No Sleep Til Baltimore (part one)

Insomnia sucks balls. I normally sleep like a drugged kitten but lately I've been having a hard time falling asleep. Instead I just lie there with my heart racing and try to invent deep breathing techniques. I'm a denial-insomniac, which means I refuse to acknowledge that sleep is not just around the bend and instead of getting up and doing something else for a while I'll just continue to lie there with my eyes screwed shut and WAIT FOR THE SLEEP TRAIN. CHUGA-CHUGA.

That train never comes. Anyway, this was my Thursday and Friday nights: three hours of sleep. And Friday night was extra-special because I had to get up at 4am the next morning to ride up to Baltimore with Tasha and Kelly, two of my Mafia brethren.

Holy crap was that ever a trip. I mean, we have photos because you wouldn't even believe it if I just told you. This entry is going to be two parts because I need to spend a fair amount of time describing dinner in the Worst Restaurant Ever. EVER.

So the morning started out before the sun rose, as we left few minutes after 5am. Kelly drove and Tasha rode shotgun so I could sit in the back and drool on myself.


Eventually the sun came up and we needed a bathroom and breakfast, in that order. We saw a Chick-Fil-A sign and I started to sing a little song that goes like this:

Chick-en. Chicken biscuit!
Chick-en Bis-cuit for me.

CHICK-en. Chicken biscuit.
In my belly. For me.

I sang it quietly over and over again until I was rewarded:



YAY. As we drove out of the parking lot we spotted a Medieval Times restaurant and were all sad that we couldn't partake. I'm pretty sure they're not open at 8am, but still. Sadness.


We arrived at the show venue only slightly late - it was an old church, which was pretty decent except for the lack of air conditioning. Ugh. I was already feeling pretty not-okay, so this didn't help. At all. We set up the group booth and I think did a pretty sweet job:




I spent most of the day slumped in a chair trying to keep my head propped up. My main job was to write up sales tickets, which I hope I didn't screw up too badly. It was hot, I was tired. Actually, I wasn't so much tired as just beyond. I was so far past tired, I was practically in Narnia.

The first few hours went pretty quickly and then time stopped and the crowds thinned out. Kelly sat tiredly in the other chair and started laughing at nothing so she wouldn't cry. Those were our options at that point - laugh or cry. We were all pretty wrung out. Sales were good in that everyone sold something but bad personally in that I worked a 19 hour day and sold two pairs of earrings. Crap.

So, the show ended and we packed everything up, eager to find a nice place to eat dinner and have a beer. A nice place with air conditioning. How could that go wrong?

Check back tomorrow for Part Two!

The Craft Mafia girls experience the big city of Baltimore! They are served protein they didn't remember ordering! And consider making a call to the Maryland Office of F00d Protecti0n and Consumer Health Services! So not even kidding!