Two pizzas walk into a bar...

My motto on friendship: A good friend is someone you call when you are in jail...a best friend is in the next cell over saying, "Damn that was fun!"

And so it begins.

It is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and Mav and I can not believe we are actually in town. It is her birthday weekend after all. But after the debacle of last Memorial Day, it really isn't that bad - this being in town business. And since her and Morgan are "working from home" in some wireless environment that wasn't a bar, and I was "slaving" away at the office catching up on the music blogs and zines, it was only a matter of seconds until the three of us jumpstarted the three day weekend.

So Mav, Morgan and I settle into the glorious summer day on a deck with a grill (insert Miami joke here) and like a gazillion beers. I know, settle if we must. After all this consumption of food and I should pause right here to give that a mention. Mav WAS the grillmaster of some lovely kebabs - steak AND chicken, veggies, corn on the cob and various sausages (andouille, hot AND sweet italian). The food being swished down with the beers. But somewhere between beer number 1 and 20 (I'm not sure where as calculations were not being kept and none of us are accountants), things took a turn for the worse, as Mav suddenly found herself hanging off the deck writhing in the pain of what could only be alien babies taking over her stomach because her stomach was giving her that sign - the one that closes up shop and says, "Enough, bitch! Get this shit out of here." Except the shit - or the alien babies - whatever was terrorizing her stomach -was having a little problem finding a new home, which Mav was choosing to be a pile of leaves - her hanging off the deck, just inches from the citronella tiki lanterns.

Those buggers in her belly needed some coaxing along. Our dear friend was in pain! So good friends that we were, we each took turns holding Mav's hair back as we concocted the following story to help her along to feeling better.

So in the name of releasing alien babies, this story was born, as told by Me, Morgan and (enter stage left) Diamond who had just returned with a bottle of Moet, a birthday cake and three iPod shuffles for the gals. Best housewarming gift ever? Oh, that's right, it is his house. How about - best boyfriend/fiance ever! (Seriously awesome, Diamond!)

The Perfect Storm (Or I Licked The Tongs)

Two pizzas walk into a bar. (And not just any bar, it's Jay's Elbow Room.) Meat Lover Pizza says to Anchovy Pizza, "J'u wanna pizza me?" And Anchovy P. responds, "I'll slice you a new one, Meat Head!"

The Pizzas could go on all day talking like this, this was their song and dance. But today was unlike no other because just when Sausage, the bartender (Hot Italian) - pipes into the bad joke gone awry with, "I'll blow a casing if you guys don't stuff it!" a Raw Chicken Breast Cutlet walks into the bar and saddles up in between the two pizzas rubbing against them as breasts will do. One could say she might be flirting. Others might call her "easy." Hot Italian Sausage Bartender offers them up a round of shots. That dirty fella - Anchovy P. - wants the Buttery Nipple and Meat Lover wants the Three Kings. So two shots they do.

The Breast gets on top of the bar top and does the chicken dance to nobody's interest but Mr. Peanut from the peanut bowl. Then the Marlboro Man rides in on...a horse? A Harley (on account of Memorial Day in DC)? No - he chooses a dirty ashtray as his magic carpet ride. And he rides into the Elbow Room in a cloud of smoke as only the Marlboro Man can do. He looks around the Elbow Room and then flicks his lit cigarette which gets embedded in the breast that is the raw chicken which slowly cooks her to...a Southern. Fried. Chick. Which, incidently, cures the dirty whore of any disease she was walking around with.

But the Salmonella is out there. The Pizzas and her didn't use protection and certainly didn't wash up afterwards. And Raw Chicken really got around this evening in the Elbow Room. At this point, the pizzas are not feeling so hot as Salmonella has opened up a Disco ontop of Meat Lover Pizza and a Third World Country on Anchovy P.

But now Chicken Breast is Smoking Hot. This is when the illegal immigrant working in the back of the Elbow Room - Del Taco - decides to get him some of that Breast now that she's all warmed up. Only he has no arms and no legs, him being a taco. So he pours a stream of tequila on which he slides into the Elbow Room. Southern Fried Chick jumps off the bar, excited for her third drink of the evening, swims into the tequila, and slides into the fold of the taco. The cigarette butt still stashed in her breast.

