Yesterday, the Queen and I (and the Little prince) hosted Rara and Dave (the dynamic duo of Queen Creative) in our humble abode.
We ate some delicious food prepared by the Queen. (She’s just the best Queen a Jester could ever hope for.)
We laughed at the antics of the Little Prince who was on his very best behavior. (It’s amazing how happily he played and babbled to himself while we ate and talked. Every once in awhile he’d squeak at us so we’d all look at him, then he’d smile and giggle and go back to what he was doing before he grabbed our attention.)
We bemoaned the skittishness and silliness of our kitties who never bothered to wander downstairs and say hello. (They are normally very social with other animal lovers, but the most we saw of either of them was Belle’s face peering around the corner at the top of the stairs before she hid herself away again. Sara and Belle reappeared, as if by magic, within minutes of Rara and Dave’s departure. Very silly kitties indeed.)
We talked blogs. We talked families. We talked publishing. We talked food. We talked about the general lack of midwifery services in California (and the US in general) as compared to the rest of the world. We talked art galleries. We talked children. We talked movies, authors, comic books, silliness, randomness, awesomesauceness, and so many other things I can’t remember. (Rara could though, her mind is a steel trap.) We swapped stories, and ideas, and laughs.
They have a vast array of knowledge and experience in a plethora of subjects – well traveled, educated, and always searching for new things to learn and master. Rara is as friendly (and talkative) in person as her words portray her to be. Dave was quick to smile and add his insights. The Queen and I were in awe of all they have done.
Round and round we went. All too soon the night slipped away and it was time for them to hit the road. While later than the Queen and I would have normally stayed up, it was time well spent. The conversations were a great trade off for the sleep I was missing and it was a trade I wouldn’t hesitate to make again.
Thank you, Rara and Dave, for driving up the coast to have dinner with my family. Thank you for the wonderful evening, for all the great ideas and insights and suggestions. The Queen and I definitely got the better end of this deal – we didn’t have to drive, and I’m sure we got far more out of what you were saying than what we were contributing. You two are truly wonderful people.
Update: Check out Rara’s related post: A Royally Wonderful Night
The Matticus Kingdom 
Jealous!! 🙂
The west coast is nice this time of year, come on out. 😉
I suppose doing a live blog of the get together might have detracted from the conversation.
Interesting… I’m not sure it would have detracted all that much. That’s something to consider for the next time. Though, I have no idea how we’d pull it off…
Can you stream live to WordPress? Or, would we have to broadcast (and record) through another medium and then publish it to WP afterwards?
I am also intrigued by this live streaming option. I’m sure we could make it happen!
Seems like the technology is there… we’d just have to figure it out, and schedule it more than 12 hours ahead of time. 😉
More than 12 hours ahead of time… what are we? Grown ups? Pah, 😉 We can wrangle it in 5, I’m positive. 😀
Hah! Well, if you say so. In Rara we trust. 😉
Google hangouts might work best because you can just copy the chat, invite several people and do video if you want.
I haven’t used hangouts before, so not really familiar with it. But, I’m definitely up for joining in if we put something together.
Very jealous! You were in good company.
We were definitely in good company! 😀
They sound like a pretty awesome couple.
They’re “okay.” 😉
Sounds like you all had fun!
Yep! It was a blast.
Now we just have to nail down a time for us! 🙂 I’m only minutes away from South Coast now, or we could go vegan at the Lab sometime? 🙂
Hey, hey, hey! You can’t meet up with Aunt Princess Rosebud without me! 😉
Sounds like a party! 😀
There is a triple threat if I have ever seen one!! Great picture. It is awesome to step away from the websites and meet the people. Makes me wish we had crossed paths while you were in Maine. Next time Matt.
I know.
I felt so bad that we didn’t connect while I was driving right by. Definitely will have to do so next time.
And, yes, something I forgot to put in the post. It’s funny how we create “voices” in our heads for the bloggers we read regularly – it was nice to compare their real voices to what I had been hearing before. I had Rara spot on. Who she is on her blog is who she is: her voice carries through.
Oh man I am so jealous! Green, even. But you all seem like such nice people I can’t stay jealous for long (well maybe) I love rara! Somehow I’m not surprised that she is like her blog. Makes me smile. And Dave I bet is the same. The quiet one of the group. Too bad I live so far away. sniff 😉
He’s not all that quiet. Once he’s going on a subject he’s passionate about he talks and talks too. Really, I think I was the quiet one of the group. 😛
It’s true, the Kingdom brought out the chatty in Dave. Geek, publishing, art– boom, that’s the trifecta of Dave’s hotspots. 😀
So now my picture of Dave is more filled in. I’m glad a good time was had by all 🙂
The professor has not had delicious food in the presence of royalty in such a long time that he’s quite vexed by it! The joy that your blog entices has the professor wanting to stay, but alas he cannot neglect his endless duties dagblameit! Its been fun; real fun…. hee hee as much is as possible for this professor.
