Tag: bars

Late night, late morning

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Happy hour began at 5:30 PM last night and ended with me getting home at 1 AM. In between, we found ourselves at 2 bars, one in Pentagon Row, then other on 23rd street in Crystal City. I had more to drink than I intended, but I stopped drinking alcohol before we left the first bar and drank nothing but Sprite and water thereafter. When I finally got home, I drank an additional two thirds of a liter of water and I felt no deleterious after-effects. I did, however, sleep in this morning, staying in bed until a remarkable (for me) 10:30 AM.

It was a fun evening, but there is one problem with bars in Virginia and that is that they all allow smoking. Aside from the obvious health reasons, I hate this because your clothes wreak of smoke thereafter. And when you spend 6+ hours at said bars, your hair and skin also begin to smell of smoke. When I got home, I tossed my clothes in the laundry (I considered just finishing the job and burning them) and then got into the shower. When you are tired, it’s no fun getting into the shower but I did not want to go to bed smelling like smoke.

When I finally got up, I headed out to get some breakfast. I think I have some yard work to this weekend. The lawn is definitely going to need a mowing. I have other errands to run as well. Fortunately, it’s nice out today and for now, I think I’m going to sit out in the front yard and read for a while.

Spoodles and Jellyrolls

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Some rest. We watched a couple of episodes of Friends, including, ironically, the Chandler/Monica wedding episode. It was nice to be able to relax for a while and stay off your feet. Eventually we had to get up and ready for the evening.

Lisa made dinner reservations at Spoodles, which servces a Mediterranean cuisine. It’s an open kitchen which is kind of cool. Lisa and I shared a lamb kabob for an appetizer. I had a beef kabob for dinner and Lisa had a pasta dish which looked much better than what I got. We also shared creme brule for dessert.

After dinner we headed back down the boardwalk to Jellyrolls where we were meeting up with everyone else. Jellyrolls is a dueling piano bar where the crowd send requests to the piano players and then sings along. It was a smokey, but a lot of fun. We got there at about 10 PM. I got a text from Norm saying they’d be there at 10:30. Then another saying they’d be late. Norm and Vicky showed up sometime well after 11 PM. But AJ, Andy and a bunch of other people got there right around 11 PM. It was the first time I saw AJ since arriving, because he arrived earlier in the afternoon.

I sang quite a bit, and was worried that my voice would be gone the next day. But it really was fun. Lisa made a request for Norm and Vicky and announced they were getting married. The piano guys brought them up on stage and had them do some dancing and other stuff. It was funny.

I think we finally got out of there sometime after 1 AM, but I’m not sure exactly the time. Lisa and I walked back to the hotel (which was not far). I went to bed with the good feeling of knowing that I could actually sleep in the following morning because we didn’t have to be up early to do anything.

Smoke gets in your eyes

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We had a pretty big turn out at happy hour last night. We headed over to Dr. Dreamo’s around 5:30 PM and I ended up leaving at about 8 PM. I tried some kind of really bitter beer while I was there and I just didn’t like it. But at least I gave it a shot.

Since Dr. Dreamo’s is in Virginia, smoking is still allowed in bars and restaurants. Somehow, I managed to sit at the end of the table where everyone was smoke. I think that was part of the reason I left early. The smoke was beginning to make me feel sick. When I got home, I threw everything I was wearing into the washing machine (even my Yankees jacket) and took a shower to get the smell of smoke off of me. I felt better after that.

Friday night on Saturday morning

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If it wasn’t clear from my perfectly coherent post last night, we did not end up going to the Whitney museum. I left work around 2 PM and was first in line to board the sold-out 3 PM Acela to New York City. I sat in the Quiet Car, as usual. This time, I have no idea if it was really quiet or not. From the moment I sat down, until the train ducked under the Hudson River, I watched the first 7 episodes of Scrubs Season 3 on DVD. It made the 2 hours and 50 minutes fly by.

Jen, Jason and I met outside crowded Penn Station.

