Next month in Long Beach, CA I’m quite excited to be attending The Women’s Conference, “The Nation’s Premier Women’s Conference,” founded in 1985 and organized by the First Lady of California each year since then.
I really wanted to go last year. Maria Shriver puts on one heckuva shindig! But I wasn’t on top of things and the events sold out quickly. This year I was sooo on top of things. I logged in within seconds of the registration time—but I still ended up with a high number in the queue. I ragged on the poorly-executed/broken computer ticketing system—in my tribute to Maria Shriver when she won the FW Now award:
https://fuchsiawoman.com/blog/fwnow/maria-shriver-premier-women-conference-in-california/
When I finally did get to register, the “Main Event” was sold out. Curses—foiled again!
I did sign up for “A Day of Wellness, which should be excellent.
I think the entire conference will be chock full of empowering information, fun activities, and interesting people-watching/listening: Oprah, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jane Fonda, Paula Deen, Even Ensler, Caroline Kennedy, Lisa and Laura Ling, Cindy and Meghan McCain, Laura Bush, Dr. Oz, Robert Redford, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Diane Sawyer, Jerry Brown, and Meg Whitman (as soon as she verifies her new housekeeper’s documents).
So much to see and do! SO MUCH TO BLOG ABOUT!
Since I will have to fly to So Cal (and stay at my Dad’s house—egads!) I would like to somehow also attend “The Main Event.”
During the last two months Maria has been staging contests to win a coveted ticket to this event. I entered a writing contest to describe a memorable meal. You had to do it in 150 words or less. Are you kidding me? My entry was 814 words. I didn’t win. Oh pooh.
Now there’s a new contest: Write about what you did this summer and include a Kodak photo (or something like that). Again, there’s the 150 word rule. I haven’t a prayer to win. My short story is 988 words. And it’s about a summer vacation as a kid. Close enough?
Maybe not. So I decided I’m going to send my “Worst Summer Vacation” story to Maria at the State House. Maybe she will take pity on me as I beg for a ticket to buy.
That’s why I started searching my pathetically-disorganized and messy-beyond-Nate-Berkus’s-help house for an old Kodak photo to include with my story.
It was a trip down memory lane. What a long strange trip it was. Kinda hallucinogenic-like, where am I, what am I doing, and what the heck am I wearing?! But no terrible outfit could out do the terrible hairstyles. Made me shudder—with embarrassment.
Many photos of my wacky family, other relatives, people I would rather forget, and people I did forget. Old photos give me the heebie-jeebies!
Old photos convince me I was plopped into the wrong family. I think a nice Irish couple, rushing to airport to catch a flight back to County Cork, accidentally left me in a department store where they had been buying souvenirs. Then my “mother” found me and thought, “I wonder how soon I can teach it to clean house?”
Another weird thing happened while I was sifting through the pix. I started finding photos that matched the subjects of many of the blogs I’ve written, like Jo Ella, my BFF from 4th grade, the dress my “mother” gave away, the beginning of Frankie as a little girl, my childhood home backyard with the gardenia bushes, my sister and her chatty neighbor, my childhood dog, Jingles, and many more.
The photo that freaked me out the most was of the Black-Haired Spaghetti! I didn’t even know I had one of her. I thought I had burned them all. (Real quick: evil stepmother). Made me shudder—with disgust.
(Unless you’ve read all my blogs, these photo references won’t mean anything. Oh well… But Ye Ol’ Hubby Man looked at a few pix and said, “These explain a lot.”)
I’m not sure which photo I will send with my story to First Lady of CA Maria Shriver. But if I win a ticket, I’ll let you know.
The things I do for this blog… Now I have to clean up the mess I made dumping out a dozen boxes of memorabilia. Or maybe not …
Women’s Conference Info:
http://www.womensconference.org/
My bad vacation story blog:
https://fuchsiawoman.com/blog/live/bad-summer-vacations-are-always-memorable/