The 4-day weekend summary
Wow, what a weekend, eh? Here is a short recap…um, better make that a long recap.
Friday I had the day off of work. I had worked all day the previous Sunday and I didn’t want to work a 6 day work week so I told my boss to shove it, in a very respectable manner. My goal was to do some gardening, replace my window well covers that were destroyed by hail a couple of weeks ago and get the AC working. Well, I took my time on those things. I did make it to home depot for the covers although I didn’t get the right ones. I then figured out that the AC was turning on but the fan wasn’t so all the cold air was sitting in the basement. And it was cold down there. The problem was with the fan wire on the setback thermostat I installed over the winter. There are 4 wires coming out of the wall and 5 inputs on the thermostat so there is a jumper that is supposed to work for the ac and heat fan. Except the jumper wasn’t working. In order to mess with it though, I needed a small screwdriver. I didn’t have one so I went to bike to the hardware store and trader joe’s (for food, not screwdrivers) and took off at about 4. As I was riding south I noticed some huge clouds that were very menacing off to my right. I just kind of hoped I could outrun them though as I didn’t have far to go. Well, that was kind of silly. By the time I found the right screwdriver and left the hardware store there were gale force winds blowing outside. Luckily they were coming from the west so my eastern jaunt to Trader Joe’s was a breeze! I quickly moved through the store getting my organic bananas and oatmeal but it wasn’t fast enough as I was greeted with rain upon exiting the building. It was windy enough that I had to downshift but it wasn’t raining that hard so I didn't get very wet. The storm lasted less than a half an hour though and if I had known that I would have gone to McCoy’s and had a beverage because by the time I got out of the shower at home my patio was drying.
I was able to fix the thermostat because I am handy despite not knowing what I'm doing. Later that night around 8 Erick picked me up and we went downtown. The plan was for his girlfriend, Heather, to meet us out later and he would go home with her. I guess I was supposed to meet someone to go home with. We sabotaged this from the start by going to Hooters (a place to stare at, not meet, girls. Oh, and wings, delicious wings.) and to Gameworks where I guess women don’t go to meet guys. There were a lot of people on dates there. I was surprised by that as the nerdly men (us) were greatly outnumbered by these couples. So anyways we had a good time at Gameworks despite my poor, poor bowling skilz. At bar time as we were being kicked out we realized that we needed some pizza to continue to fuel our good time. We walked toPizza Luce but were still a block away when we got to the back of the line. So we went back to Heather’s house and had a Jack’s frozen pizza although we still referred to it as PizzaLuce and talked about how I am single because I am so darn ugly. I ended up sleeping on the couch which was notable because right after everyone went to bed, Heather’s roommate came home. I don’t know if I was dreaming or what but I said something along the lines of “are you ready to make me breakfast?” This might not be an exact quote, I was pretty out of it. I kind of realized what I did and might have asked if I knew her and I think I said sorry. Either way, I’m not sure I’m allowed back there.
Saturday I was supposed to play basketball at 10 in Bloomington. I woke up a little after 9 realizing this probably wasn't going to happen. I wasn't about to start knocking on doors trying to get back to sleep when I heard the headboard a banging. They were rubbing it in my face. Those jerks. So about 10 we left Heather's house and went to Caribou. I realized that I had been given a gift card and gave that to Erick because I was in the back of a sardine can, I mean convertible and wasn't about to get out. He looked at it like it was an alien technology and asked what he was supposed to do with it. I guess he didn't know Caribou's had gift cards. He's not much of a nature person and he was probably drunk. So we got coffee to go (not using the drive up because we aren't evil) and Heather dropped us off at the city owned ramp downtown where we had left Erick's truck. In case you are wondering, leaving your car in the ramp on a Friday night is only $8. That plus a cab ride is a lot cheaper than the alternative you drunky's. They only take cash though so remember that if it is your good-for nothing friend's turn to pay but he doesn't have any cash.
Erick dropped me off at my house, then went to Hooter's at the mall of America with a friend on the way to Chicago. Yeah, I know, he's crazy. Anyways, he called me after because he knows the internet never leaves my grasp for very long so I could look up where the flooding was in Wisconsin. He mentioned the drinking at Hooters which gave me the courage to fight fire with fire. So I started the Rum-merade (patent pending) at about 1:30. So after two hours of that Alex came over and we biked to Rock the Garden! Rock the Garden was HOT and fun and the music was very good for the most part. They served Summit beer and Chipotle burritos and both in large quantities to me. Honestly though, it was a little disappointing because I treated it more as a party than a concert so I didn't get to fully appreciate all the great music that was happening. This was my own fault, I know, I'm an idiot. It was a lot of fun though as I had friends there and also just talked with everyone around me (whether they wanted me to or not). I had my picture taken by some guy associated with Thrifty Hipster. The picture he took was kind of strange. Maybe he zoomed because of my shades?