And just as an aside here, Penn Station was really crowded. Perhaps it was because for some people it’s a 3-day weekend. But whatever the reason, during the middle of the weekend rush hour commute, in the midst of a massive pedestrian intersection in the bowels of Penn Station is not the appropriate place for that young woman to be standing perfectly still, talking on her cell phone. That’s just wrong!

It was decided to skip the Whitney and to find a bar at which we could watch the Yankee game. We took the subway partway and then a cab the rest of the way to Jen and Jason’s place. We stopped there for 5 minutes and then headed down to Molly’s, a bar on the corner. We managed to get a good table, and proceeded to spend the next several hours there, eating, drinking, laughing, and watching the Yankee game. (Jen and I were also trying to figure out if this bar was, perhaps, the Bar that barmaidblog works at.) We left the bar in the 8th inning and watched the rest of the game from Jen and Jason’s apartment.

I watching a couple of episodes of Scrubs before I went to sleep (around midnight). I was up this morning before 8 AM and spent the time reading more of Andy Rooney’s Out of My Mind.

Aside from the Yankee game at 4 PM this afternoon, I am told we are going to some candy shop that Jen wants to visit. We also have dinner reservations at what is supposed to be a great BBQ place in Harlem. And tomorrow morning we are having brunch with Jon and Hollie.

That’s all for now. I need to shower. Jason is making breakfast and I am hungry!

Yankees down 2-1

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The Yankees just lost to Detroit and they are not down 2-1. I feel as thought I should care more, but after 2 Jaeger shots and a tequila shot (not to mention a couple of beers), I really don’t care at the moment. We watched most of the game at Molly’s, a bar nearby where Jen and Jason live.

jen_ashlock has had less to drink than both Jason and I (and Doug, who is drinking with us remotely) but she seems to be three sheets to the wind. In fact, she has disappeared, and I assume she has gone to bed.

It’s about time that I did the same.

Blues, Booze, & BBQ (not quite in that order)

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The day was supposed to start out with Jason and I going for a run in Central Park, but that didn’t happen. We were up a little late, and I had to meet strausmouse and rmstraus and their friends at 11:30 AM. So instead, we ran out for some bagels and cream cheese. While walking to the bagel place, I showed Jason how to use the handheld GPS which he and Jen and my Mom will be using next week when they drive from Boston to New Hampshire.

I met Eric and Ryane, and their friends Lena and Anthony outside their place on 95th. We then hopped on the 4 train to Yankee stadium. We had bleacher seats; I’d never sat in the bleachers at Yankee stadium before and I was surprised that the view was still good. I made the mistake of wearing a black shirt, however, and it was hot out there! We were in left-center and had a good view of the game. The bleachers are alcohol-free at Yankee stadium, but that didn’t prevent the people who sat around us from passing around bottles of this and that to pour into their drinks. (They had all come down to the stadium on a bus and at least one of their members was very drunk and in a pissy mood.) On the otherhand, they were all Yankees fans. And as it turned out, the Yankees won the game 5-2. All 5 of their runs were scored off 2 home runs in the second inning. We headed back after the game and decided to meet up later for dinner.

In the meantime, Jason and I headed to Central Park to get some exercise. We tossed around a baseball for a while, and were asked to play in a pickup game of softball that was forming, but we didn’t have enough time to commit to the game. We did manage to get in a good workout, however.

We all met for dinner at Brother Jimmy’s on 92nd and 3rd at around 7 PM. For the second night in a row, we ate at a place where everyone was ordering big hunks of beef (I had the ribs!). When it came Jason’s turn to order, I believe he got the catfish. But he held his ground and survived the peer-pressure of those (myself included) encouraging him to eat meat.

After dinner, we walked over to Mustang and somehow, Anthony managed to get us into the back room, where we had comfortable chairs and couches mostly to ourselves. We Eric and Anthony each ordered a flight of tequila for themselves. Jason and I shared a flight. They were sipping theirs but I couldn’t seem to get the hang of sipping. It all just seemed to go down, no matter how small a sip I tried to take. Once again, however, I limited myself to 2 shots. We spent a relaxing evening in that back room and finally headed back home sometime around midnight.

