GGB Pittsburgh’s Star Trek Brunch
Captain’s Log, star-date 2017: GGB PGH had the incredible pleasure to welcome a whole new crew to the bridge of the starship USS Yinzer! January’s Star Trek brunch at Steel Cactus in Shadyside was huge and full of new faces. We are just continually amazed at how we are growing and how wonderful all of our new Brunchettes are.
Winter in Pittsburgh is never enjoyable. It’s not even really all that pretty most of the time. So to cut through some of the gloom and doom, GGB PGH officers hosted a fun Star Trek pizza party as an extra non-brunch activity and invited Brunchettes over to Officer Jocelyn’s for some serious Trek viewing and pizza eating (and wine drinking and chocolate inhaling). We started with some Next Generation action, moved on to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and ended with the always delightful Original series. It was a bit of a bummer that the premiere for Star Trek: Discovery was moved to May instead of January, but we heard from a very reliable source (it’s me, I’m the source) that GGB PGH officers will probably have another pizza party in its honor.
For brunch, we enjoyed Steel Cactus’ wonderful southwestern style brunch menu. No one can deny tacos, even at ten in the morning. They were good enough to give us the entire top floor deck all to ourselves, which was just as well because we can be very enthusiastic. The wait staff at Steel Cactus in Shadyside deserves a massive round of applause. They were on top of every order, every drink refill, every latecomer, and every weird check situation. The service was some of the best we have received as a group to date. Thank you, Steel Cactus, for being such a great place for geeky ladies in our city to have a good time!
With so many new members, our exciting conversations ran the gamut from Star Trek (in all its brilliant forms) to academic research; from the many wonderful museums here in Pittsburgh to our book club The Yearning Yinzers. Swag for this brunch included hand-knitted potholders featuring the Star Trek insignia, an original series calendar, adorable Vulcan car air fresheners, a couple of very cool Star Trek posters, and a beautiful Enterprise print by Papyrusaurus. Each Brunchette was treated to a fuse bead insignia badge as well.
Papyrusaurus is a wonderful local shop owned by artist and Brunchette Ashley Aranda. Ashley has provided her work to us as swag on multiple occasions, and we are absolutely crazy for her products. Because we value our local vendors, artists, and Brunchettes, we want to share her wonderful news that Papyrusaurus was chosen to be part of Bon-Ton’s Close to Home initiative. Her products will debut in the Erie, PA store in April and will appear in other stores later on. Keep an eye out!
Our group has been very busy lately with extra activities, thanks to our great members. Luckily, Pittsburgh is a city that offers us wonderful options! We have Brunchettes organizing workout groups, trips to local indie movie cinemas for Harry Potter marathons, meetups at Dieselpunk dance parties, and geeky themed night at Painting with a Twist. We love to see our ladies taking charge and using GGB as a way to make friends and create strong social groups. In our eyes, this is a clear sign of success for us and all GGB chapters!
And before finishing this log, we want to give a few heads up for future happenings. We are currently working on a comprehensive list of local agencies in Pittsburgh who offer volunteer opportunities for community members looking to give back. The intention of this list is to allow our Brunchettes to easily embody the #GGBDoBetter model that we champion. So look out for that document if you live in the Pittsburgh region. We would also like to announce that we are planning to be at Tekko in April, the Pittsburgh region’s number one anime, gaming, music, fashion and Japanese pop culture con. This con has exploded over the past couple of years, and we are incredibly excited to join the fun. Stay tuned for more exciting details!
Thank you to GGB HQ for all their hard work, and to our Pittsburgh Brunchettes for theirs, and to our Pittsburgh for being so, so good to us. End log.