Trippin'

Ok so I am on my very last glamorous business trip for the fruit smoothie sampling program, and this time I completely lucked out -- instead of fending off gym rats in Cleveland, Parma, Cinci or whatever the hell Midwestern flyover city I happened to stop in, today I landed in Boston...a genuine East Coast metropolis...and, you know, compared to Cinci we feel like we are in Paris....

So, I am again here with Tappers/Annie T., my 5' 11" raven-haired, porcelain-skinned Account Exec who in only a few short weeks will be solely responsible for smiling and winking and passing out Dixie cups filled with Acai Raspberry slop while I skip back into the sunset...You know, I will miss Tappers, frankly, but other than that I am pretty psyched to move on from here.... But you know, I admit it....yesterday was kind of fun because we had to stop at the loading dock at the Boston Expo Center to pick up 600 mini bottles of our fruit smoothie product so that we might attempt guerrilla sampling opportunities all over Boston this week. Yes...guerrilla...in other words, we will be walking the streets of this lovely town handing out bottles and info to unsuspecting citizens wearing our stupid branded golf shirts (mine needs a belt as it is a men's size large and hangs to my ankles...) and praying that we can avoid being arrested for illegally sampling products without a permit...Should be kickass week! But I digress...the fun part was being at the loading dock -- of course, we were the hit if the day in our impractical shoes and big sunglasses....men came out of every corner to see the two NYC princesses skipping through the joint, demurely asking the big-muscled union workers to help us transport cases and cases of product to the back hatch of my Volvo SUV....

So after we were all packed with product, we drove to the Jurys Hotel on Stuart Street and, well, with a stunning lack of conscience, we kind of fibbed to the valet who asked if he could help us...You see, weeks ago the hotel's Food & Beverege Director told us that he might be willing to accept free samples of our fruit smoothie to offer to hotel guests throughout the week. Well, through subsequent follow up, we never reconnected with him, but our client was on our butts about it...and we needed to make it happen. So when the dear valet approached, we told him we had a drop off for said F&B Director, as if it was all set in stone. And the poor naive soul just wheeled one of those hotel transport carts over and took a bunch of cases from us...no questions asked. Yes, my friends, this is what I have been reduced to....When Tappers jumped back in the car, I sped away through the streets of Boston and we cackled like the wicked little witches we are....ugh, you know that is going to bite us in the a**....we are definitely getting arrested now...

So at any rate, Tappers has never been to Boston and we all know that I have spent some time drinking in the local culture. But the thing is, I was a kid then...and to be honest, I wasn't quite sure where to take her other than for burgers at The Black Rose (where we were morbidly intrigued by a group of burnt out suits plying the local barfly with Jameson, her lipstick snudged across her face...ugh...kind of gross). Then we hit those barf bars along Union Street: Purple Shamrock, Daddy O's, Bell & Hand, The Tap...(each bouncer carding me religiously...whatevs)...to drown in the jam band music while standing by as the Red Sox (Go Sawks!!) completely imploded at Fenway (Tappers by the way was pissing off the locals with her snide NYC glee as the score crept up and up and up...and that was the first inning...).

And we had so much fun talking to each other in our fake Boston accents, dropping our "R's" and calling each other by our Boston nicknames (Maaahty and Sully...), befriending the guy who was wearing a jacket embroidered with the words "Everything Is Bigger in Texas" (whatever does that mean? bigger hair? bigger guns? bigger trucks? bigger thighs?...) and soaking up all that boozy, student-centric Boston good time. By the time we were sitting in the cab listening to our toothless cabbie wax poetic about Boston College football as we were heading back to our hotel (where by the way, there is quite an active bar/hook up scene for the 50-plus business traveler...) we were fully planning on a return trip for tomorrow night....well after we hit the North End and stuff our faces with some cannolis over on hanover Street...

More soon....assuming of course I am not in the slammer by noon....(TL -- expect a call if so...)
Miss you all...

xoxo, Suz

Photos: Am late for a meeting with client....these speak for themselves, no???