I Spent the Night at Tinkerbell's House

Sorry I've been away for a couple of days. I raced up to Summit County on Wednesday, desperate to beat the storm of the century. No snow, luckily, so I got to spend the day with M, preparing for a workshop she was hosting that night.

We got lunch, and then went to the supermarket for the makings for fondue, and began driving up a mountain, eventually turning off any semblance of a real road to began trekking up what could have only been a very deep luge track in M's very large 4 wheel drive truck.

We arrived at Tinkerbell's mountain getaway. I would call it a chalet, but I don't think you can call it a “chalet” when my entire house would fit in their kitchen. It's kind of funny, because Tinkerbell is, like, itty-bitty, you know? All blond and petite and whatnot? But as it turns out, Tinkerbell not only has a huge mountain home, but also huge log furniture, upon which I believe you could easily sit three to four Tinkerbells. She also has huge boobs and a southern drawl.

As people started to trickle in and the wine and cheese began to flow, M got geared up, and began reading from the script for the show that she is writing. It was hilarious and touching all at the same time. Anybody planning on being in Colorado in the beginning of June should definitely head up to Breckenridge for the Crazy Bags show. The girl has done and experienced more in the last 20 years than most of us would in many lifetimes. And yet somehow she manages to make the extremes deeply relate-able.

Meanwhile I was pounding the Mike's Hard Lemonade, and eying the princess cake all evening. M asked for honest, anonymous reviews of her show so far, and we dove into the “moistest cake ever!” (as promised the label) as we began filling out our questionnaires. We turned them in, guests began to leave, and M, Tinkerbell, and I began determining who had written which anonymous critique. There was lots of love and “don't change even an apostrophe!”-type comments from sweet, kindly M-cheerleader who would desperately love to adopt M as her daughter; there was the surly, “Your tales of sex, drugs, rock and roll, childbirth, and Plymouth Acclaims are rather self-centered” from the grumpy lady who apparently thinks that somehow a show about your life will somehow not be self-centered; and the rest of the comments fell somewhere in between.

Tequila was passed, the clock struck 1:00a.m., I began to get woozy from exhaustion, and M reminded me that we would need to get up at 5:00 the next (well, the same) morning to get her to work in time. At which point I think I squeaked, and Tinkerbell, with her darling drawl and more energy than a six-year-old at a theme park goes, “Oh, don't you even think about getting up! You just sleep right on in, and I'll give you a ride whenever you wake up.”

Well, if you insist.

M and I wandered downstairs into one of many guest rooms, and began to get ready for bed as Tinkerbell came back down with more towels, more pillows, cups with ice, and fresh water bottles for each of us. One on each side, seeing as how the king bed was too wide to reach across.

As we curled up under what I'm sure were 792-count thread sheets, Tinkerbell adjusted the lights, the fireplace, the thermostat, and the extra blankets. M and I were completely drained, but we heard Tinkerbell go back upstairs, and continue to putter around. We were sure we had cleaned most of the kitchen, so the only conclusion we could draw was that she was constructing a full-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower from the leftover bamboo skewers we had bought for the fondue, and gherkins.

Apparently M did get up at 5:00 a..m., because she was gone when I rolled over a couple of hours later. But I did not hear her go. I spent the morning leafing through Tinkerbell's InStyle magazines, and chatting with her about life, real estate, and fluorescent pink, heart-shaped boudoir chairs.

Then I came home, again racing what was sure to be the STORM OF THE CENTURY and met The Funasaurus for dinner. There were some flurries in the air, and the weather station was predicting 100% chance of snow, with accumulations of up to 17 inches overnight. We slept, cursing ourselves for our extreme reluctance to buy a snow shovel, and wondered if perhaps The Funasaurus' work would give him a snow day.

We woke up to... wet pavement.

No snow. A little rain had fallen, the alleyway was damp, but pretty much things looked the same as they had all week. Which is to say, brown, and green and mostly dry.

It was almost a letdown, after all of that buildup. But at least now we should be able to procrastinate buying a snow shovel until next season!