Epic Austin Weekend of Boobs and Cake

You may have noticed that I didn't get as out of control wacky over my birthday this year as I normally would and I have a very good reason for that, which is that I decided to make a big deal out of someone else's birthday the following weekend and so I planned an epic trip to Austin instead.

I should back up a bit. I have a friend from college named Ashley, who you may remember from this story involving several failed drunk dialing attempts and my keychain winding up in another person's crotchal area. In fact, prior to Epic Austin Trip, that was the last time I'd seen her. Well, back in October or so, I made some sort of offhand comment about coming to see her for her birthday (which is the week after mine) and that also the cake master (who you may remember from when she tried to invite me to go camping) and H-town (who you may remember from every cool thing I have ever done in my life) should come along too. I made this offhand comment on Ashley's Facebook page, where it was seen by Jil with one L (who you will not remember from previous stories because I hadn't seen her in 15 years) (also she has the same birthday as me) who responded with something to the effect of "Is this for serious?" and promptly booked a flight. Well at that point it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG, so I then set about systematically eliminating every excuse the cake master and H-town could come up with not to go, coordinated the booking of flights and told Ashley it was done and done. "SWEET HOT BUTTERED TITS!" was her actual verbatim response.

I met up with the cake master at Midway airport Friday morning. The fun began immediately when we noticed a girl in a pink cowboy hat with a veil attached to it that nearly reached the floor and "Bride" written in glitter across the front. We hated her immediately, a hatred I accidentally expressed after we'd boarded the plane. She was one of the last people on and was looking around for a seat when a flight attendant yelled "there's seats back here!" just as she was standing next to the empty seat on my right.

"Not this one," I said.

"Oh my god," said the cake master while laughing hysterically.

"Oh, did I say that really loud?"

"YES."

On landing we were greeted by H-town, who had landed just a few minutes before us, and we all went outside to meet Ashley. On the way to her house we discussed the plans for the weekend: we were going "Texas" and planned to use the phrases "I'll tell you what", "That dog can hunt" and "Bless his/her heart" as often as possible. Also, we were going to replace the phrase "that's what she said" with "sounds like my first time" as pioneered by a friend of my cousin Kelly (my whole family is doing it now, it's brilliant. Try it). We got to her house, dumped all of our stuff, and immediately started going through old photos from college that H-town had the forethought to actually bring with her. After a few rounds of "remember that time when", Ashley hunted down her old photos which were mixed in with photos from high school (Ashley and H-town went to high school together also), some Glamour Shots and a dick picture the rest of us weren't meant to see.

Ashley and H-town both do improv comedy. Every Friday night, the Coldtowne Theater in Austin has a show called Cagematch where two improv groups face off against one another in a battle judged by the audience. Ashley had gotten them a slot, and so for the first time ever on the same stage they did a 20 minute set and TORE THE ROOF OFF THE PLACE, which you can see here. It really wasn't even a contest. Afterwards we went for a drink, did some shopping for snacks and cake supplies and then all went to pick up Jil from the airport, where they have a big picture of Texas on the floor which I alternately pretended to shit on and did cartwheels across. I am 34 years old.

Saturday morning, H-town and I woke up first and elected to go jump on/steamroll Ashley and Jil, after which we all got dressed and went on a mission to find a food truck called Biscuits and Groovy which sells, oddly enough, biscuits. An adorable kid with curly hair and a Texas accent took our order and told us "Y'all can go wait in yer car if ya want and I'll bring it on out to ya when it's ready." We dubbed him Biscuit Boy (bless his heart).

The bulk of Saturday was spent hanging around the house baking a somewhat ridiculous amount of cake. This was for the party we were attending at some friends of Ashley's who were all having a joint birthday party. The theme of the weekend was boobs, because Ashley has huge boobs, I had been tapped to strip at the party, the whole thing had kicked off with "SWEET HOT BUTTERED TITS" and mostly because boobs are awesome. So we made a boobs cake along with a sheet cake on which we ended up drawing Ryan Gosling's abs after watching Crazy Stupid Love while we waited for the cakes to cool. Then Ashley wrote the name of every January birthday person she knew over the top of Ryan's abs and we left for the party.

