Guess who went to North Carolina

These guys!

Oh and Stefan. He came too but had a different seat and had to hold the camera.

Why? Why did we go to North Carolina? Well, in my fantasy life of leaving NYC, the Durham/Chapel Hill area seemed to find its way to the top of the relocation list. Its in the South but not so far down as my home state Alabama that Stefan might explode from the abundance of "chit chat." The man can handle only so much chit chat. It has a very good food scene (check out www.carpedurham.com to get a taste) and because of the colleges, it has a good music and art scene and leans a tad more to the liberal side. Seemed like a good fit.

Here's something weird. Neither of us have ever been. 

So for the last 2 years we have discussed going down to check it out and ta daaaaaa. It has been checked.

First off, super short flight from NYC which is a delight with a baby. By the way, 14 month olds or "toddlers" or whatever you want to call them, need lots of new stuff for flights. I miss my tiny, boring baby who slept all the time. That said, Katy Belle is not a yeller...yet. We got another flight in 2 weeks so there is always a chance the yelling will turn up.

NONE OF THIS IS IMPORTANT! 

What is important is that when we got into town and hit the store for milk, etc for Katy Belle, we were informed by pretty much everyone that "the State Fair is in town" and opens...I mean opening day people...opens in 2 hours.

How do you know you married the right person? You know when you are standing in a Kroger's check out line, are told the State Fair is in town, and you look at each other and say "STATE FAIR!" followed by high fives.

I give you North Carolina trip Part 1

Outside the entrance to the State Fair are several 4-H club displays. I assume they were made to pump you up about the fair. This one said "Celebrate What's Good."

Pigs playing drums is what's good! Oh yeah!

Once inside you can stop off at Fun Rider Rentals for a fun ride, which seems to mean wheel chairs. Ummmm, fun? 

 (I hope this isn't representative of the "fun rides" that lie inside.)

Hot damn! The Village of Yesteryear! 

 It does not disappoint. This was actually very charming and filled with vendors who make handmade products and they all dress up in old timey garb which totally pulls on my "people don't all suck" strings. 

 Next up, Children's Barnyard!

Cow!

This is probably my only complaint. The Children's Barnyard had very deep fencing keeping vistitors a tad too far away. Katy Belle was not impressed.

But I am impressed by the Hobbies and Crafts area that displayed the best of the best from around the state. Check out this Lego Storm Trooper.

And then there was food. As far as the eye could see...so much fried food. 

JOY! 

No this is not the "food scene" I spoke of. This is fair food which is awesome...if I was 10 years younger or still smoking weed.

 Soooooo many turkey leg options.

 Leave it to "older and wiser" Biz to find the only truck that boasted farm fresh veggies. I got okra. DEEP FRIED MOTHER FREAKING OKRA!

  Did someone say Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich? 

 Stefan did. Stefan said fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. 

 Stefan also ate that fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.

 Note to all fair goers. There is a difference between fried and deep fried. We were assuming this sandwich would have a golden, hot crust of fried goodness. It did not but was still very good.

Ok. Don't look now. DON'T LOOK! Ok look. Guy with giant Rastafarian banana is right over there.

 This guy was walking around with I can only assume his wife or girlfriend and a mother...his or hers, I don't know but a mother. How did this guy wind up with this? Ok, I know how he wound up with it....every carni game was giving them away. FYI this is not the biggest rastafarian banana to be won.

I am going with his manhood being challenged by a carnie, he shoots a clown in the mouth till a balloon pops, he looks to his wife and mother and one of them says, "I want that one!" I can also go with him thinking this is the most romantic prize he could have ever won. "I like bananas and Bob Marley. This is gonna look great on our bed."

Would you like to take a ride on the U Toob?

 Same guy! Same Rastafarian banana. He has to carry this around all day. 

(Yeah, thats my 14 month old baby who is as huge as she looks. Jesus. She looks is like a giant Rastafarian banana. I think her head is bigger than mine.) 

