Chatty Cathy Meets Chatty Kate...

I'm back from DC, where I had my first in-person meeting with a bloggy friend! I met Heather, who was there from Alabama all week for a conference. Since she was only 2 hours away and since she's become my official bloggy little-sister, I headed on up there to hang out with her last night. It was great!

Heather is as completely adorable and sweet and funny in person as she is on her blog. I started laughing with her (and by 'with her' I mean 'at her') before I even laid eyes on her. I'd given her my room number (536) and she said she'd be right down. About 10 minutes later, I was still waiting. Then my phone rang and Heather asked, "Are you actually IN room 506 now?" Yup... room 506, where she'd been standing, knocking, for 5 minutes (I told her she'd just disturbed the people having sex in there). She was embarrassed. I was cracking up.

We sat in my room for a while and talked and talked... then we had a huge dinner (during which we talked and talked), and after we waddled back to the hotel, we planted ourselves in the bar (where we talked and talked... for a total of 8 hours straight, with only a couple of short bathroom breaks). It was my turn to be laughed at then...

I ordered a Guinness, which came in a bottle. I've only ever had Guinness from the tap or in a can... apparently the bottles are a relatively new thing here. Anyway, we were chatting and drinking and I noticed an odd, rattling sound coming from my bottle. I looked at Heather, shook the bottle, and said, "There's something in here." The look on her face, I'm sure, mirrored the look on mine... there is not supposed to be anything in a bottle of beer after all... well, except for beer. I had some unpleasant visions running through my head, let me tell you, so I decided to bring it to someone's attention. I went up to the bar and when the (very cute, very charming) bartender came over, and smiling big, asked what I needed, I said, "Ummm... there's something in my bottle." He replied, "Yes?" Me, again (shaking the bottle this time), "Ummm... there's something in my bottle." His smile turned into a full-fledged guffaw. Apparently bottles of Guinness contain some sort of plug thing that's meant to do something relevant... I dunno... like keeping all the beer from coming out at once...? That's not usually an issue I have, but whatever. When the bartender stopped laughing, he told me the look on my face had been priceless. Whenever he came over to our table for the rest of the night, he asked if I wanted another rattley beer.

So, Heather and I talked and talked until we were nodding off into our beers. We met for breakfast this morning before she had to head to the airport (where she's now stuck for the rest of the afternoon, as her flight was cancelled... poor baby) and I had to wander home. Meeting her was really fanstastic... it was like seeing an old friend again. I'm looking forward to the next time we can get together... and to meeting more of you lovely bloggy people!