There was some sort of themed drink thingy going on at the party which we all quickly abandoned in favor of beer. We hung about the party until after the cake cutting, when I disappeared to go get dressed so that I could then turn around and get undressed in front of 60 people. Ashley introduced me for the first time as Poppy Coq "who has come all the way from Chicago to take her clothes off to music." Which I then did for my first solo strip tease performance of my life. Afterwards I was told by both Ashley and H-town they had overheard some girl say "My god, that ass!" while I was performing. When I was back in street clothes, I went and found the others who were now sitting in the front room drinking more beer and watching whatever crap movie was playing on the tv in there. As we didn't really know anyone else at the party, we elected to play a new drinking game we invented for the occasion called "Spot the Hipster", in which you drink every time someone comes in the room wearing black rimmed glasses, a plaid shirt, a decorative scarf, or a beard. We were wasted in 11 seconds. Also, I kept telling everyone who walked in the front door "You missed it. I was naked 10 minutes ago."

Back at Ashley's we were tired, drunk, hungry, and not at all ready to go to bed, so we sent Ashley out to buy us some frozen pizzas while we hung her bras from her ceiling fan and threw an exercise ball at each other up the stairs. Then when Ashley got back we dressed H-town up in heels and made videos of her walking around until we were all slap happy enough to think that me responding to Ashley's question "What time did we put the pizza in?" with "Your mom" was the most hilarious thing we'd ever heard. Which was about the time we realized we should probably go to bed.

Epic Austin weekend was truly Epic, and it is mad ridiculous that it took us 15 years to all get back in the same room at the same time. I can't imagine that it will take us another 15 to do it again. I've already started my campaign for Summer of Chicago 2013. If we get just one more woman to come I can even call it Summer of Chicago Epic Trip: Now With MORE BOOBS!

In conclusion, boobs. And your mom.

Having A Social Life Makes It Really Hard To Blog Sometimes

I was told this morning by StereoNinja that I am being a shitty blogger in 2012 so far. Which I know, but see, there's this thing where I'm busy at my job and travelling and other excuses both legit and complete and utter bullshit. One of them is that I went on an epic trip to Austin last weekend. And I really want to tell you all about it, but chronologically it doesn't make sense if I skip over all of December and my birthday. Also, personally it doesn't make sense either. I have never skipped December or my birthday, they are my favorite things. So herein I will attempt to briefly recap the last month and a half so that in the next post I can describe the most epic reunion of my entire life. Cool? Cool.

A Brief Recap of What Amberance Has Been Up To Since Early December, Minus The Parts That Are None of Your Business and You Don't Want to Know About Anyway (Trust Me)

• On December 10th, as advertised, I walked onto a stage at Martyr's with 16 other women and took off all my clothes in front of hundreds of strangers and it. was. AWESOME. Despite it being oddly disconcerting to be walking around in a bar all night in a nightie and a robe while everyone else around me was dressed, but whatever. The show on the whole was excellent. The girls graduating were amazingly talented and creative and their acts included a girl who stripped to the Imperial March as Darth Vader and left the mask on the entire time, two girls who did a number together to Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" in which one of them was the cowboy and the other one was her horse, and a girl who according to Michelle L'Amour said that she wanted to do a number in which "I do all of the things you always tell us we should never do", and so did a completely disinterested strip tease dressed in a ratty house coat with her hair a complete mess and a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, then finished with taking her bra off to reveal another flesh colored bra underneath to which she had sewn baggy tits that hung down to her knees and when she couldn't get the nipple tassels to twirl she just picked them up in her hand with a shrug and juggled them. It was the most hilarious strip tease I have ever seen.
• The bartender bought me an auto hammer for Christmas and I was filled with joy. I am a tool for tools. And puns.
• The next day I flew to Cleveland for two days because something is seriously wrong with me. I packed a backpack for the trip. My brother had also come to town, for four days, and had brought three huge suitcases and a garment bag, prompting me to ask my dad if it was weird for him that his son is his daughter and his daughter is his son (I did, after all, get an auto hammer for Christmas).
• I saw my brother again the following weekend when he came to town for the annual New Year's Eve party thrown by some friends of ours. My loving brother greeted me with a loud "Fuck you," when I walked in, due to my having worn an amazing tank top with chains and tiny handcuffs for straps that everybody but him loved, including all the women who were pregnant which was ALL OF THEM.
• The following week we had our work holiday party, to which I took the gorilla after giving me his word that he would behave himself. I shouldn't have worried, he was absolutely fine. It was me and my coworkers who were out of control, but it wasn't our fault - someone had brought a Shake Weight to the gift exchange which we were inappropriate about, and then we were under the minimum for the contract we'd signed, so the obvious thing to do was to order lots more booze which led to me teaching everyone how to twirl nipple tassels and shouting "It's PHYSICS" at everyone who tried to object.
• The following Monday I flew to Portland and didn't even try to kill my boss once!
• Which leads us to my Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY! weekend. This did not start out well. El Nino or whatever the hell the weather is doing had kept things pleasantly warm and dry in Chicago this winter, right up until the night of my birthday when it decided to drop 8 inches of snow on us overnight. This meant that only Charlie and Mrs. Sizemore showed up to my party at Tai's and got to see my Epic Cake which depicted me in not a whole lot of clothing.