So Stefan's manhood was challenged by the ski ball machines. Do you see me with a giant rastafarian banana? You do not.

 Haunted house ride! I wanna go!

 Oh wait, I can't because it apparently doesn't operate during the day time. LAME!

There is more to see but around this point we discovered that the milk we bought at Krogers was bad and felt we needed to get Katy Belle outta there before something horrible happened...possibly more horrible than the free Harlequin Romance novel they were giving away entitled Romance and Mystery. I thought this was a description but it is in fact the title. Romance and Mystery. 

So good times were had by all at the fair! I think this is a great sign.

Oh wait. Remember that comment about Katy Belle and the bad milk? Yeah, that didn't work out well. We were two exits away from our hotel when Katy Belle made a noise and Stefan looked back and said "oh we got some puke. Just need a burp cloth."

pause

"Oh! There is a little more."

pause

"Oh my god!"

I look back from driving and I only see Katy Belle's face. The rest of her and the car seat and the back seat is covered in vomit. No I don't have a photo. My first thught was not to take a picture. 

It looked nothing like this:

It was awful and smelled bad. There was no way we were making it 2 more exits and poor Katy Belle didn't know what was going on. I pull off into an empty office park and we get her out of the seat. We have very little with us to clean this up. We got her onto her changing pad, stripped her down and cleaned her up with the 5 wipes we had left and put her in the state fair shirt I had bought. I used everything we had with us to try and wipe down the back but she wasn't going back in the car seat. It was 2 inches deep with vomit. So windows down, Stefan held Katy Belle in the back seat while I got us home. While he bathed her and got her to bed, I got down and dirty with the vomit. You know you are a mom when you don't think twice about your fingers being covered in vomit. 

We wound up having to return the car seat that night for a new one from the car rental place. I got into a tersely polite back and forth with the night desk clerk who didn't think it was relevant info to give me (the crazy woman who is covered in vomit and has said my baby has vomited) that the laundry room doesn't have a change machine or detergent dispencer, so I had to make a lot of vomit covered trips back and forth across the hotel to get the laundry finally in. I disassembled the car seat, so while it no longer looked like a car seat, we did not return it covered in puke.

They also had us on the smoking floor yet claimed we didn't have a smoking room. So I put in a room change request.

Let's just say we needed sleep and "take 2" with the hotel. We woke up excited about checking out Chapel Hill. What could be a better omen that the day is going to be great than opening your door to find a GIANT pair of women's panties on the knob.

Stay tuned for North Carolina Part 2.

Guess who had passes to NY ComicCon?

This girl!

I am the one in the Tron shirt and Star Wars hat. I think the Predator on the right wants to take me home.

I love ComicCon. Not just for the overwhelming amount of comics, movie sneak peeks, game demos, fantasy writers and Welcome Back Carter action figures you can get, but also for the ailse upon aisles of creepy, Japanese, dress up, borderline "furry" culture that is there too. Don't know about the furry culture?

Please enjoy a scene from one of my favorite CSI's. 

If only there was a CSI convention. Don't look at me.

Anyway, what I love most about ComicCon is all the people who dress up. Sadly, Stefan and I did not don our Green Arrow and Black Canary outfits...mainly because we have grown lazy with a 14 month old baby, and trying to haul her across town to the edge of Manhattan in what is essentially a corset and blond wig on a Friday afternoon...lets just say I can sleep without having checked that off some sort of bucket list.

So please enjoy some of my favorites.

Here I am with the Marvel Family. I love this because one day Katy Belle will have to be dressed as Speedy or Red Arrow. (Sorry baby girl, you can use it in your favor when you want to borrow the car down the road.)

Ok, who let the hot ghostbuster in here? 

Who is this guy...attractive AND has an excellent Ghostbusters costume with nary a black spray painted toilet paper roll in sight? 

Still, he doesn't hold a candle to Stefan as Green Arrow. Lets see if I can dig out that photo from a few years ago.

