I have a billion things to get caught up on today. Which is exactly why I just started a Lady Elaine Fairchilde Twitter account three minutes ago. In fact, she just tweeted her first pic: “Missin my peeps from the ‘hood today. Went 2 ChuckECheese 2b around other creepy puppets w/ wood faces.” She’s also claimed the hashtag #puppetproblems.

So, back to why I was MIA this week. Unlike all the other times I have BS excuses, this one is legit. I got a text from my friend Kira on Monday: “I need to talk to you for two seconds. You’re gonna listen, then say yes, and then figure it out later.  Mmmk?”  Um.

Kira is a virtual friend and partner of mine over at The College Crush. She lives in Madison-ish, and I live in Chi-area but we’ve only hung out once. Well, she was speaking at the University of Michigan and wanted yours truly to accompany her. Apparently, one hang out is all it takes for someone to know that any kind of a trip would be better if I were in the passenger seat.  Some things in life are just blinding truths.

Kira: Just say yes.

Me: But, I have so much to do this week.

Kira: I’ll make an awesome play list, bring a basket of snacks and pick you up at your door.

Me: Eh.

Kira: My plan is to be done speaking by 1 and drinking martinis by 2 on Wednesday.

Me: You have my address right?

This is me putting on my best “Yay, we’re about to embark on a road trip” face, when on the inside I’m thinking, “I can already feel the car sickness and misery from my undersized bladder having to overextend itself.”

Kira may or may not have mentioned the trip would be 4 hours. Yea, nope.

Of course, the 8 hours probably could have been shortened had our main agenda not been to find a particular restaurant we were craving. It also would have gone shorter had we not gotten sidetracked by making fun of all the adult store names in Hammond, Indiana. Once we got closer to the hotel, Kira was telling me that she researched the reviews to find us a good one.

Me: As long as it doesn’t have a door that leads to the outside, I’ll be okay.

Kira: Well, crap. I don’t know if it does. You should have said something.

Me: Aren’t you aware that’s how all horror movies start?

Kira: It’s going to be fine. And if not, I’ll get us a different one tomorrow.

Me: I’m not that high maintenance. It’ll be okay. {hyperventilates}

Well, after checking the mattresses for bedbugs, securing my luggage up off the ground, barring the door shut with a chair and switching out the blankets for my own…. we cracked open some wine and relaxed. But I’m not sure how our nightstand ended up like this in the morning.

The next day, Kira and I empathized with the students and their parking problems. There wasn’t a spot for miles. Kira put on her glasses and we made like teachers. We’re a class act.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones who were depressed by the parking issues…

After Kira’s speech, we went out with some of the coolest, smartest, awesomest college students ever. They just didn’t make em like this back in my day. We may or may not have persuaded them to skip classes to hang out with us.

As promised, martini was in hand by 2pm.

Then again at 2:15. Ahem.

Then we kidnapped one of the students and made him show us good pizza places. We chose this one based on the Christmas lights, but lucky for him it had amazing pizza too.

Oh, did I mention both Kira and I are gluten intolerant?

And did I mention all we did was eat gluten on this trip from start to finish?

What we lack in self control we make up for in awesome. I learned long ago you can’t have it all.

So yea, I’ll be around to your blogs very soon.

I have returned to blogging over at Celery and the City where I write about clean eating, healthy living and post allergy and gluten free recipes!