wwd

We got great coverage for the Gala event I attended Sunday night in today's issue of Women's Wear Daily -- I posted the article on my live journal if you want to read it!

This is what I do for a living, folks.

gia 75th Diamond anniversary gala

• Survived the GIA Gala relatively unscathed.


• Saw Madeline Albright -- she is very wee.


• Saw a 108 karat D-flawless diamond (price? roughly $33 million), enormous raw tourmalines, Jacqui O's mother's wedding tiara, Joan Crawford's diamond bracelet and an entire small museum-full of amazing historical and rare gems and jewelry.
  
• Got to wear this:

The AMAZING topaz cross in this picture is very similar to the one I got to wear by designer Robert Wander (his website is crap because we haven't redone it for him yet). EVERYONE and their mother commented on it. I felt like quite the belle of the ball.

Mara took a picture of me, which I will post when she sends it to me.

• We did get to eat, and Mara was obsessed with the dessert buffet, so we ate a LOT of desserts and I had a cappuccino, but we didn't partake of the open bar. :(
  
• Chris Isaak did a concert, which I listened to from the press table because Liz is in love with him (???) and Mara wanted to take a picture of him for her parents. He played only one song of his own that I recognized (Wicked Ways? Wicked Games? Whatever.) and a lot of Elvis. (again, ???)
  
• There was this thing called the living fountain which everyone thought was the coolest thing ever.
  
• I did get to go out to the terrace to watch the really spectacular fireworks show they had for the grand finale. It was really beautiful and very well done. And then Mara and I hit the desserts again. They had tiny adorable little SHOTS of hot chocoloate. So cute.
  
• Stole a couple of goodie bags, the contents of which include an individual sized bottle of champagne, and a tiny airplane sized bottle of starbucks liqueur complete with tiny chocolate shot glass for drinking it. Good times.

All in all, not a terrible way to spend an evening, and not nearly as horrific as I could have imagined it to be.

jiggity-jig

Home again! Our week-long road trip to Colorado was a great success. Expect many pictures -- I took three rolls of film!

SCBWI*

Hey!

I'm back from my four day writing conference in LA, and I'm blogging about it over on my Live Journal because I've got a shed load of readers over there who are also writers. But come by and check it out, if you're interested! I'm taking it in little bites, cos there was just too much to talk about all at once, so it will be updated periodically over the next week or so.

*The acronym for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators

Lacy 2.5

I filled out an alumni survey for CSF today. Kind of neat to change the "Ms." to "Mrs." and add "-Renner" to my last name. (Yes, I'm still sort of going by Boggs-Renner, because I am lazy and haven't officially changed my name at all yet.)

It was also kind of nice to put down a career that I'm not ashamed of. Not that I have ever had a job that I actually needed to be ashamed of, but "temp" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Freelance Public Relations." ;)

Maybe next year I can put "Writer."

As it is, it got me thinking about the fact that I am a late bloomer. Generally, when people say that, I used to think of girls who didn't really "get pretty" until their later years in high school, or even after high school, and while that is certainly true of me (I've definitely grown into my looks over the years, so that I'd definitely say I'm "prettier" now than I was back then), I think now that I would also use it to refer to my brain. I am a late bloomer in a lot of senses of the word, and in fact, I'd say I'm still blooming.

I was definitely behind the curve socially, and now, when I finally feel like I might be catching up, it's not nearly as important. But it does make me want to add an addendum to my alumni profile. Something like:

"Lacy has undergone several upgrades over the last three years. Lacy 2.5 is a vast improvement over versions 1.8 through 2.3. She has more self-confidence, while still retaining the spunk and spitfire that endeared her to you in previous versions. She is also a lot less geeky now and has a job in a really cool industry. She met an amazing man who has changed her life forever for the better. She even got married for goodness sakes, and finally feels like something more akin to an adult. Vast improvements have been made in this new version. If you liked her then, you'll love her now."

Or something like that.