East Coast represent

I've been on a technically-induced hiatus for what feels like a long while, due to internet outage at my place of business (lunch hours are prime blogging time), and will-to-live outage at home (work exhaustion coupled with Christmas exhaustion; all I want to do is lie in front of the TV, eat chocolate and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas).

But now I'm back! And ready to tell you all about meeting Arabella! I wasn't so much worried that I wouldn't like her as I was mildly apprehensive that she wouldn't like me. It's true that meeting a fellow blogger in the flesh after chatting with her on the Interwebs is not unlike a blind date, and anyone who's dated online knows how fraught with horror that can be - will we have good chemistry? Will she be appalled at my sailor mouth? Will I think she's a snob? Fortunately, the answers were yes, apparently not, and not at all. I was pleased to encounter a lovely, petite, dark-eyed, smartly-dressed woman wearing a friendly smile.

I really enjoyed, in a weird way, being in this unique (to me) position, of knowing intimate facts about this person (and she about me) without really knowing her at all. I suppose it gave us both a lot of conversation starters. We began by talking about cooking, wherein I discovered she was definitely not a snob, because she began to recommend slice 'n' bake cookie brands to me! That was when I knew we would probably get along.

Talk turned to cycles, pregnancy, and the customary two week abstention from alcohol between ovulation and the (seemingly inevitable) onset of one's period, both vowing not to abstain any more, given that she is a lightweight (she claims, but she was far soberer than I when we hugged goodbye!) and I try to limit myself to 2 drinks per week anyway. I had more like 3 or 4, though, over the course of the afternoon, and while our husbands really did talk about architecture and bicycling ("I probably bored him with all my bike talk," fretted my bike-enthusiast husband), we discussed (among others) anti-depressants, suicide and people I went to high school with (courtesy of my high school pal, Matt). I remember whooping with laughter (a sure sign I am comfortable and having a good time), and loud as I was, Arabella was cool with it! It was very liberating to be so at ease with a new friend. And all this in the time-has-stopped gorgeousness of McHale's, a place you really should visit before it closes, if you can. But you should probably skip 2 or 3 meals beforehand, because the bacon cheeseburger I ordered was bigger than my head, and the bacon aspect was about a full rasher (so delicious, though).

I raise a bottle of Original Sin cider to the giddy prospect of more Philly-New York meetings and the eventual B-List Blog Chicks (TM TB) Meetup 2006 (maybe?)! Cheers!