BRIMFIELD!

Over the last few months, I have met several people on Twitter, many of them from the interior design world. I sort of backed into this community, but it is filled with wonderful, kind, friendly people who made me feel right at home. I don't swear as much on Twitter, which may help explain my warm welcome. As a result of these new virtual friendships, I heard more and more about Brimfield, the big antique fair in Massachusetts. I decided that it was my duty as a burgeoning blogger on things that sometimes have to do with interior design, sort of, to attend this antique fair. Also, there was a "Tweetup" where I would get to meet all my new virtual "friends" in real life. And they were going to serve drinks, and as far as I could tell the drinks would be free. OK, I was sold. I was going to Brimfield! But not alone. No, not alone.


This is Laura (and my son William, whose Godmother she is) and I elected her to be my lucky escort to the antique fair. We've had a fair amount of rain here in the Northeast over the last few days weeks, so Laura and I came prepared, wearing rubber boots up to our knees. We parked, slogged across a parking lot, and arrived at the Tweetup tent. It was like some sort of oasis in a sea of mud - friendly faces, Benjamin Moore fan decks, free magazines, and carts you could borrow to tote all your loot around the show. We said hello, borrowed a cart and set off.

At our first stop, our cart was stolen. We paused for a moment to look at some lovely "Birds of New York" prints and when we turned around our cart was gone. Laura blames me, as I was "in charge" of the cart at the time. There was another cart in its place that looked nothing like ours. Ours was black and empty. The new cart was blue and had a giant plastic bag in it (also empty). We gave the idiot who stole took our cart by accident half an hour to look down and realize they had a black cart with no bag, but they never returned. I went into a panic, because I couldn't imagine returning to the Tweetup tent and explaining that I lost the cart they lent me. This is not the impression I was hoping to make on the fancy, big-name folks who were hosting the event. However, there was nothing to be done, so we took the blue cart and slogged on.

Then we saw Beyonce. Not the singer, the Knock Knock Motherfucker chicken. If you don't know why this is hysterical, you need to follow that link and find out. Here is our Beyonce (ignore the creepy Santa, penguin and armadillo):


It was a long day, and I'll spare you the details of our visit to the Port-a-Potty, the delicious-but-probably-not-vegan donut Laura bought me, and the fact that I had to stop and rest after walking at a slow pace for  45 minutes. I did find a pair of beautiful decanters for my future bar cart:


I also found an incredible antique quilt in my very favorite double wedding ring pattern that I have already put in my office:


I guess I should remove the price tag, huh?

As we slogged back to the car, we saw a woman pulling out of the parking lot with the back hatch of her fancy SUV open to the world - she had clearly forgotten to close it and things were in danger of falling out the back of the car. We tried to alert her, but then just made fun of her with some guys who were sitting around the parking lot. Then we got to our car, packed it up, and pulled out. People wildly waving at us let us know that we, too, had forgotten to close the hatch of our fancy SUV, and had in fact, already lost a boot out the back. This would have been fine if the boot was Laura's because hers were $14.99 from Target:


However, probably because I had made more fun of the other woman, it was one of my boots, which were decidedly NOT $14.99 from Target. So after 20 minutes of searching with the nicest parking attendants in the world, we found the missing boot:


I'd like to say I learned my lesson, and will no longer make fun of people in unfortunate situations or buy $125 dollar rubber boots, but I think you and I both know that would be a lie. And I don't want to start this relationship with a lie. So I'll just say that Brimfield was a blast and I can't wait till the next one in May.

XOXOXO
ABC

P.S. The lovely and talented hosts of the Tweetup, Gretchen Aubuchon and Cynthia Bogart, were very gracious about the cart situation.

P.P.S. The drinks WERE free!

HOW DO YOU TELL A KID ABOUT 9/11?

GOLD RUSH