TSwizzle

Holy crap it's been almost a month since Bonnie and I trekked up to DC to see Taylor Swift at the Verizon Center!  Hold on while I queue up Speak Now to serenade me while writing this post... :)


We talked about how fun it would be to see her months ago, but since the show was on a Wednesday night (she works and I'm 2 hours away) we didn't make the move and get tickets.  But the Monday before the show, Bonnie's boss emailed her to say he had 2 tickets and 2 meet and greet passes with her name on them - so she asked if I wanted to go with her...

Um, don'tevenhavetothinkaboutitYES!  Actually, I had to think about it a little since it was a really busy week at work and I had 6 vacation days in the very near future.  But the boss was ok with it, so I was too!

After an impromptu side trip to Ikea for some Ribba frames for a DIY project I wanted to work on in Florida - ok, and a cinnamon roll - we decided to park at Springfield and take the metro into the city.  I can drive like the craziest DC driver, but we wanted to make sure we were on time and didn't miss the pick-up time for the meet and greet passes, so we decided not to fight the traffic.

Once we got there (with almost 2 hours to spare) :), we hung out near the will-call booth and watched the scalpers come in to get 20 tickets (to a sold-out concert?) at a time and then walk outside to sell them...

See that blurry green spot in his hands?  That's a wad of 20 dollar bills he had earned on the sidewalk...I'm in the wrong profession!

...and the teeny-boppers (am I old enough to use that term?) with nicer cameras than us make their signs and tshirts for the show, and writing 13 on their hands (something Taylor does at all her concerts - her lucky number)...

"I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you" from Long Live

Once we had the tickets and meet and greet bracelets in our hands we relaxed a bit and people-watched!

Unfortunately the meet and greet wasn't exactly what we had imagined.  The bottom line is that we met and greeted her, but that's about it!  It is awesome that we got the passes, but I felt like we were steered through the process like cattle more than customers/listeners, but that's the nature of the schedule I suppose.  We met our group at 6:15 and were led through a series of back hallways and tunnels to a staging area, full of kegs.  Not as glamorous as I expected :

We got to an area blocked off with curtains, and I could see the meet and greet group through the break in the panels, along with Taylor!  She was mingling with them and they were talking and laughing - so at this point I was torn between not talking to avoid word vomit, and asking her to autograph this and make a video for my college roommate's daughter who is in the audience and is in LOVE with her.

I never had to make a choice between these two - the group in front of us must have been the fan club or VIP's because we didn't have the same experience.  We stood in a line, gave up our purses and cameras, went into a smaller curtained area where we met Taylor -when I say met I mean she said I and hugged me and I don't think I ever looked her in the eye because I would have peed myself - and a professional photographer took our picture.  They handed us a claim card to retrieve our photo online with 48 hours and out we went.  All that happened within maybe a 15 second period of time.

It is a blur.  But look at this beautiful photo:

Awesome!  Somehow I managed to look human and smile!  Have no idea how either, much less both, of those things happened at once!  All I can tell you is she is very tall, very skinny, and has shiny beautiful hair.  Didn't look her in the eye.  Not once.  Don't know why.

This is where my pictures end.  iPhone photos are awesome when taken outside or in good lighting, but not so good in a dark arena.  See that white blur?  That's Taylor.  Squint reeeaaalll hard and you might see her :)

Thanks for asking me to go Bonnie!  I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you! :)

We haven't mastered the self-portrait yet...where do we look?  At the light or the hole or the screen or what?  LOL