While a disco inferno is brewing on the pizzas and Marlboro Man is pulsating to the beat of the disco music in his dirty ashtray, Sean Connery walks into the bar. He is hungry and sees the taco and takes a bite. A bite that has the lit cigarette.

Well, the combination that is the Hotness of Sean Connery (we had to scratch Louie Anderson for this very important plot development) and the burning butt caused Sean's head to BLOW RIGHT OFF. But he is still hungry so a headless Sean Connery sits on the Pizzas. Hot Italian Sausage has backed into the corner - he doesn't want to be anywhere near that region, even if it is Sean Connery. He takes off for the Sausage Factory. Mr. Peanut, dancing across the bartop, ditches his cane and heads for the Peanut Gallery. And the Marlboro Man goes up in a puff of smoke - the Big C finally taking him over and leaving tobacco lobbyists without a job.

End scene: It's closing time in Jay's Elbow Room and Jay sweeps up the reamins of the day....sausage bits, pizza crusts, taco shells, peanut shells, and the town drunk with no head (little does Jay know he has a movie star in his dust pan). To Jay, it's just another day in the life of the Elbow Room...

The end.

An hour and half later, the story came to a close, but not until Mav had finally released a stomach's worth of discontent all over the back yard. More fodder for the dust pan at Closing Time. The story was a successful means to that end, Dear Friend.

The Hills Are Alive So Talk Dirty To Me

Whose idea was the karaoke last night?

Between Yukkell getting married, Operation Die Circus Tent, and dodging the Red Barron et al in my quest to be oh-so-mysterious (another blog post that needs more material first), I was ready to let loose. Apparently.

It all started innocently enough: margherita pizza, nice dinner salads, and a carafe of wine (not to mention the hefty glass I had before I ventured out to dinner) and then my dining companion, Dear Prudence suggests, “Let’s stop by [insert my favorite neighborhood bar here and no, its not Kittys]. Its karaoke night.” I thought this might be fun to watch. Ain’t no way I’m participating.

The extent of my singing career consists of me and my bestie friend, Martini, back in high school, cruising A1A and the neighborhoods off, windows down, music turned off, belting out - and I mean belting out - The Sound of Music in it entirety. It became a ritual. If someone made the cue to kill the music and roll down the window, you know that you had to step up and give your best, "The hills are alive...." We were pretty serious about it. We emoted hard on that song. And we'd start over if our voice cracked or we broke into laughter. There was lots of starting over so I said we sang it in its entirety but we never got that far. But our heart was in the right place.

But then I recall the couple weeks back in February or March when Mav and I accompanied the lovely Morgan - who, by the way, is a Singing Machine meaning she is actually GOOD - on some karaoke adventures. Why didn’t anyone blog about that? Probably because I woke up the next morning and said, “Wait?! I sang THAT? Why?! And who thought that was a good idea?” Mav. The instigator. Or so I thought. Apparently you get a few cocktails in me and I think I am Celine Dion. Or I just think I am much cuter than I am. And then I like to bop around on stage.

Therefore it doesn’t take much to drag me up there. Because the next thing you know, two miller lites into the bar and I was up on stage with a complete stranger belting out, “Talk Dirty To Me.”

I had fun last night. All it took was miller lites and a little dirty talk.

Who knew I was THAT easy?

On Love, Religion, And Water Bottles

I am pretty sure you never discuss religion on a first date. And I am pretty sure you never discuss religion after twenty-some beers. I'm also pretty sure you never discuss religion at 4 AM. As my dad used to say, "Nothing good happens at 4 AM. " So I am pretty sure if all of these scenarios coincide, nothing good can come of it. In fact, all hell might break loose. You know, if you believe in heaven and hell.

Now I'm not religous so this isn't a diatribe on religion. This is nothing more than a silly love story, with a little bit of violence - of the Pulp Fiction kind, not the gratuitious Terminator kind, mind you. So girls can bring their guys to watch this chick flick!

Mav and I went to the beach house last weekend and took along Dear Prudence - of plumber fame. (I'm sure she loves that endorsement!) The weekend was off to a great start Friday as we lunched on Nico Bolis and a couple pitchers. We also got some beach time where we got to watch Napolean and Pedro build a sand castle. Such love the kids gave each other. But that's another story. Oh, and the fact that they were "affiliated" with our house is a whole other story that can not be squeezed into my love story.

