Rock the blog party!
So, I’m guessing many people are asking, what on earth is a blog party? Valid question – I asked myself the same thing. Many of us may be guilty of perceiving bloggers as geeks (okay, some are by their own admission, and we love them for that), weirdos (ditto) and socially awkward outcasts (no comment).
Well, last night’s Howard County blog party in Union Jack’s British Pub of Columbia would make you reassess all your assumptions and prejudices, because the blog party rock and rolled!
The theme was British, mainly because I was co-hosting, and fittingly is was chucking it down with rain, which made for many a quip about ‘appropriate weather for such a party’ (made by me) and ‘brought the British weather with you’ (made by others).
So, I shall list (cos I love it) stuff that amused or bemused me at the blog party…..
1. Is this a typically British pub?
This was a question I got asked a lot last night.
My response and subsequent conversations were as follows:
No, this is not a typically British pub in the slightest.
Why not?
It has about 30 big screens showing football matches and you would not get that in a British pub.
You mean soccer?
No, I mean real football.
Oh.
And people are here to eat. In a British pub, people are mainly there to drink.
But there are fish and chips here.
Yes, but the newspaper they are wrapped in is not real newspaper, therefore not authentic.
There is a phone booth.
We call them phone boxes.
How funny!
Etc 🙂
2. Cup of tea
I decided to have tea to be genuinely British. This tea came as chamomile tea, with a massive dollop of honey and some lemon on the side. Oh, woe is me I thought, but I do delcare…..it was one of the best things I’ve had in ages!
3. Pissed / pissed off
Okay, so the language barrier continues to rear its head in many amusing ways of mis-interpretation.
Conversation as such last night, started by an American friend:
Did you have a good time on Saturday night?
Yes, I did, thanks. I got a bit pissed though.
Oh no, what happened? (Shock and horror on face)
I had a couple of margaritas.
Oh! (laughter). You mean drunk?
Yes, otherwise I would say pissed off.
Haha!
Haha!
4. Sex book
Well, that got your attention…..as it did mine! Towards the end of the evening, as people drifted off, my ukhousewifeusa business card clutched in their hands, I chanced upon a small red paper bag (why are mysterious bags always red?).
I looked inside said bag, and to my delight I found this:
Yes, the Tao of Sexology. One blogger somewhere had brought this along to our blog party! A small group of us huddled round it, giggling and sniggering and looking at the pictures inside. It was reminiscent of being back at boarding school, reading Princess Daisy with a torch out loud in the dormitory after lights out, but that’s a whole other blog! What fun we had! However, as we pointed and laughed at rudey-nudey pictures, it dawned on me that someone had left this book and would be seeking it out, so we returned it to its location to be retrieved. I would love whichever blogger or blog reader whose book it was to let me know, or simply blog about it 🙂
So, the blog party was fun and I am so glad I met people whose blogs I read and who read mine (and find it funny and insightful and refreshing – lovely compliments). And bloggers are, by nature, communicators, so there were plenty of people with plenty to say, and the booze flowed pretty well, too, so good job done HoCo bloggers and blog reading chums!
Pronunciation
My name is Claire.
For 38 years I have been led to believe that this name is made up of one syllable.
I am now beginning to question that.
I pronounce my name as Claire, as in ‘air’.
Many Americans, I have found, pronounce my name as ‘Clay-air’. Not all of them, mind you, but some.
It does not offend, it amuses me.
But it is a French name by origin, and I am pretty sure they only use one syllable….or do they….?
Lemsip
You know what I’m referring to, Brit friends. That warm lemon, paracetamol-infused drink that you can hold in a mug and rightly sees you through a cold. Can’t find the stuff here, nor anything like it. I got weird looks in the drug store when I asked for it. I shan’t ask again. Lemsip, I miss you.
ukdesperatehousewifeusa 
Look for a product called “Emergen-C”. Very similar to this, I think. Though not available in blackcurrant ; )
Hear Hear! A super-fun night indeed
Lovely evening, or should I say Smashing 😉
Lemsip, unfortunately not available here, but I know you can buy it online. Theraflu is similar, but very overpriced for six packets, or should I say, sachets.
