Birthday
So I had a great time yesterday on my 21st birthday.
Jayme and I had to get up around 8am to head up to Napa ... getting up that early sucked, but oh well. We met up with my grandma at 10:30am at the wine train station to get our tickets from her, and then we sat through a little wine tasting seminar before boarding. On the train I ordered a martini (but was disappointed that their 'premium' vodka was Stoli and not something better like Grey Goose), and Jayme ordered some imported beer. They served us a little appetizer and then we headed in one of the other cars to do wine tasting. We had a cool conversation with the woman there ... she definitely knew a lot about wine. I was amused when these two women came up to the wine bar to do some tasting, and the wine host said, "Guess what I'd like to see ladies?" They got their IDs out, and I commented on how she didn't card Jayme and me. She responded, "Well I knew ..." and I said, "You knew that today was my 21st birthday?" and I handed her my ID. She laughed, apologized, and wished me a happy birthday. She said that Jayme and I seemed like we knew so much about wine that she just assumed we were old enough without carding us. Haha. At least I was carded when I ordered my martini ...
After enough samples to add up to several glasses of wine, it was time for lunch. We went into the dining car, and to our surprise realized that we knew our server. She is my aunt's niece (no direct relation to me), and one of the girls who worked the catering at my mom and stepdad's wedding (therefore being one of the caterers who stole lots of the leftover alcohol from the wedding). She talked to us and said she wasn't going to charge us for any wine we drank during the meal, which was pretty cool. Jayme and I ordered different things so that we could try a bit of everything. She had a really good butternut squash soup, and I had a salad that was topped with feta and carmelized walnuts. For the entree she had a pan-seared chicken, and I had angus beef tenderloins. Both were really good. Dessert was a vanilla bean creme brulée forJayme, and a chocolate tiramisu for me. They also brought out these chocolate grape truffles with a white chocolate 'Happy Birthday' for me.
Jayme and I were stupid enough to not remember to bring a camera, but luckily we met these really nice ladies from Illinois who were asking us tons of questions (since they heard it was my birthday, and that we were from Napa originally). They took a bunch of pictures for us, and offered to mail us copies. We also have the pictures that were taken as we boarded the train and two that were taken in the main car where we ordered our drinks. I bought one of the pictures and the guy said "shhh" and tossed the other two in the bag with them, so that was cool.
We drove over to my aunt Carol's house and spent a little over an hour there with my aunt, uncle, and grandma. My grandma gave me 4 bottles of good wine plus some cash and my aunt gave me some cash, too.
We got back to Sacramento right after 6pm, and I dropped Jayme off so that she could go pick up some food to take to Kenny at work. I relaxed briefly at home, and then went out to OG myself to order a drink, just cuz I could. I stayed there for like 30 minutes talking to some of my co-workers and inviting them over later that night.
Jayme was in the back eating with Kenny, and when she was done we both went out to BevMo to pick up some liquor for the night. I bought quite a bit: a handle of regular vodka, a fifth of the same, two fifths of flavoured vodka, a handle of rum, a fifth of Malibu, and some beer. I figured that was more than enough to provide a start for everyone.
As we were in the checkout line there was this weird looking girl who saw our cart and said, "Damn, can we come over?" I just laughed and made a comment about it being my 21st birthday. They left. After I paid for my $100+ of alcohol, we were leaving and saw the guy who had been with that girl standing by the door. He stopped us and started asking about my party and stuff ... and I didn't really know what to say. Apparently they are two "professional carnies" working a virtual reality booth at the State Fair (Em, if you're reading this, they're with Ham & Rye. Funny, eh?). They were both from Pennsylvania and had nothing to do, and asked if they could come. I didn't know how to say no, so I turned to Jayme and was like, "Uh, do you see a problem with that?" She didn't know how to say no to them either, so she just said "no ..." and I guess that was that. She wrote down directions to my house for them.
We left and went to Safeway to pick up the last few things that we needed and then came home. Bryan showed up just a few minutes after we got back, Jason and Erica came home, and Skyler showed up with some of his friends not long after that. The carnie's arrived, which was weird. They talked a lot and we all tried to avoid talking to them. The only good thing was that they brought a boombox with them -- I didn't have any way to play music before that. Kat, the girl carnie, kept telling people all night how 'fucking awesome' it was how I 'invited' them to the party and all ... she really made it sound like I randomly approached them and asked them to come over. Heh, right.
