met. She’s the cheerleader, the and prom queen and the girl next door. She’s the girl from summer camp that you just want to hang out with all the time and life seems so much better just because she’s there. So yes, pin the groupie medal here and I will start the KassyK fan club tomorrow.

So thank you, thank you, DC bloggers for SUCH a welcoming, wonderful, amazing evening (even though I was hungover well into Saturday).

*What did you think this was? False advertising?

**His phrase not mine

Sorry for the silence, Jordan! Work (and life) has been crazy AND I have been sans internet for the majority of the weekend! Sufficet to say RCN has gotten much more than an earful from me the past few days. Anyway....on to the weekend report: Friday

The evening began right after work I literally sprinted to the metro at 5, ran up the escalator two steps at a time, just made the train caught my breath, then ran up some moreescalatorss in order to meet TravelGirl for drinks. For those of you who don't know her, whatever the cyber equivelent of 'sprint...don't walk' is...do it.... to her blog! This woman is talented, beautiful, energetic and smart, and funny as hell! It was great to see her because her fabulously hectic travel schedule has made it impossible over the past month or so to catch up. So we chatted about life, drama, man whores that we know and used to love. Well if nothing else came out of the whole WPB debacle, I met her so for all its fucked-upedness, it was worth it.

Saturday

Well on Saturday morning I woke up and moaned because after I said goodbye to TravelGirl, I hung out with the sweetest music teacher ever (explanationination to follow in a later post) let's just say, I ran into my intern at the Front Page and hijinks ensued until I finally left the Lucky Bar around 2:30 a.m.

I had promised Barbie #1 and company I'd go to the Virginia wine festival with them. So I drug my hungover ass out of bed and attempted to make myself look human, however, the day didn't go quite as planned. After driving for 2 hours to Leesburg, we reached traffic that was at a complete standstill for TEN MILES outside the festivall! Apparently the highways of the bustling metropolis of Leesberg Virginia ill equipped for the influx of all the wine lovers of Virginia simultaneously. Imagine that!



So after getting tired of sitting in the car, being hung over and craving the proverbial 'hair of the dog' (cuz ya know you can't be hungover if you don't stop drinking) we all decided to bag the festival and orchestrate our own wine tasting. We found a restaurant in an old barn? Or mill? Or something provincial. And it was AMAZING the food, the wine, the company.....the wine ....so the 9 of us sat in this restaurant for 4 hours and had sooo much fun. Only downfall was that I didn't get to meet up with Allen. Sorry, doll maybe next time.

Last evening, hot gals (XO, VT, OC) gathered at Casa Scarlett for a little pre-gaming before a night on the town. And did we ever pre-game. Yep. Four gals just sitting around comparing notes on anti-depressants, Match.com dates, episodes of Laguna Beach, downing barcardi and diets and chasing them with shots of Citron. You know...your typical Saturday night.

Before heading out we stopped at a shin-dig happening in the party room in my building where we had drinks and TOOK THEM WITH US. Yep - we thought it would be a good idea to take Open containers onto the sidewalk while we hailed a cab and went to a U st. bar where...you guessed it, we drank some more.

XO's latest love interest joined up with us at some point and before she left with him, I apparently had the following conversation gave him the following lecture:
You had better take care of XO tonight! Do you have a criminal record? Do you have any STDs? I know EVERYONE who works at this bar, if you use her or hurt her you'll never be able to come here again!

I think there were some other threats made involving an exacto knife and a pair of pliers...but you get the general idea. Apparently I'm feisty when I'm drunk.

To make a long, and kind of fuzzy story short, we were lucky we didn't get arrested last night. Besides the open containers, there were several other mistermeanors and one felany committed. Not only that, but I have a number of bruises and a gash on my leg that could have only been the result of some kind of fall...that I don't remember. Oy!

It’s over….my 9 month stint living as a fabulous, single woman living alone in the nation’s capitol has come to an end.

Now before you break out the keg stands and silly string, I would like to clarify that I am STILL fabulous, STILL staying in DC, and alas... STILL chronically single.

I am however no longer living alone.

AND before you gasp in horror, wondering how I could ever end my domestic celibacy after the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre of 2006 chill out. (For those of you who don’t know, my last roommate went crazy and beat me to a bloody pulp before checking herself into rehab for substance abuse problems and anger management issues.*)

However, the rising cost of tea in china, and a 20% rent increase along with a strong aversion to packing and relocation were all contributing factors leading up to my decision to invite a relative stranger to live in my home. I was prepared for the transition (or so I thought).

I leased a storage unit in the building, (since all my winter clothes, holiday decorations, beach chairs, and boxes ‘o junk including mardi gras beads, random pictures and souvenirs of a sorority days-past; were all being kept in the 2nd bedroom).

However, last week was hectic…and Friday night is a blur but I thought “it’s ok. if I sleep off my hangover I’ll get up this afternoon, move the stuff out of the room and clean the apartment in time for her arrival on Sunday.” Great plan. Until I awake to some god awful ring-tone Saturday morning (while drunk, apparently I thought it would be funny to set my ring to “oops I did it again”).

The caller ID flashing I number I didn’t know so I shut off the phone, shoved it under my mattress and attempted to resume my “Let’s ALL take shots!” coma. I was almost successful, when I hear my apartment door open.

#($ @(!& @#)(#

Even redheads have bouts of blonde-like brilliance – and apparently this was mine. Yep, you guessed it, the roommate had scheduled a Saturday arrival and the Britney ring was her calling to tell me she was on her way. GASP 

#()$*@( #(%)@(#*$)(@$*(#

I sit straight up, look in the mirror and cringe – Let me paint you a picture: big, sexy hair from the night before was definitely still big, but nowhere NEAR sexy. Instead it was frizzy and smelled of Marlboro Lights; apparently I didn’t have time for eye makeup remover as I resembled Ricky the Raccoon (oh you know the look, you know it well); top it all off with an oversized, faded t-shirt that, yes, you guessed it, I had put on backwards and inside out (and I’m actually impressed that I managed to do THAT!).

#$)#(@*$(#

I threw on some shorts, a hat on the sex-hair, ran my face under the faucet along with a quarter container of Noxzema, swiged some Listerine and let’s not forget the citrus- mango body splash (college shower, anyone?), open the door to my room, and there is not only my new roommate but her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s sister, brother-in-law AND their two week old infant!

#$)#($&*%)#(

What could I say? “Welcome to my apartment. My name is Scarlett. I am hung over, my sh*t’s all over your room, there are empty bottles of wine on my counter…and I look like the creature from the black lagoon. But please, do come in.” I was, of course, wildly apologetic, and started cleaning like a French maid on Viagra. Sigh – not to fret, all is well. We christened our domestic union over a bottle of Zin and bonded over a mutual love of dry humor, salacious gossip, sex & the city, well constructed blogs and fat-free desserts. Luckily my new roomie, a vision in Lactose and Lily Pulitzer, is very forgiving (a trait I’m sure she’ll exercise more than once living with me). Oh! And she looks exactly like Rachel Billson!

So welcome, roomie with your brightly colored bedspread, big smile, caffeine addiction and love of discounted, fabulous footwear. Truly the OC has come to #1403.

Frankly,

*I’m serious, I looked like a battered house wife in a Dolly Parton video