Used to bring Lemsip home when I had my visits to the UK for work.
My hubby enjoyed talking to yours last night. He is amazed at how everyone who comes to our parties are so friendly and the conversations are truly interesting.
My hubby said the same – he was very pleasantly surprised 🙂
I will try your recommendation, but also hope that some nice person in the UK might send me some over…..! (I can but try!)
Had a great time! Thanks for hosting! Great to see everyone. We need to have parties more often.
Claire, Thank you so much for your initiative, good cheer and time to co-host last night’s party. Your promotion and reaching out to the community gave a nice, distinct flavor to the event, and I appreciate that.
The book in question, “The Tao of Sexology,” was mine. I brought it to give as a gift for a long-time friend who, at the last minute, wasn’t able to make it out to the party last night. The book is by Dr. Stephen Chang, whom I first encountered in reading “The Complete System of Self-Healing.” Dr. Chang is in a long lineage of doctors to the emperors of China and he also has an MD, JD and, I think, a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Usually with non-fiction books, I’m a bit of a ho-hum/scan-it reader. This book I read from front to back in one sitting. It’s amazing and offers such a different perspective on human sexuality than anything I’ve encountered anywhere, but the book often sells for hundreds of dollars. (I once saw an original copy on Amazon for $400!). So when I found someone who had reprinted it, I bought a bunch and gift them here and there to friends … and new brides. 😉
Love that that book was yours! I hope that they get as much pleasure out of it as we giggling school children did! 🙂
I also feel like I need to read this book like a grown up now!
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Nice post Clay-air lol 🙂
🙂
Have you tried Theraflu? It was so great letting you on Tuesday! Great job on the party and the blog.
Stupid auto-correct. Letting = meeting. Anyone know where I can go crawl into a dark hole now?
🙂 I’m going to annoy the people in Walgreens and get some remedies! 🙂
Now Claire, aa pearl of wisdom from this side of the pond which should put to bed for ever the phrase “we call it soccer here” or “You call it football”
Several decades ago as a boy in England my friends and I referred to the round ball game where you use your feet and not your hands (unless you are Maradonna or a goalkeeper) as soccer. Many of us did and many still do! Stanley Matthews was the English hero of the fifties and a magazine called Soccer! extolled his vitues enlessly and a favoured competition was to win a chance to tackle him and win – yes! – a SOCCER ball.
Now this game of football originated many centuries ago by kicking round an inflated pig’s bladder but somewhere near the turn of the 19th Century at a Public School in Rugby town (blog public/private/state school sometime) where children of wealthy parents go a boy called William Webb Ellis picked up the ball in a game of football (as everyone called it then) and ran with it in his arms – The game of Rugby football was now started. Boys at the famous school – see Tom Brown’s Schooldays – now had a choice of ball games on a winter afternoon – Boys are always kept busy at boarding schools as idle minds etc……….. – They had to choose the old game, now called Association Football or Rugby Foootbball. They did this by putting their name on the list for the afternoon game under ASSOC or RUGGER, From this abbreviation came SOCCER or RUGGER (the latter now played with a ball shaped like a torpedo) and when the round ball game was being introduced into the USA in the sixties and seventies the same differentiation was given to avoid confusion with the grid iron American Football. This was done largely by the British who stood to earn from the introduction.
Football in England still means the round ball game as does soccer but in the great land of Wales football means rugby most of the time.
So there we are – interesting or not? Certainly pedantic!!
from Claire’s Dad XXX
And so, the confusion mounts! I see what you’re saying….interesting!!
What I have learnt most of all from this is that you never stop learning from your parents (or rather, they never stop teaching….) 🙂
Theraflu, as somebody has already said – the apple and cinnamon (I think) is surprisingly nice!
I’ve stocked up! 🙂