Amateur Black Tie Event

Why don't I update? Because I get home from work and sit around eating bonbons while my husband makes dinner. I've only got nine months to milk the whole "I don't feel so good and I'm carrying your child" routine, people.

About a month ago, Scott and I were fortunately invited by my company to attend a  sweet gala at the Ritz downtown (doesn't that sound so fancy!?). It was a night to remember for many reasons:

First, we were NOT invited to the special pre-party VIP event at the art gallery next door. But did we get in? Heck yes, we did! We ran into the honoree of the night, the most humble guy on the block, and he walked us onto the red carpet and right in the door. We explained our situation to the sweet check-in ladies (after our escort left us), and they let us continue on inside. Once we meandered further inside, a random guy stopped us for some chit-chat. Little did three of the four us know, but he is the second-longest held POW (now the longest held still living) POW. I'm still kicking myself that we didn't take a picture with this guy.

We hung around for a bit with half of us sipping club soda, the other half some wine, and enjoyed the art and surrounding uniformed heroes. Once we decided to head into the silent auction, Scott stopped me and asked, "Don't you recognize that guy?"

"He does look familiar..."

"Journeyman!" (of course, we know him by a random one-season tv series, not by a hugely popular and  golden globe-winning series).

Yep, and we chickened out on getting our photograph with him (strike two!). Need I remind you this blog is about how we are amateurs? Anyway, for the record, I imagined him taller.

So we went to our real check-in point, where we picked up a locked iPod Touch for the silent auction (major cool factor points). We perused the various donated items: vintage baseball cards, weekend get-aways, wine, jewelry, art, cigars, etc. This will get more attention later.

Let's get to the good stuff: the food. Flat bread topped with veggies and cheese, sweet potatoes au gratin, and a steak filet where they didn't even give you a steak knife. That puppy melted like butter once your fork hit the meat. As for dessert, I know this may sound silly, but the vanilla ice cream that accompanied our chocolate souffle was to die for. It had the consistency of the perfect home-made ice cream and just the right amount of real vanilla bean specks and cream. Excuse me while I dab the drool just recalling it.

As the evening wore on, the end of the silent auction closed in. At the last minute, Scott put a bid in for some cheap Orioles tickets (let's just say most items there had a starting bid waaaay out of our young family's budget), because in his words, "someone needs to at least put in a bid for the home team." Of course, someone immediately outbid him, and then his competitive drive kicked in. Thankfully that only happened once and we won! Pretty exciting stuff. Also, unbeknownst to me, he bid on a Morton's gift certificate and also won that. All for a good cause, too. Does it get much better than that?

Here comes strike three for the night: when I go to pay for our items, the poor volunteer couldn't work the credit card machine. Unfortunately for him, he had a very rude donator putting on the pressure (which I don't understand... if you're going to give thousands of dollars to a charity, wouldn't you be nice about it?). The poor guy was so flustered that he stapled my list of items to Mr. Grouchy Pants' receipts. I tired lightening the mood when he asked me when I was due by responding that I REEEEALLY enjoyed dinner. That was fun.

Once I finally made it back to our table, Scott asked a little while later if I had the tickets. Doh! A swing and a miss. So when I found where I could pick our goodies, only one envelope remained of O's tickets - an envelope for  four club seats (instead of two), food, parking, the works! Needless to say, those were NOT our tickets. I felt terrible, but the volunteers just said to take them - they offered to find the real owners, but made it sound very difficult and inconvenient. Who cares that the game is 10 days before my due date, anyway?

Most importantly, I must emphasize that we spent a majority of the evening honoring some pretty amazing people in our military: the medical staff. Those men and women do some amazing things for wounded service people. We saw unbelievable documentary clips, heard great speeches, and found great appreciation for what these people do.

While we left that night sans photo-ops with super stars, we did leave with sweet baseball tickets, full tummies, and warm hearts. 

*All photos were taken by the event photographers