It all started yesterday when Taitt e-mailed me a link to the Oakland Regional Grilled Cheese Invitational at Eli’s Mile High Club at MLK and MacArthur. I was skeptical at first and said “Taitt, is this a drug house or something?” She said no and I believed her, given that she has way more experience with that stuff than I do. I was planning on having dinner with Elis, so we decided to make it a girls night out on town.

The Grilled Cheese Invitational is an actual grilled cheese sandwich making and sampling contest. I had my hopes set high of platters mounded with hot greasy grilled cheese sandwiches cut into triangle size sample pieces for me. A dream come true.

Elis and I had a nice big snack of lots of vegetables to fill up before heading to the spot. Roman decided to drive us there and come too, so I guess it wasn’t really a girls night out after all. So after parking in a biohazard, we finally got the place and there was a long line of Oaklanders waiting to get their paws on sandwiches, including Taitt and her rommie Oliver. We cut in line with Taitt to avoid the line and soon we were into Eli’s dive to gorge ourselves on sandwiches.

Finally we were in the club and were given these nice paper hats to wear. More lines, but in no time we were divulging ourselves to a diverse selection of grilled cheese sandwiches.

I am fairly certain that these sandwiches were probably not actually safe to eat and also made in unsanitary conditions, possibly somesort of car-engine-turned-sandwich-griller situation. Or maybe they were ironed into a dance floor slathered with butter.

Either way, we were willing to risk it and vote for the best. None of them were all that good to be honest, but we were high on the life of an Oakland wannabe hipster. I think that Oliver got food poisoning and it made his eyes grow in different directions.

Roman was, of course, very analytical about the entire event. He did not like cutting in line and he was absolutely not impressed with any sandwiches at the event.

But one thing we were all impressed with was Christian Kearney’s (remember him, he was on the Yellow Bug Time’s 50 Sexiest People List a while back) halloween costume at bike polo later that night. I am not sure what he is dressed as exactly, but that really is a Louis Girneau tt helmet on backwards. Tight.

Finally, my series of unusal events ends tonight with hot date at the Lafayette tanning salon and a trip to the halloween store in Berkeley.

For the love of god, I don’t know what I was thinking in taking me or Roman to the tanning salon, but by god we went tonight. I wanted to make it a low key, in and out type of event, as this was my first time (and last time) ever at this type of place. A pathetic attempt to rid myself of tanlines forever. However, Roman was so entertained with the situation that he wanted to drag it out as long as possible by heckling the poor girl at the front desk, purchasing special tanning lotions, wearing the eye goggles outside of the actual tanning bed, etc. I was not entertained, in fact I was thoroughly embarrassed and wanted to crawl under the tanning bed and come out next year when nobody would remember me. Due to his special tanning lotions, he came out looking like a ripe tomatoe for a few hours. Now his tan has mellowed out and he is looking like a Jamaican beauty. My tan is still no-where to be found.

While Roman got a nice tan tonight, I got a nice halloween costume. From the kids section. If a curvy Darth Vador comes trick or treating at your door, that is probably me, as the lady at the store told me I am the first adult woman she has seen trying on Darth Vador suits from the little boys sectionn (I guess other people may have used the dressing room, but I decided to use the aisle to save time). Still, Roman says it looks fantastic and it comes with pants attached to boots that fit over your shoes. I usually would never actually purchase a halloween costume but we have to go to some event with his high school girlfriend and costumes are required. Roman just told me that I am not allowed to talk about this stuff on the blog anymore, so I gotta go.