Absquatulate

Message Light *blink*

8:13 *blink*
8:42 *blink*
9:00 *blink*
*sigh* There is no putting it off, probably another person having troubles with a website. Let's get to it then.
*access voicemail*
You Have... One... New Message. To play your messages, press 1.
*1*
"Hi Kris, since you're coming over today and we need to restock, we'd like to know what your favorite flavor is. Drop me an email and we'll see you this afternoon!" *click*
...
There is no better way to start off a Friday than with a voicemail from an associate asking you what kind of beer you want should the meeting go past 5pm.

Hear: kittens mewing for pets || Feel: aaaaah. cool! || See: baseball tonight || Cook: the worst curry you've ever made || Go: visit an internet company

H. O. to the T.

From Fall to Summer in 48 hours. You know most guests announce their impending arrival, but Summer just assumed we'd be glad to see him so he just showed up. No calling card, no letter, no advance warning. Just showed up on the doorstep, bags in hand, and said, "HI! Remember me? Sure you do, hey, I'm in town for a few months, mind if I bunk with you? No? Great!" and before you can get a word in edgewise he has parked his quadzillion degree butt on your couch, is tormenting the cats, and eating all your beef jerkey and potato chips.

Well they didn't have to go and do that.

Last night I got home, and I get the mail from the mailbox. Sammiched inbetween circulars and the latest copy of The Nation is a small hand delivered white envelope. It's a note from our neighbors apologizing for Saturday night as well as a $25 gift certificate to a bar/restaurant. That was awfully nice of them.

I'm still not amending the post below. :^)

I am officially Old.

I did my fair share of carousing. I'll admit it, I went to parties, I got drunk, I made noise. I did all those TOGA things TOGA while TOGA I was in TOGA college (and okay, maybe once or twice for Halloween with the illustrious Bird and Bun after college. Hm, and maybe a few times with the Good Doctors Eirich. But you catch my drift.) So I'm all for a good time! Have people over! Eat, drink, and be oh so very merry. But is it too much to ask that come 1:30 am, you either take the party inside, or take it to a bar? Especially when that party shares a wall with my bedroom?

Our next door neighbors informed us a few weeks ago (just after their first party) that they'll be throwing another and that we were cordially invited. Luckily for them, we had a friend in town, so were not home for the majority of the night and by them time we DID get home, we were so pooped that we fell straight into the arms of Morpheus. The invite for the party went something like this:

Us: *pull into parking space* *slam car door*
Drunken Neighbor with Red Cup: Hey! You guyzzz, ohmigod, we're so having another partaaayyy and you're so invited.
Us: Um, cool, thanks! When is it?
DNw/RC: The 21st, you SO have to stop by. *guzzle*
Us: *look at each other, each thinking, "If there is no party tonight, why is she drinking beer from a red cup now, and why is she getting into her car!???* Okay! Thanks!
DNw/RC: Sure thing, WHOOO!
Us: *under our breaths* Let's remember to not be here.
Us: *peak out of window half hour later* Wow, she's just sitting in her car, drinking beer with her boyfriend. They aren't going anyplace!

Fast forward to this weekend.

We return from a night with Vedder, which usually means one thing: Just enough alcohol to make us sleepy. Only this time I wasn't. But Piggy was so into the bed with the swine. I went downstairs, watched a little TV, and decided to head next door if nothing else but to impress upon the tenants and their guests that PEOPLE live around here and to please be considerate of that fact (See? See that last sentence? That's where I start getting Old.) (Plus, their apartment had been renovated a year earlier, and we still live in the 'renovated in the 80's' hell of peeling linoleum, half sized stoves, and mismatched tile in the bathroom. But, our rent is that much cheaper than theirs. Neener. But I will say, MAN, I'd give my eyeteeth (or the difference in rent) to have that apartment. They have a hood over their stove. A HOOD PEOPLE! *sigh*.)

I was greeted at the door by some youthful buck who said, "Yeah, DNw/RC is downstairs playing beer pong, come on in!" I meet up with her roommate, QuietGuy (who until now, never uttered more than a lackluster "hi" in our general direction.) We hit it off, surprisingly! He was very nice, and gave me the grand tour and we talked about how the renovated apartment differed from ours. All the while, I'm looking at a bunch of kids with red plastic cups desperately trying to look cool and drink copious amounts of beer. Now, I will defend my use of the word "kids" because they were.

