Swing Hiel, Peter!

This past weekend I was in Newburyport, Mass. to visit grandmother, aunt and uncle. Sunday I traveled down to Somerville, Mass. for a BBQ with some friends from college. I went with a friend from NY and we had a great time.

Early Saturday morning we drove north from New York and headed over to the happy hour at my grandmother's independent living complex. Getting old, not as frightening as I've thought. Every day at 3:00 they have a happy hour where drinks are $1! And, these aren't your watered down libations - I had one vodka tonic and felt immediately silly and like I could reminisce about the Great Depression for at LEAST 10 minutes. All the regular stars were there: the woman who asks the same questions back to back to back to, et. al, a former Nazi beauty queen who is constantly trying to set my brother up with her 50 year old toy-store-owning daughter, and of course the "cougars" who all they want is a man in the room. Is cougar too young a name? Maybe snow leopards? Either way, each time a man came in the room they immediately sat up straighter and perked out their saggies to get some attention. Proudly, our table in the pub had the most men, both with ocular degeration thankyouverymuch.

Later that night, we headed to the Thirsty Whale. Well. If you're ever having a down day, that's where you need to head. I was already nervous having to see people I hadn't seen in a few years at a BBQ the next day, so I was feeling less than pretty. It certainly worked to my advantage to go to a bar where the men wear overalls and Bret Michaels weaves and the women most certainly wear strap-ons in the boudoir. Plus, the rates for drinks were only slightly higher than my grandmother's discount pub.

At the BBQ I had realized that not much has changed since I last wrote in December, re: weight. Turns out, I still have a big butt. So big of a butt, that I broke a bench swing. I was incredibly embarrassed, but I didn't have time to properly react because this guy I knew in college yelled out my name and came running over with such a verocity that I was immediately stunned. "Are you ok?!?" Mortified, but rescued.

A few other highlights of the afternoon/evening: my friend walked in on a naked woman who when asked by my friend if she had gone through said friend's purse said, "don't worry about it", a personal dream of mine was realized, I played and kicked ass in Goldeneye 007 on N64 (I've still got it), the following morning I watched The Best of Chris Farley and was disappointed by it and I saw some people from college that I never thought I'd see again: good or bad.

Overall, it was a great Memorial Day weekend.