It. Was. The. Worst. Party.

Ever.

It was the Inaugural Pall.

I mean it. If this is austerity, it went almost too far except that I'm into austerity... the Republicans certainly can't complain that this was a waste of taxpayer money.

We found a parking garage that wasn't full fairly close to the convention center, yay, but it was a leave-your-car kind and we needed to finish primping, but the folks there let us stay and block a lane, so we had a kind of tailgate party getting ourselves finished and ready and bundled, while the garage types watched and were vastly entertained.

Then we actually found a taxi to get the few blocks to the party, another success, and after a short distance got dropped right by where our tickets said the entrance would be.

And there things kind of fell apart...

There was a walk of blocks and blocks between where the taxi could get to the place right where they said the entrance would be, and they were herding us around and if you didn't know DC you might not have realized, as I did, that we ended up almost where the taxi dropped us, but now we were on the other side of the lines... they were right to advise people to dress for the weather, we had leg warmers and stuff on under and extra coats over and still froze, not a problem, that we expected.

Then you get in and they do the same trick of walking you around and around this huge convention center to end up right back where you came in to get to the coat check, where I accidentally left my vodka which was another sad thing. Then we finally got to go into the actual Ball...

There was an immense concrete floor. No decorations. No carpeting. No chairs, at all, anywhere, unless you were a "special guest" (who still didn't get food, I don't think, we peeked). I have a great shot of a pile of abandoned ladies' shoes with some garbage...

There said there would be hors d'oeuvres - there were pretzels. And Cheez-its. With hidden peanuts, what, as a treat for the deadly allergic?

At one point I saw a couple sitting on the floor against a wall, so we went and sat next to them. Bloody cold floor, sitting there drinking my friend's vodka (lines for tickets for drinks, then for drinks, very long) using my Mom's coolass opera glasses and looking at the dresses, since tuxes all look alike. There was one woman who was very much in the wrong dress... and a line of people getting their picture taken in front of a big thing we figured was a picture of Obama or something.

No.

It was a big piece of cardboard that said "special guests." What, so you could pretend you had been given access to a chair, or something? We never understood that part.

If I hadn't been with that particular friend, it would have been awful, truly the least festive event I have ever attended, and the least comfortable or welcoming...

BUT we had SO much fun with each other complaining and laughing about that one woman with the hideous outfit that we kept running into, somehow, and we had a great time at our tailgate party, and all in all while we aren't sorry we went (well, not really) my friend kinda wants a refund... oh, and when we went back to coat check there was my little bottle of vodka right where I had dropped it and nobody had taken it!

AND then we walked around looking for food, and absolutely nothing was open anywhere, not even the coffee shops and certainly not the many restaurants, so we wondered if they shut everything down for security or were they actually trying to starve us into submission? Austerity in the party and out of it?

Speaking of which, we're looking for a new name for the Democratic "party" - is there a good term for amorphous unwelcoming blob?

Calling it the Inaugural Pall was my friend's pun. I have great friends.