QuietGuy: Hey, you, how old are you?
YouthfulBuck: Um. 17 man.
QuietGuy, through his teeth: Then make sure you stay inside, there are cops out tonight.
YB: Yeah, okay man.

DNw/RC appears, and we chit chat for a little bit, and she informs me that she invited 150 people (!!!!!!), has two full sized kegs of beer, wasn't sure who was going to show up, cover to get in was $3 because the last party they threw nearly made them bankrupt, that she didn't know anybody who was there at the moment with the exception of a few folks, and that she's a bit of an exhibitionist and likes to flash her boobs at random people.

I file this away for future reference (Providing alcohol to a minor? Check. Indecent exposure? Check. Noise ordinance violations? Check. Occupancy violations? Check. Possession? Check.) and bid my farewells around 1:30 am. QuietGuy was going out for a drive with a friend because he was"so mad" at his roommate for having this kind of party. I told him "Good luck, and lemme know if you need me to be the cranky old neighbor with the hockey stick to shoo the kids away from our front stoops."

I return to our apartment and get into bed. It was a warm night and so I opened the windows and put the fans on, just for a nice snuggly cool breeze. And about 10 minutes later, the back door slams and I hear a bunch of guys directly below my bedroom window whoopin' and hollerin. I raised the screen, poked my head out the window, and bellowed (really, it was more of a bellow, less of a scream), "GENTLEMEN. Please keep the party inside, I'm trying to get some sleep." They looked up, very surprised to hear someone yelling at them from two stories up. "Oh, sorry man, yeah okay," they all shuffle back inside. Piggy rolled over and said, "Maybe we should just shut the windows," to which my reply was, "Fuck that shit. I pay good money to live here, and I have more of a right to keep my windows open on a warm night than those asshats have to be outside being drunken idiots." Piggy mumbled what I thought was an agreement rolled over and went back to sleep.

Within the next 15 minutes I had to do this TWO more times, the last time involved a guy peeing against the house right next to our apartments, who I watched for a while, and just as he was getting done, but before the final spurt and zipup I startled him and his buddies with another "GENTLEMEN!!!!" and embarrassed him just enough. Thankfully, DNw/RC was out there too and I asked her to please keep the party INSIDE because it was loud, the pot smoke was wafting up into my bedroom window, and we were trying to get some sleep. She did, and I didn't hear from them again (aside from the constant *thump**thump*THUMPTHUMPTHUMP* of overzealous partygoers making a dash for the bathroom up the stairs). Eventually, around 2:30 or so I finally drifted off.

And that, dear readers, is how I became Old.

Sunbury Social Club

A visit with the in-laws, punctuated by downpours and a visit to the PA State Museum, where I saw the infamous Buffalo that haunted my husbands childhood, culminated with a Sunday luncheon at the Sunbury Social Club down by the river. I was completely unprepared for what, apparently, is a mid-Pennsylvanian social club.

One has to give the members of said social club credit for it appears to be a grassroots effort; such efforts are always commendable because the concept of community is eroding. However it also accounts for the 1960's time warp one seems to enter when visiting the Social Club. As with any good club there are rules for participating. Here is my stab at distilling them (gleaned from observation, as well as the menu):

1. Only members may sit at the bar and watch NASCAR.
2. Only members may purchase alcoholic drinks.
3. Soup will be served in styrofoam bowls and shall be self serve, cake comes with, and the burgers shall be bigger than your hand.
4. You shall wear blue/grey summer suits with tie and horn rimmed glasses, and you shall not look out of place.
5. Your mean age upon entering the dining room shall always be 75 or higher, regardless of your actual age.

They only had one waitress, who did her darndest to keep abreast of the serving (and did a might fine job of it for being 71). I think they only had one chef too, as it took a while for our food to get there. Inlaid stone guards the walls 3/4 of the way up, and a good part of the conversation was spent arguing the merits of said stone (it was agreed that the old metal poles in the middle of the room were better than the current stone pillars, they allowed for a wider vista across the dining room). It's the only place where I've had the coffee and nearly spit it out and no amount of cream or sugar could save it.When does coffee taste like stout? When it's served from the bottom of the pot at the Sunbury Social Club. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Hear: fans whirring gently || Feel: morose at the passing of an old friend || See: Cottonwood in full bloom || Cook: nil. || Hear: Joy! Lawnmowers and the smell of fresh cut grass on a 70degree day! || Go: stop at a local hangout