On Friday night we put our jeans and flip flops on and hit the bar. As I was doing my tour of all the bars (within the larger bar) looking for a coosie (how do you spell that by the way?), I had a moment. Aren't "they" always saying, "There she goes again. Boa falls in and out of love every weekend at the beach." And they would be right. But as I was standing shoulder to shoulder with a guy on my right, we both turned at the same time. Locked eyes. And of course I did my standard smooth move, I ran away. But I still recognize that as a "moment."

A couple minutes later Mav is informing me that "love of my life" is here. Here! I got excited for like 10 seconds until I remembered how that played out. What do they say? The opposite of love is indifference? Yeah, well I was indifferent.

"I don't care about him. But let's go say hi."

So we went over and said "hi." He and I exchanged a few pleasantries, "Do you still work at XYZ?" "You haven't moved back to CA yet?" "Did you lose my number?" ....And then I looked over to the person next to him and there He was. My first crush of the summer, "Love of my life's" best friend (hereinafter called BF), the guy I just had the moment with! Eek. I remember him from last year now. But why did I not see him until just now?

So we had another moment right there. It is like nobody else is around and you don't need to say anything and we probably stood like that for like 30 minutes. Or it could have been.

So I had to get away from them because the love was no longer there for "love of my life" but I couldn't go with the best friend? Or could I? He kept following me around. Everytime I turned he was handing me a beer. He pulls me in to dance with him. And that look in his eyes suckered me in. The moment.

So Friday night Mav, me, and Dear Prudence split up. We all had our romance to chase. Mav with the smallest "chip" of the bunch. Dear Prudence with her myriad of men, I seriously lost track which one she was with.

Needless to say, we met up with the boys Saturday afternoon for a little Jam. I was so over being uncomfortable with the dynamic. I purred as I talked to the BF that afternoon and listened to the band. Yep. 100% smitten. It's been awhile. I deserve it.

Now fast forward to Saturday night after a long day. It's just me, the BF, love of my life, Dear Prudence, Mav, and The Sleeper sitting around the patio table. Oh, and Lex Luther. Who nobody knew. He was just some guy walking by who joined the party. We are appraching 4 AM.

What do grown-up professionals who had been drinking all day at the beach do at 4 AM? Pop open their lap top? Take an Advil? GO TO SLEEP? No, they play Spin the Bottle and I Never. And drink more beer. After a few hours of this (which is actually now 4 AM) we carry the conversation to more lofty things like....religion.

This is where our love story reaches a crescendo. In hindsight, I should have interrupted the discourse with my lovely joke about the pizza.

But then we wouldn't have had this:

Mav: I am going to raise my kids Catholic because that is how I was raised and that is what I identify with.
The BF: Why do you identify with it?
Mav: I believe in the 10 Commandments.
Boa: [Quiety thinking of all the ways Mav has broken the 10 commandments over and over. But think better about calling hypocrite because I see her point.]
The BF: That's a civil code.
Boa: Ahh, he is cute and smart too!
Mav: That is what Christianity is based on!
[Voices are getting much louder. Much.]
The BF: Oh and I guess you are going to say that you believe the world was created in 10 days too!

From here on out the yelling is quite blurry. But it could have gone something like this:

Mav: I didn't say that.
BF: Yes you did.
Mav: Shut up.
BF: No you.
Mav: You're a poopeyhead.
The BF: Welll your a doo-doo.
Boa: [giggle, giggle]

And here is where Mav decides that actions will speak much larger than words. I like to call it performance art. Mav was acting out. Because she dramatically jumped on top of the table and whacked the BF upside the head with an empty water bottle. Just like that. Some people might sit in a tree for 10 days to GET THEIR POINT ACROSS. As if to say, "listen to me." But Mav dialed into the Bronx and raged.

And if the water bottle action wasn't enough, she came back to backhand all of the 40 beer cans sitting on the picnic table - backhanded them with one swoosh - right into the corner that the BF was now cowered in. And kicked him out of the house.

Mind you I am silent through all this. Frankly, didn't know what to do and seriously I am the daisy in the barrel of the gun. Can't we all just get along?

