The Longest Day
Some things don’t go as planned.
The idea was to go out for a couple of drinks, to wind down and relax after a long day that included a trip to Portland and back for Stumptown Comics Festival. Everything started out exactly as planned. Enjoying some Newcastle, talking life and sports and politics with Timm and his friend Bill at the George & Dragon. the usual football (soccer for you Americans) crowd had thinned out after the game, but soon a different crowd started to filter in. Then flood in. The friendly neighborhood pub was soon filled to bursting with frat boys and sorority girls out on a pub crawl through Fremont. The Britpop soundtrack soon gave way to Gnarls Barkley and Modest Mouse, then AC/DC.
At some point, a trio of dudes (one who was returning to his native Denmark the next day) with curdled Irish Car Bombs joined the table, and proceeded to chug them and try to pick up some ladies. The ringleader of the group was actually pretty accomplished at this, and had soon dragged a handful of blonde college girls to the table. They didn’t stay too long, since the rest of us were busy talking about Scandinavia.
Our little cross cultural experience was fun, but we decided to pack it in and walk up the hill to our apartment around 11:00, just as the frat atmosphere was becoming too much. But we were thwarted in our plans when we ran into one of Timm’s co-workers and a posse of Portland kids who were visiting Seattle and going on their own little pub crawl. We somehow got dragged right back to the George & Dragon, and before we knew it, all but two of the Portland kids had left, and it was last call.
And what do you do with out-of-towners in Fremont at last call? Make a trip to the troll. And since you’re in the neighborhood of an ex, as was the case for one member of our little group, you might as well throw in a little doorbell ditch while you’re at it.
In most circumstances, that’s the point where you call it a night. Unless someone mentions food, of course, and then it’s basically required to take a trip to Beth’s. There’s a 30 minute wait, which means we got to hang out in the cramped, sauna-like gameroom in the back and play Gauntlet until out table was ready. Breakfast (I guess I can call it that, since it was around 3:00am at that point) was a round of eggs and hash browns for four of us, and a twelve egg omelette for adventurous number five, which was almost completely polished off in an impressive display of appetite.
We finally got back home at 4:00am, and despite having had several rounds of coffee at Beth’s, I managed to fall immediately into a deep sleep.
It only lasted about 4 hours though, so don’t ask me how I was able to summon up the energy to walk back down the hill and get my car from where I’d parked it near the George & Dragon this morning. Or how I had the energy to participate in a photo shoot this afternoon. It’s been a whirlwind of a weekend, with a bare minimum of sleep, but it’s been completely worth it. I feel physically tired, but mentally refreshed. And now I’m going to listen to Minneapolis by That Dog on repeat a few times and call it a night.
