IKEA busted.

well, IKEA bus (the squeakquel) has come and gone, and i’m finally recovered enough to write about it (a mere 18 days later) (i know) (i’m sorry).

well, recovered enough to half ass my way through a recap where i’ll omit a lot of details and probably not tell you what you want to know.  i’ll pretend that it’s because i want to preserve the mystique for future riders. yeah. that.

but be kind, i’m lazy because i’m exhausted.

there were actually a number of passengers who asked me how often i  run the IKEA bus, and recommended that i do it more often. which is totally a nice compliment, if woefully uninformed.

IKEA bus is actually a lot of work. not that i’m complaining (i’m totally complaining), but the snack research, and the phone calls, and the paperwork, and deposits, and movie selections, and ticket hawking/guilt trips… twice a year (or monthly, as recommended) would probably kill me a little.

but enough of my whining. for all the work, of course it was AMAZING. some highlights:

– the very sassy lannalee‘s equally sassy mom hoisting a bottle of margarita mix over her head for a photo op.

– alex from local muscle making a lot of jokes about the pysslingar he bought for his wife.

– having ikea security give us rockstar parking for the bus and the truck right in front of the store.

– plush broccoli!

–  getting schooled in draw something by half the people on the bus. (totally worth it even though my phone was down to 14% before we even got to the store!)

– lounging around in the sun while we waited for everyone to get back to the bus. scheduling for may instead of april definitely paid off on the weather front.

oh, and i bought my kinda boyfriend a very tiny couch.

for further highlights, you can scope the photo gallery here.

save for a couple of technical difficulties (luckily, labyrinth is just as good without sound), it all went off without a hitch. however, that hitchlessness was due in huge part to all the awesome people the helped me out.

if i were giving an oscar speech, i’d be crying and people would be tapping their feet and waiting for the orchestra to play me off. but since we’re not at the oscars, i’m gonna go ahead and take all the time that i need to thank all the people who were awesome to me during the ikea adventure.

everyone who posted and reposted the crap out of all my facebook & twitter & blog posts (i totally owe lannalee a cookie bouquet).

tina & katie for coming over to my house to help me assemble snack boxes. (with a side of fist shake for tina for making us watch UP, which made me CRY like a bitch) (and double hearts for katie who brought us tony’s donuts even though there was a train).

zak for (among many other things) taking one for the team and skipping the bus to take care of kazuki.

justin, our amazing (and very cute) bus VIP driver, who chatted up the riders and helped sticker boxes and load the bus, even though he totally didn’t have to.

local muscle for driving 2 hours just to load up the truck and drive it right back to portland on the most gorgeous day we’ve had so far this spring. they were charming and cute, and nobody had to lift anything heavy if they didn’t want to.

and finally, to all the amazing riders of the bus who were fun and funny and kind and courteous to everyone else on the bus. we all had a good time because you all are awesome. especially those of you who sent me thank you notes. thank you right back!