Dispatch from BlogHer/Chicago 09 #1: Just a quick note to be filed in the “I don’t get out often enough” file: some tidbits from the SkyMall magazine. No tidbits yet regarding the conference because Evening 1 all I did was eat some wonderful free food, sip some wonderful free wine, hug many people excitedly, come up to my room, and then get only partially requited with the internet before crashing.
One thousand bloggers in the same hotel may be a wee strain on the system. Credit to the crack BlogHer events planning tech crew and the Sheraton, who has been feverishly installing/upgrading/what have you. I understand there may be a bellhop or two whose job this weekend is to lean precariously out a window holding a satelite dish in juuuuust the right position.
Now on to the quick note, before I rejoin the happy fray. There will be the jet-setters among you who are out and about all the time, and are utterly dulled to the jaw dropping wonder of the SkyMall magazine. But by my calculations, it has been just over two years that I took a plane somewhere. So I was utterly unprepared for the garden sculptures section of the magazine, which featured, yes, Â a GARDEN SASQUATCH.
You might say to yourself, “What is Bigfoot doing in the garden?” But the SkyMall magazine has no real answer to that question. What it does do is provide the following description of the product, which is called “Bigfoot, the Garden Yeti”:
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With his characteristicaly big feet, our more than two-foot tall Garden Yeti will have guests doing a double-take as they admire your creative home or garden style! With alleged sightings the world over, from the highest Himalayas to the United States, this elusive, mythical legend has been captured exclusively for [name of poor besotted company withheld for its own good] in quality designer resin and hand painted for startling realism.
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Above Sasquatch were a trio of meercats (yup). After I had fixed my jaw back in place, I turned the page to find “The Zombie of Montclaire Moors.” Â Yes I did.
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 Not for the faint of heart, this [name of company withheld for its own good]-exclusive, life-size (sic), gray-toned zombie will claw his way out of your garden plot, office, or family room corner, pleading for assistance with the eeriest undead eyes you’ve ever sen.  Captured in meticlulous detail in quality designer resin and finished so realistically that you’ll swear you can hear him breathing! (Arrives in 3 pieces)
Looks disturbingly like John Malkovitch.
Now to the happy fray. If you’re here, track me down and I’ll hug you with the zest of 10 Leo Buscaglias! And if we imbibe too much at the evening parties, we can always use this SkyMall hangover remedy.
This post cracked me up! I don’t get out a lot either … but just returned from a plane trip and want to report my 2 1/2-year-old liked the Skymall catalog better than “One Fish Two Fish” … it kept her happy for a long time. She especially liked the pet products. And thankfully she has no concept of a catalog being filled with things to BUY. Have a great trip!
p.s. many of your readers will be excited to know there are wooden yetis available at the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in lovely Felton, CA.
I loved those garden sculptures when I flipped through Sky Mall. Especially the sasquatch one. Sasquatch!
Such a delight to see you there in Chicago sister schmutzie, if only for a brief shimmering moment. You know, if I were more of an unreconstructed sadist, I’d buy the “Zombie of Montclair Moors” and stick it in a random closet for them to find one day. You know, like one they’ve been expressly told NOT to go peek into. Hotel New Hampshire with an Addams Family twist.
Perkl8, brilliant take on it all: this like a kind of a funny encyclopedia of weird, inaccessible objects. We are going to have to schedule a visit to the Bigfoot Discovery Museum soon. Just can’t go w/ the brother-in-law, who’s 6’8″ and might be mistaken for the famous Yeti-on-the-lamb, if he weren’t hair-challenged at the uppermost region.