  

  So hot it is literally on fire.

  This gave me the opportunity, after we had partially eaten it, to yell "WHO IS GOING TO EAT MY CROTCH?" at some innocent strangers for a totally legitimate reason. Earlier in the day, I had taken my pink princess wand to work with me in order to command people to do my bidding, such as wear hats and sing to me, and had ended up using it help my co-worker figure out what NOT to get his wife for her birthday by waving it at him after every suggestion and saying "No, that's stupid." Because of this, I decided to name it the Wand of Truth and then brought it to the bar and had a duel with the bartender and his magic wand because his Schwartz was as big as mine. The next day, Kelly and Mike showed up and we spent the weekend playing Pulse on our respective iPads and eating/drinking our faces off. Kelly ate some caterpillars. Lots more awesome things happened, but that is the thing that stands out - Kelly eating her way through a plate of caterpillars at Sticky Rice.

So that about brings us up to speed, and though I've missed some major things out (see bolded header), I feel better about blogging the Epic Austin Trip. Which I will do shortly to avoid further admonishments from StereoNinja. You don't want to piss off a ninja*.

*he is not a real ninja**.
*OR IS HE?

SOON! Well, Not Really That Soon, But Still.

My cousin(ish) Kelly, who is super awesome and loves me so much, had all these airline credits that she needed to use up before they expired. So guess what she did. Can you guess? She booked a trip to Chicago to come see me.

FOR MY BIRTHDAY.

Which is not only THE MOST EPIC BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER but also has given me a perfect excuse to talk about my mid January birthday in late July. You guys. This might be the best thing that has ever happened to me.

The planning, of course, began immediately. My party is officially called "Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY!" and features EPIC CAKE (to be announced), party hats for everyone!, possibly some partial nudity and some sort of THINGS! THINGS I tell you! It is not to be missed. Do so at your own peril, because later when everyone is like "Wasn't Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Extravaganza with More Kelly the best birthday party that has ever been held at any time on this globe?" you will have to be like "I don't know, I wasn't there" and then everyone will be like "Whoa, way to kill the mood there, Debbie Downer" and then there will be an awkward silence and it will be all your fault and they will think twice about offing you any leftover epic cake. So, you know, probably you should pencil it in.

The Post That Is More Of The "Holy Fuck It's Finally My Birthday" Variety

The holidays are officially over and that can only mean one thing: it's about to be my muthafuckin' birthday, y'all. In fact, it's Wednesday, but feel free to start getting your drink on RIGHT NOW. As Supreme Ruler of the month of January (because that's when my birthday is) I officially give you permission and encourage you to start celebrating my birthday right this minute, as well as retroactively back to the beginning of this year, and for the duration of this entire month.

