Last night my IT husband and I took Basil to the exclusive, invitation only launch party for VOX the new family and friends blogging platform by SixApart. It was held at the luxurious Chicago Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lucky (well, I suppose that’s up for debate) for us we had an extra invitation, because Chris Cree who was supposed to attend was called home to Savannah at the last minute.

We weren’t sure that the Six Apart folks were going to let Basil in on Chris’s invitation — I don’t know whether the Museum has rules about code-writing donkeys at parties or not. So we dressed him up to look like a tall, handsome blond man from Savannah and made him practice talking with a southern accent for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I must say, he looked dashing in his “I’m with Gorgeous t-shirt” when we got in the taxi outside our condo to head off to the event.

Just our luck. It started pouring, as in downpour, a block from the museum. My gallant IT husband took off his blazer so that I could use it as a cover running up the 30 or 40 stairs to the museum door. IT man got drenched and Basil managed to trip and trample him half way up the stairs, so those two aren’t exacly on friendly terms at the start of the event. Luckily they both agreed that an open bar was the medicine they needed –Basil kept swearing that Bombay Sapphire is medicine where he comes from. Where does he come from anyway?

Of course, when Basil, shook the water off and managed to drench about 12 people waiting for a cocktail I don’t think he made many friends. I’m going to have to write Chris to suggest that he doesn’t visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art on his next Chicago trip or maybe the one after until folks have a chance to forget his name.

Little did I know it would take only one Bombay Sapphire for Basil to talk his way into IT man’s good graces. The next thing you know they were off to the Streeterville neighborhood — where IT man and I lived when we first married so that he could show Basil a few of our old haunts. They ended up closing a bar called Pippin’s that’s been open for 30 years. Seriously, in two days it won’t open anymore. That’s the power of an IT guy and a donkey who’ve had too much art.

We leave today for Blogher. It’s 5:00am and our taxi comes at 6:15am so I’d better get that code-writer out of bed and moving or the ass won’t make the plane. Good thing, I think that American Airlines has extra leg room.

(Related Tags: sixapart, vox, chicago museum of art, chicago, blogher)