After Alex and some friends were going to a party I guess up Hennipen Avenue but I met a girl on a bike and took off with her. We ended up at Joe's Garage with a bunch of her friends. We had mac and cheese, calamari, and several beverages there before everyone split up and went their separate ways. I didn't get anyone's number or anything and I don't even remember their names so I probably won't see them again until the next time a garden is rocked. I then biked home on an unlighted trail without a helmet while kind of intoxicated. I made it fine but I probably shouldn't make a habit of it.
Sunday I woke up thinking it was noon. It wasn't. I'm just an idiot. I never adjusted my alarm clock after daylight savings time so it is an hour ahead. No, that's not totally right, I adjusted it, but then it adjusted again because they moved the spring ahead time earlier. So I never put it back after that. Anyways this was the first time I was fooled for more than a split second by it. I thought it was noon. I had to be in Minnehaha park at 1. It's about a 10 mile bike ride and I needed to eat breakfast an everything. So I went and took a shower and then looked and say the clouds outside so I opened my computer and realized it was only 11:20. So I slept for 40 minutes. That was nice. Anyways, I wore a helmet this time, put a bunch of gin and ice cubes in a nalgene bottle and set off for the park. On the way Holiday didn't have tonic water but they did have powerade and Sun Chips. I mixed the powerade with the gin to form Gin-erade to give me the life force of the gods and left the sun chips to mix with the golden grams and vodka. The picnic was a blast and whoever put it on did awesome because there were a bunch of fun people there. There were also a lot of Swedes. That made for an interesting viewing experience. It wasn't the nicest day and around 4 (I'm guessing, I don't remember) it started to rain pretty hard. It only lasted hard for about 10 minutes but that was enough to end the picnic. Then I got to go to the cool after party because I'm cool. Obviously there was more drinking, napping, guitar hero, and tree climbing (I mainly focused on one of those, I'll let you guess which). It got pretty late for a Sunday though and everyone was a little drunk so once again we scattered on our bikes. I called up Alex and stopped by his house and we biked to Restaurant Miami. Of course, when I think of Miami, I think of Soul Food. It turns out that a soul food caterer had control of the Restaurant part of it for the night and Alex and I were the beneficiaries of that. After a couple of more beers and some meatloaf I was toast. I put the meatloaf in my Styrofoam container in my backpack and headed home where I passed out shortly there after.
I had taken Monday off of work with the plan to go out on Lake Minnetonka but while those plans fell through, I decided to not go in anyways because the weekend was a little too exhausting for an old man such as myself. After I cleaned the spilled gravy from my backpack, I planned on just taking it easy and catching up on sleep and the paper I had neglected Sunday, maybe do a few chores. Unfortunately Erick called and came over about 4:30. We had a couple beers on the patio and then decided to go out. So we went to Laredo's at Excelsior and Grand since we hadn't been there before. The food was all right although my burrito was covered in cheese sauce. I like cheese but it was a little gross. After we went to see The Happening at the SLP theater. We were a little early so we had a quick beer at Granite City. I've never really liked that place and the bartender was a little creepy but he did put our names on the tab so we gave him a good tip. The movie was good and suspenseful and well done. A lot of people don't like M. Night Shamalamadingdong but I think he does an excellent job. Also, it had had Zooey Deschanel who I have had a huge boner for ever since Almost Famous. I like the blue eyes, what can I say. I'm also seeing her at first ave in August. We weren't about to stop after the movie so we went to the Park Tavern. They have free bowling on Monday night and it was packed. Seeing as how our odds were low to get a lane we went to Texas-Tonka lanes (immortalized in Candy Girl by Diablo Cody) but no one was bowling there. They were either having some awards thing or bingo but we didn't stick around long enough to find out. So we chose door number three and went to Tuttles in Hopkins. We used to go there when I lived in a townhouse in Minnetonka. Those lanes kind of suck because if you go to fast (like we do) you have to correct the scores but we found some good balls and got 10 games in so it was a good time. The key to bowling is having good balls. I did much better than Friday night. Since we were making great decisions at this point we decided to go to Perkins for some pre-breakfast. This is always a great decision unless you drink too much bad coffee and have gut rot the next day. Like I did.
So that was my 4 day fun filled weekend. It was great but I need a couple of months before I have that much fun again. I hope your's was as fun as mine.