Dearest professor,
I’m terribly sorry to hear that you will be parting our company so soon. Can’t those endless duties (dagblameit) wait for awhile longer? The Queen was just about to serve tea and bring out some cookies…
Matticus
Well…if it’s tea, I might stay. Should I?
You might as well. It’s a nice place to be.
So awesome!! Ohio seems so far away. 🙂
Just a jump to the left? 😉
Yep, up north. If you drive into the lake you past me up. 😉
*scribbling furiously*
… head north…
…. lake too far…
… something, something, Ohio…
Cleveland. LOL
Hah!!
Okay, I got it now.
I think.
Geography was never one of my strong suits.
Me either. You are by an ocean, right?
Yes. And some strawberry fields. And some oil derricks. And some mountains. And a dessert too.
Strawberry fields forevah.
I am the Walrus… I mean, Jester.
Yes. Yes you are. 🙂
Yes, yes, I am … what? Sorry, I forgot what we were talking about.
Me too…. *toke*
Hahahahahaha! Keep on keeping on then.
Will do my awesomesauce friend. Will do. Will be heading to the kingdom to add my part to our Beatles thingy.
It would seem you are in the perfect frame of mind to do so… 😉
Hey, you are right! 😉
I am literally on the other side of the country from y’all. Maybe I need to run away from home…
How about “you need a break from home” instead? Then it’s less awkward when you return home, you don’t have the shame/guilt of leaving home behind, and you don’t have to worry about what home is thinking about you behind your back… 😉
Come on out!
That does sound like a good plan! Please advise on what color shirt I should wear for my visit, thanks!
This is California! You can wear whatever color shirt you want.
I, of course, am partial to blue.
😛
Advice on shirts: Apparently black is the color to wear, haha, I didn’t notice till I was playing with the photo that we were all matching. WP uniforms, coming up! 😉 (Of course, my nails were gold-green with glitter. You’d like ’em.)
[…] The other-side-of-the-coin post is already up over at the Kingdom, in case you want to read about the night from the other point of view. In that post, the picture of the three of us in front of a mantle. Hmmm, it must’ve been photoshopped. https://thematticuskingdom.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/an-evening-with-a-dinosaur-and-an-artist/ […]
Always nice when the people on the other side of the screen turn out to be good people in real life too.
Yep! I’ll be smiling about it for days.
Oh, I’m so jealous. Reminds of of posts where people get to be in the presence of the Dalai Lama. What a blessing. {{{hugs}}} Kozo
Um…. Who is the Dalai Lama in this instance? I guess we’d all nominate Rara for the role… I’m not sure she’d want it though.
I think the Dalai Lama in this metaphor would the “When our powers combine” ness of the entire experience. It’s like Captain Planet!
We went up wanting to bring you a copy of the durgle and my batman statue, then forgot the statue. Not to make us look bad, but that’s sort of our calling card. “We brought dessert! Except I forgot the whip cream and the serving utensils are in the car. But yea, pie!”
Haha, no worries. We’re always forgetting things like that too. We’ll go through the effort of planning on 6 course meals, and set it all up, and about halfway through dessert we’ll realize we’d left one of the side dishes to stay warm in the oven. Oh well.
Dang it, we were totally gonna bring pie, too. Oi vey!
I’m so jealous! It sounds like you all had a great time!
Yep, lots of fun!
I’ve met a couple of bloggers before, but it wasn’t as fun as this was.
Still an adventure though, right?
Oh yeah…
That just sounds so awesome, where’s my dinner?!
Come on over. We are always happy to have dinner guests.
We are always happy to eat other people’s food! lol Word has it that you’re picky, so am I…ha!
No… I’m not picky. I eat the food, all of the food, because YUM.
Dave is a little picky and a little restricted because of his diet. So we had to cook around those restrictions, but it wasn’t bad at all. We basically cooked a meal we would have cooked for ourselves with one or two very minor changes.
That’s great! I can’t eat anything with garlic or onion, I’ll bet that would be a cooking challenge..lol
Well… both of those things were in what we cooked, but we cook plenty of things without them. So, no, not really a challenge at all.
impressive!