Throughout the night a bunch more people came out: Christina, Natalya, Ashley and her roommate Brandy, Jeff, Nick W., Pat, Danimal, both Daves, Alyssa, Diana, Lindsay and her brother, Kim ... to name some of them. Jayme left early to go pick up Kenny, but I was glad that she was able to be there for a little while.
There was lots of drinking, of course, and there wound up being a lot of people smoking pot. It was kinda creepy when the carnies made reference to things like crack, LSD, etc., but we just kinda ignored them.
Alyssa got drunk and started talking about a game that we named "Orgy Poker" (somehow it involves sexual acts while playing poker), and we gave her a bad time about it for the rest of the night. When she left she promised me that we could play it sometime ... haha. *scared*
Marissa thought her purse had been stolen, but she eventually found it somewhere ... sans the money that had been in her wallet. Luckily it was only like $10 or $20. We're pretty sure the carnies took it, but they also left their boombox. Now I'm concerned that they're gonna want to come back by at some point to pick it up. Ugh.
The 'mission' that I referenced in my last post kinda failed, which sucks, but Bryan and I did find some things out. One thing that was funny was that one of Skyler's friends was gay, and he took a liking to Bryan. Before they left, the guy asked for Bryan's number, and Bryan definitely seemed less-than-enthusiastic about giving it to him.
I wound up very very drunk by the end of the night, which I guess is expected on your 21st. hehe. I don't know what time I went to bed, but I'm pretty sure I do remember the entire night (always a plus).
I woke up today feeling surprisingly well. I'm not hungover at all. Yay.
When I get my scanner back from Jayme I'll scan and post the pics that we bought at the Wine Train, and whenever I get the pics from the Illinois ladies I'll post those, too. There were people taking pictures here last night, so if I get copies of those I'll do the same as well.
Sorry for the long post.
Time to get ready for work.
Oh yeah, happy birthday Jeremy. :-)
Jayme and I had to get up around 8am to head up to Napa ... getting up that early sucked, but oh well. We met up with my grandma at 10:30am at the wine train station to get our tickets from her, and then we sat through a little wine tasting seminar before boarding. On the train I ordered a martini (but was disappointed that their 'premium' vodka was Stoli and not something better like Grey Goose), and Jayme ordered some imported beer. They served us a little appetizer and then we headed in one of the other cars to do wine tasting. We had a cool conversation with the woman there ... she definitely knew a lot about wine. I was amused when these two women came up to the wine bar to do some tasting, and the wine host said, "Guess what I'd like to see ladies?" They got their IDs out, and I commented on how she didn't card Jayme and me. She responded, "Well I knew ..." and I said, "You knew that today was my 21st birthday?" and I handed her my ID. She laughed, apologized, and wished me a happy birthday. She said that Jayme and I seemed like we knew so much about wine that she just assumed we were old enough without carding us. Haha. At least I was carded when I ordered my martini ...
After enough samples to add up to several glasses of wine, it was time for lunch. We went into the dining car, and to our surprise realized that we knew our server. She is my aunt's niece (no direct relation to me), and one of the girls who worked the catering at my mom and stepdad's wedding (therefore being one of the caterers who stole lots of the leftover alcohol from the wedding). She talked to us and said she wasn't going to charge us for any wine we drank during the meal, which was pretty cool. Jayme and I ordered different things so that we could try a bit of everything. She had a really good butternut squash soup, and I had a salad that was topped with feta and carmelized walnuts. For the entree she had a pan-seared chicken, and I had angus beef tenderloins. Both were really good. Dessert was a vanilla bean creme brulée forJayme, and a chocolate tiramisu for me. They also brought out these chocolate grape truffles with a white chocolate 'Happy Birthday' for me.
Jayme and I were stupid enough to not remember to bring a camera, but luckily we met these really nice ladies from Illinois who were asking us tons of questions (since they heard it was my birthday, and that we were from Napa originally). They took a bunch of pictures for us, and offered to mail us copies. We also have the pictures that were taken as we boarded the train and two that were taken in the main car where we ordered our drinks. I bought one of the pictures and the guy said "shhh" and tossed the other two in the bag with them, so that was cool.
