Thursday, March 24, 2011

Burlesque Bingo Bango

About a month ago, my friend Misty approached me about going to a bingo night at a new cabaret joint in Fountain Square. Well, bingo just happens to be on my list of things to do in the next three years so I jumped at the opportunity. Plus, I'm pretty sure Misty is more excited about crossing things off my list than I am! I went on their website and saw that it was called Burlesque Bingo Bango. I had no idea what to expect. Is there a burlesque show going on during bingo? Are their intermissions? Do we even play bingo!!??

Last night, Misty, Angela, and I met up (despite a hail storm) at White Rabbit Cabaret to try a new experience. So there are two brothers, pictured below, who run the game. One is a mime and the other is the ring leader. They act silly on stage and entertain you while calling numbers. Every once in a while, a featured girl comes out and does a little tease. For each person that wins, she takes off one more thing.


Then when someone wins bingo, they have to shout it as loud as they can. They will check your numbers and if you have a bingo, they will bring you on stage. They embarrass you some, the girl dances for you, and basically you look like a fool up there. As I'm sitting there, I'm beginning to hope that I don't win. I don't want to go on stage. I don't want to have to do something ridiculous in front of 100 people. We sure enough, second round, I won. So Angela was trying to be nice and take the win for me so I didn't have to go on stage. I had an internal arguement with myself. Its an experience, Leslie! What's the worst thing that could happen? Just do it! So I got up there.

Do you know how awkward it feels to have a girl dancing in front of you and you don't know whether to look at her, the audience, do some dance moves yourself, stand there like an idots, etc. I think I ended up doing some sort of combination of those reactions. There is video footage, but it will not be revealed. However, after they put you through that, they let you pick a prize. They are all hidden and you just have to pick based on blobs covered by cloth. So I picked one underneath a table. And this is what I won!


Yeah you can't really see it. Its a ceramic squirrel that is holding a salt and pepper shaker. I can't wait to display this at my next dinner party. Misty ended up winning on our last game. Only she won and so did another girl so they made them slow dance on stage and then be judged. Misty lost unfortunately but came away with a horse statue. So we're all winners and we had an absolute blast.

Monday, March 7, 2011

2011 Indy Grand Prix

One of my goals for the next couple of years was to volunteer more and get more involved in the community. A while back, I joined the Indiana Sports Corporation's Volunteer list. I figured I could volunteer and possibly get to see some different sporting events. This weekend was the first time there was an event that I was free to work at. The 2011 Indy Grand Prix. I could see that it was a swimming event, but I had no clue what it meant. When I was signing up, I signed up for jobs like admissions, welcome committee, etc. The easy stuff. The one thing I didn't want to do: Timers.

I get an email a couple weeks later saying "Here are the dates and times we need you and here's what you will be doing: Timers" Ugh. I was so worried. But I thought hey, how bad can it be? What's the worst that will happen? Let me tell you what this meant. It meant that I had a front row seat to see some of our nation's greatest swimmers. Not that I knew who all of them were. Michael Phelps was there who I know of. Some of the girls, I recognized their names.

However, I met the new love of my life (sorry Chris). Ryan Lochte. I will definitely be watching some more swimming thanks to this guy.


He stood right next to me in a teeny weeny little lime green bikini that he wore for the first time. Haha. Super cute. And apparently he's very good. All joking aside, it was a really neat event to watch and get to participate in. I had fun timing, it was relatively easy and you can't beat the seats. I'm glad that I faced a fear and just did it. It turned out to be one of the best experiences and I can't wait to volunteer again.