As crazy as I normally am about my birthday, and as many of you know about my birthday celebrating, you can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me, this year I have been particularly looking forward to it ever since June. Why June? Because that's when my beloved Chicago Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup title in 50 years, and almost immediately after that I made the decision to build my own confectionery Stanley Cup out of cake for my birthday (really it was almost immediately. Toews hoisted the cup, and passed it to Hossa, who shares my birthday like the fucking rockstar he is, and I looked at my birthday twin holding the cup over his head and thought, "I'm fucking eating that on my birthday." I don't know how my brain works, I only know that it does.)

Since then I've been doing a lot of research. The actual Stanley Cup is approximately a foot and a half wide at its base and about 3 feet tall. Duff made a full size replica Stanley Cup cake for a wedding on whatever the fuck cake making show he's on (I don't watch it, I just found a clip of it when I googled "how to make a Stanley Cup cake". They had the actual Stanley Cup brought into the bakery to use as a reference which is flat out fucking unfair, in my opinion) and was expecting it to serve 300 people. I don't actually know 300 people, nor do I have the kind of resources to make that huge of a cake (I had to buy a tiara and a princess wand so everyone would know it was my birthday, after all - I'm not fucking made of money people) so I had to scale it down. My cake will be 9 inches wide and about a foot and a half tall and I expect it to take 5-7 boxes of cake to complete. By the way, don't even think about getting up my ass about using boxed cake for this. I'm making the frosting from scratch because I make the best fucking frosting in the world and also, I'M BUILDING THE STANLEY CUP OUT OF CAKE which is a lot of work as it is, and I am not going to also make cake batter from scratch because believe it or not I have other shit to do, such as my job. Besides, boxed cake is moist and delicious and spongy and I have absolutely no reason to be ashamed.

Even scaled down that much, there's no way I can transport that tall of a cake from my third floor dwelling to Tai's and have it stay in one piece, so I'll have the additional challenge of having to assemble, ice and decorate most of it sitting at the bar. I've also had to work out a great deal of structural engineering for support, because anyone who bakes tiered cakes knows, if you don't secure them with cardboard and sticks on the inside, it will either start to resemble the leaning tower of Pisa or collapse in on itself like so many legendary Vegas casinos torn down in the interest of newer, shinier Vegas casinos. Keep it tuned here for photos, kids - this cake is going to be legendary, regardless of whether it turns out to be my greatest triumph or most soul crushing failure (it won't be - it's my birthday, and on my birthday there is no failure, only magic and rainbows and kittens).

But enough about cake - let's talk about the other things that make my birthday the most awesome day on the calendar. Such as the tea party I'm having at work on my birthday. BrownsFan suggested it jokingly when I mentioned I didn't want to make a cake for work because I am making such an enormous one for the bar. "You know, with scones. And cucumber sandwiches," she teased. She really ought to know better, because instead of being all "haha motherfucker", I gasped with joy and immediately began making plans to subject my co-workers to tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. I will also be eating crab legs for dinner on Wednesday because that's what the bartender and I have for dinner any time it's one of our birthdays (or half birthdays. Or if we just found some money lying around. Or if one of us goes to Costco on a Saturday. We like crab legs, ok?).

And then there's the presents. The comic has had some sort of stroke or something and decided a birthday gift was in order, which I am suspicious of, because he rarely buys people things that aren't booze and it is obvious he's up to something. Also, the bartender keeps hinting at a gift that is going to trump my Christmas gifts (many of which actually were booze because my roommate totally gets me). As for myself, I've bought an ensemble of frilly red things, the aforementioned tiara and princess wand so everyone will know it's my birthday (the bartender: "Right. Because there's any possibility that people aren't going to know whose birthday it is.") and I am going to the toy store on my way home tomorrow for a new toy (or seven, you can never have enough toys). I will NOT be buying myself another 3000 piece puzzle, possibly ever again, because I can't build them anymore - the cat steals pieces out of the box and hides them and also she likes to knock the parts I've completed onto the floor as if to say "That's what you get. Now get your shit off my table." Even the TV executives wanted to get me something nice: tomorrow, on my birthday eve, Comedy Central starts airing new episodes of the brilliant Tosh.0 and it is totally because they KNEW it was my birthday and they wanted me to be happy (that is also why the new Social Distortion album comes out next week. For real). Fuckin' A.