We drove over to my aunt Carol's house and spent a little over an hour there with my aunt, uncle, and grandma. My grandma gave me 4 bottles of good wine plus some cash and my aunt gave me some cash, too.
We got back to Sacramento right after 6pm, and I dropped Jayme off so that she could go pick up some food to take to Kenny at work. I relaxed briefly at home, and then went out to OG myself to order a drink, just cuz I could. I stayed there for like 30 minutes talking to some of my co-workers and inviting them over later that night.
Jayme was in the back eating with Kenny, and when she was done we both went out to BevMo to pick up some liquor for the night. I bought quite a bit: a handle of regular vodka, a fifth of the same, two fifths of flavoured vodka, a handle of rum, a fifth of Malibu, and some beer. I figured that was more than enough to provide a start for everyone.
As we were in the checkout line there was this weird looking girl who saw our cart and said, "Damn, can we come over?" I just laughed and made a comment about it being my 21st birthday. They left. After I paid for my $100+ of alcohol, we were leaving and saw the guy who had been with that girl standing by the door. He stopped us and started asking about my party and stuff ... and I didn't really know what to say. Apparently they are two "professional carnies" working a virtual reality booth at the State Fair (Em, if you're reading this, they're with Ham & Rye. Funny, eh?). They were both from Pennsylvania and had nothing to do, and asked if they could come. I didn't know how to say no, so I turned to Jayme and was like, "Uh, do you see a problem with that?" She didn't know how to say no to them either, so she just said "no ..." and I guess that was that. She wrote down directions to my house for them.
We left and went to Safeway to pick up the last few things that we needed and then came home. Bryan showed up just a few minutes after we got back, Jason and Erica came home, and Skyler showed up with some of his friends not long after that. The carnie's arrived, which was weird. They talked a lot and we all tried to avoid talking to them. The only good thing was that they brought a boombox with them -- I didn't have any way to play music before that. Kat, the girl carnie, kept telling people all night how 'fucking awesome' it was how I 'invited' them to the party and all ... she really made it sound like I randomly approached them and asked them to come over. Heh, right.
Throughout the night a bunch more people came out: Christina, Natalya, Ashley and her roommate Brandy, Jeff, Nick W., Pat, Danimal, both Daves, Alyssa, Diana, Lindsay and her brother, Kim ... to name some of them. Jayme left early to go pick up Kenny, but I was glad that she was able to be there for a little while.
There was lots of drinking, of course, and there wound up being a lot of people smoking pot. It was kinda creepy when the carnies made reference to things like crack, LSD, etc., but we just kinda ignored them.
Alyssa got drunk and started talking about a game that we named "Orgy Poker" (somehow it involves sexual acts while playing poker), and we gave her a bad time about it for the rest of the night. When she left she promised me that we could play it sometime ... haha. *scared*
Marissa thought her purse had been stolen, but she eventually found it somewhere ... sans the money that had been in her wallet. Luckily it was only like $10 or $20. We're pretty sure the carnies took it, but they also left their boombox. Now I'm concerned that they're gonna want to come back by at some point to pick it up. Ugh.
The 'mission' that I referenced in my last post kinda failed, which sucks, but Bryan and I did find some things out. One thing that was funny was that one of Skyler's friends was gay, and he took a liking to Bryan. Before they left, the guy asked for Bryan's number, and Bryan definitely seemed less-than-enthusiastic about giving it to him.
I wound up very very drunk by the end of the night, which I guess is expected on your 21st. hehe. I don't know what time I went to bed, but I'm pretty sure I do remember the entire night (always a plus).
I woke up today feeling surprisingly well. I'm not hungover at all. Yay.
When I get my scanner back from Jayme I'll scan and post the pics that we bought at the Wine Train, and whenever I get the pics from the Illinois ladies I'll post those, too. There were people taking pictures here last night, so if I get copies of those I'll do the same as well.
Sorry for the long post.
Time to get ready for work.
Oh yeah, happy birthday Jeremy. :-)