World Blog Domination (or something like that)

Ohmygoodness the blogging world has been too nice to me.

First, I won the Word Up, Yo! contest for my post Plethora of Periods (and I actually share this win with A Day in the Life of a Surfer Wife for her vlog). This is what Taming Insanity said:

"Her post was laugh out loud funny, used the word a plethora of times dealt with a monster of a problem."

And I guess that makes me a Made Man!

Thank you, Word Mafia. How can I ever thank you enough? Perhaps with a bouquet of punctuation marks? Or maybe a box of assorted dictionaries and thesauruses? 

This just goes to show how insanely competitive I am. The first time I decided to participate in Word Up, Yo! and I had to pursue it with total and complete world domination in mind. 

I'm a total freak. 

But a lovable freak, right? 

AND THEN! And then, the loverly Kristin over at Taming Insanity, who is just too damn nice and sweet and is rocking my bloggerverse, gave me the Sugar Doll Award.

"I'd like to pass this lovely award onto Crazy with a Side of Awesome Sauce. Her recent post on her plethora of issues had me holding my sides with laughter. Then I put my cranky pants back on and cinched them up tight."

Isn't that just the nicest thing you've ever heard? Maybe I'm just too new to the blogging world and haven't had praise heaped on me, but hot damn if that doesn't make me all blushy and gooey. I'm like a little cartoon character, red from head to toe, batting my eyes and crossing my feet over each other, squeaking out a thanks. 

So, rules: I guess I'm supposed to share 10 things about myself and pass this award onto 10 other bloggers. Instead (subversive rule-breaker that I am), I'm going to share an as yet undecided amount of things about myself and pass this award onto 5 bloggers: 

Sarah P at Naked Cupcakes: because she's funny as hell and is one of my first tweeps and blogging buddies. She wrapped her sweet cupcakey comments around me and welcomed me into the fold. 

Becky at i'll go eat worms: because she's the sweetest thing on the Internet, so sweet it gives me a toothache. Her blog is total awesome sauce and she rocks my world. She'll rock yours too. 

Lizzy at A Series of Thoughts: because this little lady is the poet laureate of the Internet. She's totally brilliant and her unfailing kindness always boosts my days. 

Krissy at Diary of an Angry Fat Chick: because she's not just my real life friend (not that I'm playing favorites), but she's a highlarious and talented writer which totally took me by surprise. Everyone needs to go check out her blog. 

Morgan at Watering the Elephants: because, okay, she's another real life friend, but she's also an amazing writer and I know she doesn't toot her own horn so to speak, so I'll just flog her blog for her (hehe flog her blog hehe). 

10 crazy things that happened to me in Europe:

1. My first week living in Paris was my 26th birthday. Long story short: we went out for the night and found ourselves past the time when the metro closed and struggling to find a cab. A group of guys were hassling us (oh French guys) and were walking alongside us when cop cars zoomed up from every direction. We were lined up against the wall, frisked, IDs examined, and I was convinced we were headed to the Bastille where I'd get my head chopped off (note: the Bastille was torn down in 1790something). Finally, they let us go when the guys stood up for us and said we weren't with them. Turns out the guys had been tagging and someone tipped off the La Police. Also, my friend Alice had taken off running and we didn't know what happened to her, but that's a story for another time. 
2. On Bastille Day in Paris, I was meeting friends and amidst the mayhem that is Bastille Day (trust me, it's INSANE), I was frantically texting my friends, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? when some guy grabbed my phone right out of my hands and took off running. I did what my professors said to do and just started cussing in English as loud as possible. Luckily, some British guys took pity on me , chased the guy down (who turned out to just be a drunk A-hole, not a savvy thief), and got my phone back. I rewarded them with thanks even though they really wanted my phone number as compensation. 
3. That same evening, as we stood on the steps of L'Opera, waiting for the last of our friends to arrive, some Frenchie was hitting on my friend and while doing so, let his cigarette burn right through my tights and into my leg! In my limited French, I tried to tell him what he did: J'ai mal a la jambe! J'ai mal a la jambe! But he didn't give a flying fuck. He just wanted to fuck my friend. Assmunch.
4. Then there was that time we tried to teach our French language instructor about s'mores. I think one of the American students in the class used s'mores for her presentation of something from her culture. And Bernadette, the French teacher (and quintessential French woman) just could not grasp the concept. Pretty soon all the Americans in the class were jumping in to explain. But she just couldn't get it. We eat a sandwich? Of graham crackers (never mind how long it took to explain those) and chocolate (no explanation needed) and marshmallows (she just dismissed those as food of any kind) and we light it on fire? And eat it? Impossible. And we wonder why the French and Americans can't get along: it's all differences of food. 
5. In Paris, my cousin, my best friend, and I explored the infamous catacombs below the city. We were walking and it was creepy and dark and we were all by ourselves. There was only one way you could go because sections were locked off because the catacombs are humongous (supposedly they change the route occasionally) and somebody before us at some point had closed a gate (prob fucking teenagers) and we thought that gate was locked. So we turned around, but the all the other gates were locked. We were getting pretty freaked out (maybe they needed more bones!) when my brave cousin sacked up and pushed on the original closed gate. It opened and we found the way out. We felt dumb, but it *was* pretty damn funny.
6. When I was in Amsterdam, my friends and I accidentally picked up this stoner puppy outside our hostel. Not an actual puppy, a fuzzy faced stoner who decided he liked us and followed us around all weekend. We couldn't shake him. Not the craziest thing, but certainly the weirdest. Oh Amsterdam.
7. My cousin, my best friend, and I backpacked the UK over Christmastime. In that time, we made it up to the gorgeous Isle of Skye in Scotland. It was cold and beautiful and stark and despite that nothing was open, we had a good time. But for whatever crazy reasons, we just couldn't get off the island. It was winds and then the wrong bus and then the train schedule, etc etc. Someone joked that we were trapped like in Wicker Man and we kept yelling that they were wasting their time with us! We're not virgins! I don't even remember how we finally figured it out and made it to Glasgow. But we did, exhausted but laughing.  
8. I dated this Italian descendant of Roman gods named Giampaolo and when I was in Rome, he kindly volunteered to drive me around the city. In his Smart Car. It was the closest I've ever been to death. Not only do the Italians drive like complete maniacs, stopping inches from the bumper or curb or pole in front of them, but there is NO cushion in a Smart Car. None. I was convinced I would die that die and no Roman gods could save me. I lived. 
9. One of the first places I traveled was Tours in the Loire Valley in France. My friend Alice said she took care of finding a hostel and off we went. We arrived in Tours and tromped around the city and totes enjoyed ourselves and then went to crash at our hostel. Which was full. And didn't have any record of us because Alice hadn't called them. So we frantically searched Tours for other hostels, all booked. Wandering the city at night with out guidebooks, half convinced we might have to sleep on the street, we finally found a hotel that would give us a halfway decent rate. It was way more than we could afford, but it was shit yeah better than the street. 
10. Taking the train from Liverpool to London was quite the experience. There was a huge soccer match that night AND one of the scheduled trains was out of service, so they packed all these soccer fans onto our train. It was packed. People were standing in every inch of space and sitting on the floor. So to make the trip bearable, I began entertaining my two lovely friends with bits from Eddie Izzard and Mitch Hedberg. Next thing I knew, the people around us and then the whole car was listening and laughing. Who knew I could entertain a whole train car of British soccer fans with plagiarized comedy bits?