I'll keep you guys updated on the progress of the greatest birthday cake of all time and about how awesome the next few days are going to be as time allows. I don't know if you heard, but it's my birthday and there will be too much awesome happening to really be online much. But don't worry, you'll be too busy celebrating my birthday to really notice.

Suck It, Fondant

I've outdone myself. Most likely I've outdone you. I know that sounds arrogant, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

If you are a fan of the show Sons of Anarchy (and you should be) you will most likely recognize this as the top rocker and reaper logo from the Sons colors (motorcycle jacket for those that don't watch the show or Gangland on the History Channel):


Looks an awful lot like a leather jacket, no?


I drew that myself.

IN FROSTING.


Cake (not a leather jacket)


BUTTERCREAM FROSTING.


I'm better than you. Na na na boo boo, stick your head in doo doo.

The frosting of the moment is fondant. Its consistency makes it the favorite for detail work in current cake decorating trends. It is also a bitch to work with, tastes like chemicals and won't adhere to your cake on its own meaning that you still have to make buttercream frosting to decorate a cake with fondant. Fondant loyalists will try to tell you you will never get the kind of precision with buttercream that you can get with fondant. I point to the above cake as definitive evidence to the contrary. My cake is pretty AND delicious, and I defy you to repeat the detail work of the reaper's bony hands and bloody scythe with friggin' fondant.

The Obligatory Holiday Recap

Well hello there, internet friends. Long time no write.

Despite the best efforts of the "kids" of my family (you all should have co-ordinated your efforts, It still wouldn't have worked but it probably would have been really entertaining) I spent my Christmas with the bartenders family in Galena this year instead of going to Cleveland. This worked out very well, because I can't get homemade swedish meatballs in Cleveland, and no one in my family is the crazy cat lady so I wouldn't have gotten to play with a half dozen kittens that were so cute I almost threw up on them. Then again, if I'd gone to Cleveland I wouldn't have been covered in cat hair, and also my dad's house doesn't smell like ammonia.

The bartender was born on Christmas Eve, so I baked him a cake with the Blackhawks logo on it (because I am friggin awesome) which we took with us to Galena that night. He decided, somewhat arbitrarily and with no basis whatsoever in reality, that we would be celebrating his 24th birthday, which magically transformed him into being younger than me for a day. We hung out at his sister's townhouse for a while, before retiring to our hotel to watch football. Alcohol was consumed, cheese was heated up at 2 in the morning and consumed on tortilla chips. I think he had a pretty good fake 24th birthday.

I got a lot of great gifts. My parents had sent me a huge box of stuff, including a couple of new nativities for my collection and a cute but weird stuffed lamb that had a card claiming it had slept on top of the baby Jesus in the manger to keep him warm. I found that unlikely because it seems like if you put a sheep on top of a baby the kid would suffocate, but then again I wasn't there. The bartender's sister and her girlfriend bought me an amber necklace when they were in Scotland. And the bartender broke from his highly cultivated "you are not so special and you annoy me" attitude and surprised me with airline tickets to Las Vegas for New Year's.

As far as New Year's goes, Las Vegas is the new New York. About 3 million people come into town for it. The cost of a hotel room quadruples. They shut down the strip at 5:00 so they can fill the street with people who will then watch a spectacular fireworks show at the stroke of midnight.

The bartender and I had gone to dinner with the owner et al. for his birthday at Japanais. While this seemed like a good idea at the time, we were clear on the other end of the strip from where we wanted to be, which was on top of Mandalay Bay at the Foundation Room, where we had been invited to watch the fireworks with the bartender's good friend whom I shall call His Royal Awesomeness because he fills me with awe. (And booze.) With the strip being shut down, and the blisters I had acquired walking to dinner, we were going to have a hard time making it back in time. Actually, as it turned out, it would be impossible to get back in time, because by 11:00 the street was so packed with people it was impossible to cross.

As much as I enjoy visiting Las Vegas, it is a Mecca for stupid asses. No one could figure out how to board a tram, look in the direction they were walking, or keep themselves from blocking foot traffic. As we stood trapped in the middle of the street, surrounded by drunk frat boys chanting "Tits! Tits!" at girls who were clearly not drunk enough to take their shirts off, the bartender observed that people seemed even more retarded than normal, and concluded that Los Angeles had thrown up on us.

