Raven 11

Ok I have to start with Friday September 21st. Friday is not Raven related, though The Raven party started on Friday, but was awesome and I gotta talk about it! My good friend Kandice bought tickets for us to go to the Beats Antique Concert in Philadelphia a lil over a month ago. She wound up not being able to go because she had to go back to Massachusetts sooner than she expected. So she gave me both tickets so I decided to take Paula (in ‘guy’ mode) with me to the concert. Zoe Jakes = teh Awesome!!! It was one of the amazing shows I have ever seen live! Oh and Lynx! She was Amazing!!! I had never heard of her before but now I will never forget her! Her voice was beautiful…then…then…She Beat-boxes too!!! Wait… & she Raps! But like…she is Awesome! You don't know…you don’t know… I have clips (scroll to bottom of page for clips). So we went and it was an awesome show. Zoe even crowd surfed at the end of the show! Ok, Ok, now to the Raven.

Raven 11, Saturday September 22, 2012

Ok, so Paula and I drove up there a lil later than planned. I went to a housewarming party before the drive up and I lost track of time a bit…oops. We shared a room @ the motel owned by the Raven. When we got there, around 5-ish we started getting ready… took WAY longer than expected. Paula had to do a bit o’ shaving, meanwhile I had to pick up a few things from Rite-aid. I needed to get some clear coat for out nails as well as some q-tips and bobby pins. I got back and Paula had started applying the make-up as instructed but had a bit of trouble with the eyes. I did the eyes for Paula, helped style the hair and…well…helped with everything else that she needed help with. Meanwhile working on myself…we took so long we totally missed the Red Carpet! Ah well. We tried. The nails took a while. 3 coats of the silver then 1 coat of the black crackle. Loved how it came out! Looked great on Paula as well as myself. I had re-fashioned some of my jewelry so that Paula could wear it. Turned some of my fav earrings into clip-ons. A necklace I had brought for my outfit, before I got the perfect necklace a week before, was de-constructed and fitted onto another necklace that went with Paula's ensemble. Then another matching necklace that I grabbed before leaving the house that just happened to match perfectly and also a nice noisy anklet from my jewelry collection. Paula looked like a greek goddess! Next on to getting myself together. Thankfully i'm quite used to handling my own makeup in a generally quick way. Then into my dress & shoes and we were off. We were staying at the cabin in the woods, which was across the street and up the block a bit from Raven. We decided to walk...was not the wisest thing to do in 5inch heels... But we did. When we finally got there it was maybe 8pm. Dinner started at 7:30pm so we were a bit late. When we arrived there we met Jen, the organizer of the event, and had a bit of a chat and also met a few other lovely ladies. Then we headed in and actually got seated in the dining room. Ok...it was in a cramped corner, but whatever, we were in the room w/ everyone else who were there for the party. We ordered and then I got up to say hi to a few people. I met a married couple. Was their first outing to one of these events. I was recognized as being the writer of this blog. We had a nice convo. The out appetizer came out. As I made my way back to the table I...tripped on my dress & knocked over Paula's drink onto the bruschetta...oops. Our Awesome waiter, Marty, came over and remade out table and quickly got us another one...I decided to stay seated for the rest of dinner so as not to destroy more food. I had the salmon & Paula had the grilled chicken salad. The food was awesome! After dinner we had a really nice conversation with Marty. Marty is also a Drag performer at the Raven!!! I would LOVE to see a performance! Maybe one day I will get to see him perform. We also conversed about crossdressing and my blog.

Next off to the dance floor...kinda. We went to the dance hall area and I was immediately called over by a lovely crossdresser. I thought she wanted to talk about my blog...but she wanted to take me out to dinner. 2 seconds in there and I was already getting hit on! lol. Since I came there with a date, I thought it might be rude to set up a date with someone else while already out on a date. I gave him a flyer for my blog and went to the other side of the hall to look for a seat so I could put down my camera and rest my feet (5 inch heels...yeah...) I was determined this time to try to keep my shoes on all night, where as last time the shoes came off about half way through the night and most pics of me were shoeless.

I set about taking some pictures and mingling a bit. Saw a few people I remembered from my last visit to Raven including Allielee & Jamie. I also saw a few people whose names...i just can not remember. I wish my memory for names was better. Paula and I had a seat in the gazebo and got into a conversation with another person named Jamie. Jamie lived in NY but was in the area, one of Jamie's friends told her about the Raven event happening that night so Jamie came. Jamie is the 2nd Married (to a GG) CD I had met that night. Jamie's wife accepts it and has gone out with Jamie while Jamie was dressed as Jamie, which I think is Awesome!!! Reena came over and spoke w/us as well. Reena is also married (to a GG) but Reena's wife isn't into it, but doesn't mind if Reena goes out and has fun dressed up, but at least she doesn't make Reena restrict her from dressing at all. It was about then that we took a nice group picture (which I used for my facebook page 100 likes as pictured below).

After that we went back into the dance hall. I had a few drinks and the liquid confidence kicked in and I was able to dance a bit w/o feeling too self conscious. My dress was altered, by me. Originally the dress was just a black & silver mini dress. I added a tear-a-way train to it. I made it tear away so that it wouldn't get tripped on or trampled upon on the dance floor (I tripped over it enough myself). So dancing time started and within seconds the train was off & tucked away in my bag. When I was tired of dancing we went outside again and we met another couple who were sitting under the gazebo...another married couple! 3rd married CD couple (ok, 2nd where both persons were in attendance) of the night!  We had a really nice conversation with them. i think we had the longest of our discussions with them...and i can not remember their names. I blame all of  the long island ice teas that i drank...probably shouldn't have had so many.

Went in danced and talked some more. The night ended, took off my shoes and walked back to the room. The next morning Paula & I were kinda late to the breakfast meet up (I was helping Paula get ready, took a lil longer than expected) Went to the diner and had breakfast. First time for Paula out in the day time...and at a diner with a mixed crowd which included the elderly & children with Paula dressed as Paula. We missed meeting up with Jen, but she did say she saw us through the window and that Paula looked great.

All in all, it was a very nice time. Can't wait till the next one. Sorry it took so long to finish this post. While at the diner I started feeling sick and I was sick for a good 2 weeks. Was hard to write while sick. Other issues happened and well... I'm finally finished. I do have Pictures & Video (of the Belly Dance Performances) which I will post links to here.

I am curious about something. I have over 500 hits a month on my page and only 2 subscribers... Its a bit disheartening to have so few subscribers, but it makes me feel a bit better seeing so many hits. I just wonder if my subject matter is too embarrassing to subscribe to?  I guess it might be but I'm not embarrassed.

I Love you ALL! Ans now for links to Pics & Videos!

Raven 11 Pictures by Pebbles