Guess whose first ComicCon it was?

 My sista! She did very well...and we did rearkably well... when Stefan made the ultimate sacrifice and took Katy Belle home so I could continue to bask in my nerdiness (he got an unopened Whitesnake album in return)...and Helen and I (I swear, loaded only with coffee) stumbled upon some alternate ComicCon universe with hot dudes in costume. 

Hello Clark Kent.

So we find ourselves with hot Clark Kent who announces he is raising money for the Christopher Reeve Foundation. He was able to communicate this between my sister and my squeals of delight when he ripped open his shirt.

So we are going on and on about how handsome he is when he says "hey mom, take a photo with both  of them."

Mom? I turn, and not to be unkind, but there is his mother who is not quite "Clark Kent hot" if you know what I mean and she has been there the whole time listening to us go on as if we were at a male review in Panama City, FL. I don't know what to say other than "um, your son is so handsome and this is such a nice thing he is doing." (Raising money, not allowing himself to be fondled by the likes of me and my sister.)

Helen asked about the charity as she deposited her money into the giant jug of money and he says "its nothing official, I am just going to drop it off at their center next week."

blink

Pardon my southern but he ain't gonna take that money anywhere but to his bank and I am now suspicious about his so called "mother."

We moved on only to discover "hot" Captain America. 2 things...I had seen a number of not "hot" Captain Americas already lurking about the convention, and secondly, I am not a Marvel fan. 

Hello! Are you accepting money for a charity as well?

God bless my sister. When he looked at her with some hesitation when she asked if he would turn around for her photo, I believe her words were "Honey, you package all that in all this and it deserves to be photographed." 

At least that was the gist. 

So here is to another successful ComicCon. If you need me I will be enjoying part 1 and 2 of Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel remakes of Richard Stark's Parker character. Joy.

xoxo, Biz

Today's Factoid

Yes. Pregnancy is a miracle. But the real miracle is that I don't roundhouse kick strangers in their throats. Second Trimester nausea and 16th week everything-tasting-like-metal-lawnchair is bullshit.

I'm not glowing. Just cartoon-wolf wearing a spinning bow-tie angry.

Nighty-night. I'm sending the waitress over with an Insomnia Highball. Enjoy.
J.

FILLER: Just go with this idea...

This isn't going to make a lot of sense. It will to me, because... well, this is how I think. This is what I think about. Like, a lot.

I think quite a bit about casting big-screen biopics and remakes. When I worked retail for many years, to keep myself from killing people, I would cast big-screen versions of Gilligan's Island, The Three Stooges and The Partridge Family. Lately, I've been 'collecting' people for music industry biographical films.

A long while back, I was 'casting' my Led Zeppelin picture. I had Henry Ian Cusick (Lost's Desmond) as Robert Plant. I got no further. Probably because another side hobby of mine is coming up with the title of the movie and though this can be really distracting, it's a really good time. I was about to cast the rest of my Bob Geldof/Boomtown Rats picture (I have John Krasinski from The Office as Bob), when I saw a photo of Andrew Garfield - who looks SO much like Neil Finn from New Zealand bands Split Enz and Crowded House. Andrew Garfield just did a bang-up job in The Social Network (a must see - really), and he has also been cast as Peter Parker in the new Sony Spider-Man franchise (which is super exciting.)

This is Neil Finn.

This is Andrew Garfield. And Spider-Man!

Another thing that struck me is that Neil Finn's brother Tim Finn (from the same bands) is currently a dead ringer for Jeff Bridges.

This is Jeff Bridges.

This is Tim Finn.

This is where it gets confusing; would things be better if Tim Finn played Jeff Bridges in The Jeff Bridges Story or should Jeff Bridges just go ahead and play Tim Finn in I Got You: The Story of Split Enz?

You know what? Never mind.
-J.

PS - Here are my Three Stooges.

David Paymer is Larry. And sometimes David Sedaris.

Mike Starr is Curly.

Linda Hunt has always been Moe.