On Friday, local celebrities were invited downtown in Knoxville to serve hot dogs for the United Way Campaign Kick-off. As a former director of a foundation, I'm all about supporting non-profits. Especially when I get free tickets. Ahem.
Kristina was working there and she hizzooked up the free hot dog tickets. Thanks Kristina! You're the BE-ST, BEST!
local news anchor, abby ham WHO I LOVE. i even stopped her in the midst of her hot dog distribution duties to tell her how much i love her and how glad i was she came back to knoxville. kristina's shirt says "live untied." i don't get it...
Next, I spotted these guys:
cute, but they're no big red the mountaintopper. while we were eating, a bank robbery took place (unbeknownst to us, of course. if i'd spotted the crook, i would have thrown a banana peel on the ground in front of him and made him slip and fall. then i would sit on him until the police arrived. that's the kind of citizen i am.) tommy thinks that the robber hid in the rita's italian ice costume. he may have, that dude was acting a leeeetle creepy, ifyouknowwhatimean. he kept trying to get me to eat more italian ice.
As I mentioned a second ago, I used to work for a non-profit, The Hearing and Speech Foundation. The coolest part of that job was that it brought into my life one of the coolest cats on this planet, Miss Amanda Womac. She was our science writer and she's wicked smart. In fact, when we first met, I was always trying to think of smart things to say to impress her. But then I would get confused when she would try to engage in intellectual conversations, so I started yelling out things like, "Rainbows and unicorns!" at her and run out of the room. That, or I would say real sweetly, "Amanda, are you thinking again?" Fortunately, she found my behavior endearing and it's been love ever since.
Anyway! Amanda is now the director of HSF and is working her boohiney off to put together the foundation's biggest fundraiser, The Away Game Tailgate Party which is next weekend. (I have my ticket! Do you have yours?) It's in the East Club of Neyland Stadium and is hosted this year by Johnny Majors. You get to watch the Florida game (in Florida, tee hee! Tricky, no?) on the million huge TVs there, eat yummy food, drink beer, hang out with peeps... and well, it is FUN. You'll see more about it next week, PROMISE!
As I've said before, I like that I have a very diverse friend population and we all have different interests and perspectives. That said, Amanda knew she needed to target some football peeps for her fundraiser, so she asked to come to our tailgate for the UCLA game and get us to help distribute flyers and talk it up because she'd never been to a tailgate before.
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....
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That's right. First time at a tailgate. I took it in stride.
I scared her to death initially because I told her that I was going to treat her like my own personal Barbie doll and dress her appropriately. No joke, she showed up at my house NERVOUS. HAHAHAHAHA!!! No worries though, all I did was tie on an orange sash and got her to wear orange jewelry. Kristina came over to help and I think we did a lovely job! See?
And it translated well when we got to the tailgate too, see?
tailgate, tailgate, tailgate!
Work first, of course...
flyer distribution, in t minus three, two, one!
We worked our way to Circle Park and bumped into Amanda's sister, Emily.
When we were leaving, we invited Emily to join us at our tailgate in Lot 9, and she said she would stop by because she had promised to visit her friend Beth Parks in Lot 9. Um, that's where we tailgate. SMALL WORLD. or knoxville. which is, in fact, a small world.
well, look who's here! hsf board member, john hinkle! see you next weekend!
Having finished our work for the day, we next tackled a task I take VERY SERIOUSLY.
we make sure the visiting fans feel welcome! it's important!
Since it was Amanda's first tailgate I wanted to make sure she felt welcome. My friend Marty introduced her to a friend of his like this: "Amanda's a lefty liberal. John's a conservative republican. Discuss." And left them. He wouldn't let me go bust it up, but they behaved well. (We should all get along, don't you think?) Anyway, I thought it was funny so I took this pic.
i wonder if he got the urge to yell "rainbows and unicorns" and run away?
here chris hussar passionately talks to tommy about somethingorother.
next, dance party, dance party, dance party!
zany face megan, cutie pie shawn, pretty ki, and adorable amy peeking over our heads!
more laughing, please...
here is marty trying to sneak into the game some refreshments. do you really think the bandana will throw them?
we were leaving and saw this girl wearing the same dress ki was! the funny part is both her friends surrounded her, and amanda and i surrounded ki similarly and both sets of friends started going, "don't look! don't look! that girl's got your dress on!" and then we all laughed like hyenas when we realized we were all doing the same thing. laughing is my favorite. that and meeting new friends! ki and her matchy matchy new friend!
I think I did my job as tailgate ambassador well, because:
good times had by all, even the tailgate novice! i equated her tailgate nervousness to the nervousness i felt when she took me to spend a weekend at a hippie commune.
I took this very cool picture on our walk back through downtown to get the car:
sunsphere! yes, i laid on the ground in a dress. so sue me. i'm like ansel adams for my art!
Next up:
zzz... zzz.... we were all pooped and went home. good thing we did; the vols lost and i would have been p and o'd had we dropped $100 for tickets and then lost.
we rallied and had fellowship hour before everyone went home
this has nothing to do with anything, but look how sweet this picture is! i love sadie sue smith the kitty cat!
I leave you with this:
boo! ghosts in north knoxville! eeek!!! don't worry, i think she's a friendly ghost.
Whee! Check back next week for the update on how well the HSF Tailgate fundraiser goes!
Hug,
M
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