This year, the Franchise dinner was hosted by Jessica, and was back at Gadsbys Tavern in Alexandria. I had talked my friend Get into coming down and staying with us, seeing the baby, and coming to the dinner.
We started off the weekend with a nice dinner out - unfortunately late that night, I started not feeling well… which devolved into throwing up. :-/ I assumed it was just me, though later I thought Elena had been much fussier than normal. But no one else had gotten sick from dinner, so I thought maybe it just hadn’t agreed with me.
I felt better the next day, just weak from, you know, being up a bunch of the night and throwing up twice. I took it easy and didn’t eat much and by the time we had to get ready for the Franchise dinner, I was able to get myself moving enough to go. I didn’t want Gen to miss it and I was keeping food down and everything.
As it happened, Janine and Ron were going to babysit for us since they live not far from the Tavern, so we brought our costumes there and they played with Elena and we got ready. Janine made the mistake of giving me some lipstick. I didn’t think to stop her because again, I thought it was just an upset stomach. The last two times I’ve thrown up has been from bad headaches.
So we left Elena with them, and Doug, Gen, and I went to the ball. There were lots of new faces, and I felt too tired to socialize, which I felt bad about. But I made it through and we went home, and the next day I felt all better, and the three of us had a nice breakfast out and all was well.
Gen took off for home (she lives in North Carolina and had a pretty long drive). Doug went for a long run, and I took over baby duty.
While Doug was out, Gen texted me that she stopped at an antique mall to look around, and said that fortunately they had a nice bathroom because she had suddenly needed it. Uh-oh.
Doug got back from his run, and I told him that Gen was sick. A little while later, he said his stomach didn’t feel great either. But he’s like that sometimes after a long run. He sat on the couch. A little while later, I asked if he could go move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. He got up, walked out of the room, then came back and sat back down, and said, “Nope, I can’t do that.”
Shortly after, he raced out of the room.
Uh-oh.
A while later I got a text from Gen about her getting to experience “high speed vomiting.”
So that was three. And then as it turned out, Janine apparently spent Monday morning throwing up in a Metro trash can.
When I talked to Stephanie, Monday morning (she was our child care provider at the time), she said, “You know, Iris, threw up once on Thursday night, but I didn’t think much of it, because it was just that one time….And Evey (the other little girl at day care) had diarrhea on Wednesday… And I felt kind of nauseous on Friday…”
So there you go. Evey to Iris and Stephanie and Elena, to me, to Doug and Gen via sharing food, to Janine via lipstick, to Gen’s dad in North Carolina, to one of Janine’s co-workers. :-/ That was one virulent norovirus. It was fast at least, but damn. That thing swept through all of us. Ron did not actually end up catching it. Neither did Mike or Gloria, who we saw at the Franchise dinner. And I was really glad I hadn’t felt well enough to socialize with pretty much anyway. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known I was contagious, but until that point, it was only me, so….
Yeah, that is definitely a weekend to remember for all the wrong reasons.
In any case, here are some pics from the dinner, mostly just posed ones from before the dinner. If I look a little pale, or if I didn’t say hello at the dinner, you now know why.
My dress was based on this gown because I had this fabric in my stash for years and I wanted to use it, and even though it is not silk, it strongly reminded me of this gown pattern-wise. I ran the stripes on the sleeves vertically to emulate this gown, even though it is more common to see them horizontal.
I also did not have time to actually trim the gown because of the baby, but I figured it’d look this way this time, and I could add trim and it’d look different the next time I wore it. http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1348709.1
http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1348709.2
Also, I didn’t get a petticoat or stomacher made, so I wore it with my cream Francaise gown petticoat and stomacher. Also I swear I ironed those folds out, but they didn’t want to disappear.
I also wore earrings and a necklace from Dames a la Mode and a Lover’s Eye brooch from Queen and Cavendish.
Most of the pics are by In the Long Run Designs.
Getting ready at Janine’s.
And the inspiration gown:
Janine and Ron had lots of fun with Elena at least! It was St. Patrick's Day, so we dressed Elena accordingly and she matched Janine and Ron.
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