We spent the next few days in the sports book watching some FANTASTIC (Fiesta) and some atrocious (Orange) bowl games, plus a bit of hockey. We also eventually stopped up at the Foundation Room where some girl hit on me. Only girls hit on me now. Boys don't any more. I don't know what that's about. We left without anyone else hitting on me, which was very disappointing because one of my main goals for this Vegas trip was to get some ass. Other than that the trip was pretty uneventful - just the usual "go to Fatburger" thing, the usual "drink with His Royal Awesomeness and get extremely hammered" thing and the subsequent "Amber and the bartender get in a huge argument on the last day" thing.

Next up: Amberance's Super Duper Fabulous 29th Birthday extravaganza! which is likely to consist of going to Tai's and getting all crazy, like flailing my arms around and demanding everyone pay attention to me or drinking four ciders instead of three. So pretty much exactly like what I do every week, except that I'm going to make everyone sing to me.

Top Things I Didn't See at my Birthday Party at Tai's

1. Anyone going by the name of Dave, Hutch, Keri, TK, Pablo, or whose last name rhymes with "Schmongola". Though I hear Chris and Steve were in on Friday. Asswipes.

2. Gene Honda's reaction to my Chief Wahoo birthday cake. I was in the bathroom when he came in. When I saw him later I asked if he thought my cake was pretty. He said "What's left of it" and mimed smashing it with his fist.

3. Left over cake. Gene had two pieces. So did the bartender and several others.

4. Hot Heather's boobs/the bartender's dick. Though Heather and I did scurry off to the bathroom so she could take a picture of my ass. And I did get to squeeze her boobs (I vaguely recall we were counting to four for some reason and demonstrated this by feeling each other up.)

5. Help from the staff. I was cornered by some short guy and a Canadian. They sang happy birthday to me in Polish and French, respectively, and then the short guy quickly became annoying with his repetitive attempts to kiss me. Also, some other guy kept licking my legs. Yes, licking them. Rather than rescue me the owner told him, "You owe me 10 bucks for her."

Birthday Loot!

Happy Birthday to me! The gifts are rolling in! So far:

• Birthday cards so far from my step-grandma (thad be Harriet for the fam), my dad and stepmom (with mulah), and the bartender (with 4 CDs of punk rock music he burned for me and drew lopsided smiley faces on);
• One text message from Hot Heather;
• One IM message from Fish;
• e-mail wishes from Cap (who will see me at Tai's), Simmy (who sang happy birthday to me, or, well, typed it), Heather (who points out that I'm old), Kelly (who will call before happy hour), Timmy (who hopes I get all my birthday wishes plus two more!) and Catholic Dennis (who wants me to have a good one);
• A phone call from my dad yesterday. He left a message on my voicemail which was perhaps the most words he's ever said to me all at once in my entire life. It went on for almost a whole minute;
• A hilarious video (probably not work safe due to penis drawings) from Hot Heather. OK, this was maybe not a birthday present so much as a MySpace bulletin she posted yesterday, but I saw it today and laughed, and it's my birthday, so I've decided it's a present;
• Cupcakes from my boss. This was partly for my birthday and partly because he'll use any excuse to go to Tag's Bakery in Evanston;
• The guys who write my favorite web comic, Cyanide and Happiness. Apparently they have telepathic abilities and knew it was my birthday today, but also believe I am a boy. Here is today's comic:

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

• Jimmy Kimmel and God conspired to get me the best present of all. Last night I had planned to decorate my birthday cake, but after dinner I suddenly got really tired and fell asleep on the couch with the TV on. It was God who made me fall asleep, you know. Had I decorated the cake as planned and then gone to bed I would have missed it. But as it was, I fell asleep on the couch. And then God awakened me just as Jimmy was introducing his second guest of the night: BEN STEIN;
• The aforementioned birthday cake. Chocolate with homemade frosting depicting Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians. From me.

I am still waiting to hear from my idol Jennie Smash, and for the assless chaps. But overall, I've been raking it in so far.
Let's continue this thing by leaving comments that say nice things about me! Or by sending assless chaps.