Lederhosen

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I got into New York City at around 6 PM after a rather boring train ride (although I did manage to proofread 33 pages of “Graveyard Shift”). I took a taxi from Penn station to Jen and Jason’s place and arrived out front just as Jason was getting home from work.

A friend of his was having a birthday celebration at a bar in the west village, so we headed downtown to a place called Lederhosen, a German bar/restaurant on a quiet block north of Bleecker.

It was really kind of amusing. Jen and Jason made this deal where they are going veggie for the month of August. So here we were at a German restaurant with half a dozen other people, who were ordering weiners, and sausage and all kinds of meats (I had meatballs). And Jason ordered some kind of smoked macrel or something.

Incidentally, I had my first ever shot of Jaeger at that bar. It tasted like cough syrup and I limited my participation to just the one.

We shared a cab ride home with one of Jason’s friends who was sloshed and who was, at the same time, hysterical.

A guy walks into a bar…

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Those of you reading this blog over the last several months are probably familiar with the tales of my recent adventures in going out for some drinks with friends. Each time, when the occassion suits, I attempt to test my limits to get an understanding of what I can handle and what I cannot.

Tonight, those limits were finally reached.

We all planned to celebrate our moving victory tonight, and so around 6 PM, Jen, Jason and I headed to Mustang on the corner of 85th and 2nd Avenue. We sat at the bar, and Jason and started off with house Margaritas, followed by a shot of tequila from their tequila bar. (Incidentally, credit goes to strausmouse for telling me about Mustang in the first place.)

About an hour later, Jenn, Tommy and Dean arrived, and we got a table and ordered dinner. (I had an excellent Mustang burger.) Along with dinner, I had 2 more large Margaritas as well as another shot of tequlia. It was a fun, animated dinner with everyone talking and eating and drinking, and we certainly did not want the night to end when the food did. So at about 9 PM, we moved ourselves directly across the street to Molly’s, where we got a table for six and sat down for more fun; it was also convenient because Tommy and I could watch the rain-delayed Yankees/Mets game.

The drinks continued to flow at Molly’s. First there were beers, of which I must have had about three. Interspersed with the beer was at least one more shot of tequila. And then the bar also bought us a few rounds of shots: Southern Comfort and lime. All told, I had 3 margaritas, 5 shots of various things, and 3 or 4 beers. Quantity-wise, it was not as much as I had in Cooperstown, but it was in a somewhat shorter period of time.

We finally left the bar sometime between 1 and 2 AM, after the Yanks had roundly defeated the Mets 16-6. Jenn, Tommy, and Dean headed back home, and Jen, Jason and I headed back up the street, trudged up the 61 steps to their apartment and collapsed onto some chairs amidst the clutter of boxes.

This is where it gets interesting.

I distinctly remember sitting in a chair, leaning forward, thinking about how Jen kept saying that I was going to get sick if I kept doing all those shots. But I drank so much water that I figured I nullified the bad effects. (By the end of the evening, it seemed that every glass of water at the table had ended up in front of me.) We were sitting around, deciding on whether or not to go to sleep, when, without warning, nausia, or any bad feelings, I leaned forward and threw up on Jen and Jason’s hardwood floors. It never occured to me to get up because I hadn’t felt in the least bit sick. After a moment of what I think was shock, Jen or Jason kicked an empty box in front of me and I made use of the box instead of the floor.

That was it for me. I got sick, I threw up, and I was done. I got on the phone and called Doug, who Jen and I had been texting all evening, to tell him the news. He had me on speaker phone and he thought it was all very funny. Then, while I was on the phone with him, and Jason was cleaning up the floor, I looked up to see Jason throwing up into the trash bag he was holding. It was a sympathy vomit, I think. Like something out of Stand By Me.

Jen, somehow, managed to avoid getting sick at all. After we cleaned everything up, we all went to sleep. But I learned a lot, and I had a good time too, and no real harm was done.