I Stubbed My Toe On My Cat: A Final BlogHer Sound-Off

That's not any kind of metaphor.

Yesterday morning I was hobbling to the kitchen to get coffee and was not quite awake and realized the cats needed food and so I walked in the general direction of the cats' bowl and damn it. The stupid cat collided with my foot and I STUBBED MY TOE ON MY CAT.

Gosh, it's good to be back.

So hey! Have you seen that internet thing lately? Haha. Apparently, bloggers? They have things to say about the BlogHer Conference (tag: blogher07). And I truly want to respond to each and every one of them to explain some things, but I am just so tired.

Especially because I believe, deep in my soul, that Elizabeth Edwards joining us at our cocktail party (uh, not to mention frickin' Amy Sedaris) should outweigh the existence of the potholder. But what do I know.

So here are some random thoughts, directed at no one in particular and everyone at large. And then I'll shut up about it already.

* * *
Well yes. There WAS a turkey in our exhibitor area.

You know, when I think of eye-catching displays, enormous roasted birds do not normally spring to mind. But what kind of out-of-the-box thinking is THAT? I mean, if you're a turkey company, and you want to show that you're a turkey company, what are your options, really?

My official stance is to remind everyone that Butterball actually gets that women bloggers are important, they get that we should be recognized and they get that we should be supported. (If they really thought of us as 1950s housewives, they wouldn't have shown up at a blogging conference.)

I don't know what to tell you about the pot holders. Sure, a thumb drive would have been more immediately useful, but no one in my family has ever suddenly needed a few extra megs of storage when taking a turkey out of the oven.

And honestly, regardless of how you feel about the whole thing, remember: you now get to say that you were at a tech conference with a turkey. With a turkey!

* * *

The City of Chicago has a lot of rules. A LOT of them. And also taxes. And fines. Like, did you know that there's a 3% soda tax? Or that our caterer could have lost his license for letting attendees leave with bottles of wine, even though the nice people at Hess were willing to give the extras out? Or that moving one single air wall would have cost FOUR HOURS of labor?

And see? It's not just us, either!!!

* * *

The Oops wine people give aprons out as their swag regardless of conference. It's like, their thing. They do not believe that women should be in the kitchen; they believe that red wine stains.

(Somehow I have a couple red wine stains on my laptop. How this happened is a mystery to me. Apparently my laptop needs an apron, too.)

* * *

I don't think there's much I can say about the cheese. But I can tell you, it was no walk in the park keeping it refrigerated.

* * *

I still don't get Twitter.

* * *

I nearly wept with joy when I arrived at the Navy Pier before sunrise on Friday and whipped open my computer and saw the phrase: "...Would you like to join the wireless network, 'BlogHer'?"

A joy to behold.

* * *

The shuttles cost approximately 18 billion dollars. (They would have only cost 17 billion, but we paid that extra billion to have a dedicated dispatcher ensuring that all five shuttles were running all day.)

I do not know why the drivers didn't know where they were going. I don't know why they just sometimes stopped showing up. I don't know why they weren't labeled, a la BLOGHER SHUTTLE. And I really don't know HOW you can get into an accident when you're driving at 3 miles an hour in Pier traffic.

But I, too, would sure like to find out.

* * *

Finally, I have noticed that a few of you have been questioning that odd, cube-y thing you had in your rooms at the W. The one that looked like it was...uh...a decorative pillow covered in...wiry...fuzzy...hairlike...

I do believe one of you called it a pube pillow.

Now, I did not stay at the W, so I cannot speak first-hand to the hotel's decisions regarding pillow fabric, or any other textiles for that matter. I can tell you that I watched the entire season of Top Design and none of that made any sense to me, either.

The best I can offer is that probably the wiry cube is a very hot home accessory in Europe and we just haven't caught up (you know how Europeans are about hair...). I very much doubt that the W was trying to send subtle messages to BlogHers by placing it in the rooms.

I'm glad you liked the Bliss products. Perhaps next year they, too, will offer nipple cream.

* * *

Thanks to all of you for posting so much feedback -- the good, the bad, the ugly.
None of it goes unnoticed.