<p>Wish I were going to be there but I had some weird experiences with messages from odd people and I have vowed to stay anonymous. But you guys make me wish very strongly I had not. Mootmom, can’t you get your S to whip up some tecchy magic and stream the audio? I bet it is going to be so much fun. Jmmom welcome back to CA. And when the time comes for us to arrange the marriages let me know because for that I would give up my secret identity:). What a great set of in-laws…And Mootmom, have fun picking up the H. Perhaps Slugg can write a welcome home ditty.</p>
<p>Was it a vow or just a good intention? 
Sure wish you’d reconsider and join us: it’d be great to meet you. (And I know I <em>personally</em> do not bite. Cannot speak for the others. Although 09Mom can tell you about the time I introduced myself to her as she stood stunned on the sidewalk outside baggage claim at Boston’s Logan Airport last April, when I made a leap of faith that she fit the description of one of the parents I was going to look up while there for admitted students’ weekend… heh.)</p>
<p>Sorry, no techie magic this time: the S who could do streaming is off in Cambridge buying “pimp items” from second hand stores for a Hallowe’en costume. :eek: The scary part is that his girlfriend told me he looked “good” in it. :eek: :eek: TMI! TMI!</p>
<p>Alumother-- sorry to hear about the odd people experience 
! Sure you won’t reconsider? It is Halloween. You could wear a mask and stay anonymous . . . So far, all of my messages have been nice ones (thank you nice CC’ers!). If any of this group turns out to be “odd” we could out them on CC . . . I’m sure all will be on their best behavior. Am I right in supposing that the ones that send the odd/not nice messages lurk rather than post regularly? </p>
<p>Sluggbugg–thank you for deciding to leave your plastic butt at home!</p>
<p>Yay, yay!! Take a photo and we can exchange!
<em>jumps up and down</em></p>
<p>I can’t help but remember tsdad’s SA refrain…
“Pictures?”</p>
<p>hehe I already got to meet mootmom at MIT!! She’s nice 
But I sure wish I could meet the rest of you. Have a great time!!</p>
<p>Oh mootmom! That’s my favorite story to tell friends and family when I describe CC to them! 2 Bay Area cc’ers meeting for the first time on the curb at Boston’s Logan Airport! I thought I did a good job of hiding my initial stunned reaction. It was a huge relief as we rode together on the subway to MIT to go with someone who already knew her way there!! CC’ers really stick together!</p>
<p>Andi: mootmom does get around!!</p>
<p>I like Mstee’s daughter’s warning about meeting people you met online. Halloween only adds to the excitement!!! We are gonna have FUN
I am also all for arranging marriages (Don’t tell my daughter, along with being horrified, she would kill me!)</p>
<p>You guys are wonderful. I am sure a group in which 80% of the people are named Mom is safe (oh wait, one of us is named sluggbugg…JK.) I will pass this time but like I said if anyone figures out how to have a fly on the wall please let me know and while my daughter might want to kill me for arranging her marriage I believe if she liked the potential mate enough she’d forget…</p>
<p>Andi, BTW, have not forgotten about you and andison and sending you good thoughts. Thinking there will be a more satisfactory outcome in 2006.</p>
<p>Alu - you can break that vow! In fact, I sure do wish you would. Carolyn can be a reference for me. I am not weird and none of the others in our little posse of coffee-klatchers is weird either. Don’t make us pay for the sins of those others . You could bring a bodyguard 
.</p>
<p>Oh! I’ve got it! the solution to Alumother’s dilemma. It’s a simple 4-step process. Alu, here’s what you do.</p>
<ol>
<li> Sign off of cc for a moment or two.</li>
<li> Sign back on and say you’re Curmudgeon.</li>
<li> Announce you’re coming to the coffeeklatch.</li>
<li> Come to the coffeeklatch. Wear topsiders. When you arrive, it will be the big story. Just as someone once guessed - curmudge is not a down-home Texas rancher after all, but a globe-trotting topsider-wearing techie from Silicon Valley who hid his identity by even claiming an alternate gender.</li>
</ol>
<p>And voila! You’ll still be anonymous.</p>
<p>Alum, I ran into a creepazoid online once, so I understand where you’re coming from, Sister-Woman. Despite the fact that I don’t have “mom” in my screen name (it reveals something about my mindset when I joined CC 3 years ago, and I was really wondering what on Earth ever possessed me to have children), I promise I’m not a stalker, or anything weird like that. </p>
<p>Now that I’m out of the loop on the kid-related ec’s, I decided to get out there and start finding friends who aren’t going to blow smoke up my wahzoo or ask me to be on a (shudder!)…committee. All I’m doing this year is baking cookies. I’m like one of those old, retired chimps you see once in a while on Animal Planet, except that I don’t have a grizzled face and a white beard (yet), and I don’t live in a cage. 
</p>
<p>I learned a lot from launching the first kid, and I was determined to make the best of the second time around. Meeting with these yah-yahs is, for me, part of making the best of this year. I’m just amazed at how good the driving directions have been! Trying to coordinate anything like this in the Bay Area is usually an exercise in herding cats, but I guess, we all get a gold star for playing well with others. :)</p>
<p>Ah - my one chance to be with some of the most delightful ladies I know and I have to miss it… Rats. </p>
<p>I used to travel so much that I could always find things to do almost anywhere, but my new job has me stuck in one place (actually not too bad after so many years in an airplane). But I do miss taking an extra day or a little detour to do something crazy.</p>
<p>But save an empty chair for me and PRETEND I’m there. And I’ll pretend I’m there too. </p>
<p>Have fun, y’all.</p>
<p>We’ll be sure to pour one for you too, dig, and overseas and SBmom and andi and Alu (unless we’ve managed to convince you to join us? ). And everyone else!</p>
<p>(Hmm, that’s an entire table full of empty seats… I don’t guess they’ll accept the excuse that we’re each saving seats for our imaginary friends? My poor mom used to have to push two swings at the park when I was a little girl, one for me and one for “Baby and Pete”, my two imaginary friends, who <em>required</em> a swing also.)
(Wait a sec, we were just trying to convince Alu that we’re all sane and normal. Pretend I didn’t say that stuff about imaginary friends, 'k? Thx.)</p>
<p>Okay…I am not a mom and I am not in The Bay Area…but I hope you have a grand gab and that you all report back to us.</p>
<p>And once again, “pictures?”. All due respect to tsdad, who probably isn’t even READING this thread.</p>
<p>Alumother, will you come if we promise not to take your picture? :)</p>
<p>Next time can you meet a little further east on I-80?</p>
<p>Digi, haz, Alum, overseas, kinshasa, andi, and SB, we will make cardboard, cut-out versions of you guys, and you can be there in spirit. We’ll toast to our CC buddies with bruschetta and brew. Our motto is, The More the Merrier! I’m contemplating an Oscar for the first ever CC iMovie. We’re still in pre-production, and this film has not yet been rated. ;)</p>
<p>We’ll make cardboard cut-out versions of what we <em>THINK</em> they look like. That oughta make for an… “interesting” documentary, don’t you think? Especially since it’s Hallowe’en.</p>
<p>I changed my mind: I think I’ll come in costume. Heh heh.</p>
<p>Thanks, that’s excellent. Remember mootmom, I look tall dark and voluptuous!!</p>
<p>“Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night…” ;)</p>
<p>(Think I should dress as Maria and do a West Side Story riff when we meet?)</p>