My first weekend back to Philly felt like a flashback from college. I was supposed to "not drink" or "not drink too much." Well, that didnt really happen. On Friday, a group of us started out at 19 for Happy Hour. Its a swank place on the 19th floor of the Bellevue Building filled with business men in suits, old ladies with too much gold on, and frilly drinks with red sugared rims. Not exactly my cup of tea but it has a great view and the 2 girly gin martinis hit the spot.
From there, a few of us headed to Chinatown for cheap Malaysian food. One great thing about Philly is its filled with awesome BYOB restaurants. You bring a bottle of wine (or in some cases Tequilla) you order cheap family style plates, you eat, drink, and leave merry. The 3 of us finished off a bottle of wine over the next hour and moved on.
An hour later, I am doing my best to sing David Bowie's "Dancing with Myself" at Yakitori boy in Chinatown. I may have nailed 3 or 4 words total. It was a horrible rendition. I wasnt really sure if we had drinks there, but Nathan said that I bought him 2 drinks which means I probably had 3. My older brother Bill showed up from NY as we were leaving. We spend the next 5 minutes arguing with 2 douchebags from NJ who wanted to fight. It was definitely close to a beatdown for all of us, but I settled the dispute. I had to go back in to close my tab and ended up in the elevator with 3 of the DBs. We made up and by the time we hit the 2nd floor, they asked me to go fight WITH them. I closed my tab and left before the main event started. I can guarantee someone got sucker punched or a bottle over the head that night.
My younger brother Ken was coming to pick us up but we had an hour to kill so Bill, Nathan and I headed to one of my old favorite spots for the 2 dollar special. That includes a watered down shot of Jim Beam and a can of PBR. 2 specials each later, Ken was outside. He picked us up, dropped Nathan off, and drove us back to NJ. We ended up stopping at a local hick/biker/old high school bar in NJ. Some dude runs up and is like "Hey buddy, how are you" with great excitement. I had no clue who it was and still dont remember after he told me his name 5 times. We ended up staying until closing and I forgot about the whole night...most importantly, the "no drinking" concept.
The next night, Ken and I headed to Atlantic City for a midnight poker tournament at Harrahs. To make a long story short, we both lost and got home at about 4:30 AM. We ate pizza at my parents house and passed out at about 5:30. The bright side - no drinks. My grandparents came into town the night before and we had plans for a diner breakfast at 7:30. I slept for an hour and half and jumped right up. Its amazing how much more energy you have if you dont down random alcohol all night. I headed to the diner feeling great.
My grandmother has dimensia and alzheimers and really has no clue what she is saying half of the time. I sat her between myself and Bill since we seem to have the most patience. She started with her usual end of the world stories, the trailer she bought in Florida which was meant to be a "girls house", the meteor that hit her house and bounced into the ocean, and how she saw the sun bleeding in the sky. Ive hear each of those stories a million times but nothing prepared me for what was next. I will start with saying her name is Louise. Im in the middle of spooning some eggs and scrapple in my mouth when she leans in and says... "No sex for Louise in 10 years, all he wants is blowjobs." Lets hope she was talking about my grandfather.
When Im 80 and crazy, I hope Im still getting some action too.