But The BF turned to me and wistfully said, "I'm so sorry Lara." I'd like to think there was a tear shed. And just like that I knew this was the end of this love story. We weren't going to make it after all. That water bottle would have always been in the way. In the name of God.

We Were Not In On The Joke

Where did I leave things? Oh yeesss....the vacation.

Do you think I was:

A) Lying in the sun
B) Being served drinks poolside
C) Falling in love every single day
D) None of the above

The correct answer would be "D." And if you answered this correctly, you were in on the joke.

And if I were to start at the beginning of the story....

I awoke on the early side of Wednesday morning to catch a 7 AM flight. I groggily pulled my shit together and got on an airline that I had never been on before. And admitedly never heard of. I relied on Mav's mad booking skills to get us a dealio.

Once I am on the plane and look around I half expected Spike Lee to jump out of the director's chair and yell, "Cut!" It was a scene of the pants belted down below the ass. The baseball caps on crooked. The swagger. The girls squeezing into too-tight, too-small, too-short clothing encased like sausages. I was the token white chick in this Spike Lee cinematic feature. So I brought out my iPod and put on my white girl music.

Once I arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport where Mav and I were meeting up I had to ask her, half-jokingly, "What kind of ghetto airline did you book me on?" She didn't understand because she flew out earlier in the week for business. Apparently everyone on her flight had their pants pulled up and their baseball caps on straight.

This should have been Clue #1.

We grab a shuttle to our hotel. We even chat up with some nice local girl who gave us tips on what bars to go to. Thanks nice girl! And we are two giddy girls thinking, "This trip is going to be fun! Wee!"

We walk into our hotel and it is - again - a ghetto scene. Spike Lee is following me?

This should have been Clue #2.

We settle the room debacle at the front desk because the clerk only reads what's in her computer and when there are two identical reservations she goes on the blink. We rebooted her and all worked perfectly. We get to our hotel room and The Count has sent us a bottle of Cristal to partake on Mav's birthday. This bottle will - appropriately - loom large over the weekend as "the Cris."

This should have been Clue #3.

Since the sun is not out we head out to "sight see" but not before we make ourselves a big helping of Sapphire and Soda in a to-go cup. Waiting for the elevator we chat up a fellow hotel guest. A Spike Lee extra. He had a grill* with his name inscribed in each tooth. t-y-r-o-n-e.

We asked him where he was from? And he slanged out, "Na-uhsh-villlle." Followed up with, "It's great down here and I didn't even know there was no beach here!"

The way he said it was like he was just given a buy-one-get-one-free deal. BOGO. It is catchy.

Yet we thought nothing of this urban denizen holding his pants up but not too much so you could get a nice helping of the boxers in view. These crazy kid's style! Spike Lee, where is Wardrobe?

This should have been Clue #4.

We ventured out down the pier to walk into South Beach. At every pier corner there were hip hoppers staking out their corners. It was a friendly pier-corner-type loitering. Spike Lee left the violence at the door.

This should have been Clue #5.

So that night we feasted on the best steak of my life at a gentlemen's steak house. Dark paneling. Cigars. Men with credit. Surprisingly no hip hoppers. Spike let us out of character for the night.

And so for that night we forgot about the weird Twilight Zone we had passed through over the course of the day. The crowd here looked respectable so we sat at the bar, of course, so we could meet and chat up our neighbors. And that we did. Some nice CIA and/or FBI gentlemen. Locals. One happend to be a hotty and when he asked for my phone number, I gave him my work phone number. Who does that? Stupid Me does. But Mav is savvy enough and passed out her cell to one of the gentlemen.

When they called the next night to ask us over for a barbecue I mouthed to Mav, "Say no." See, what I was thinking was that we don't want to tie ourselves down to the first guys we meet here. No on our first night. We still have 4 more days! Let's go out tonight and meet some others!

It's that always-looking-for-something-better deal or let-me-just-see-what-else-is-around-the-corner - that the guys do anyway.

This is when Karma bit us in the ass big-time. Because there was not going to be anything remotely akin to meeting anybody "better." Because this is when we learned the big secret.

To my dismay we were not in a Spike Lee movie. We were in the midst of "Hip Hop Weekend." Every Memorial Day - apparently - South Beach shuts down. The locals leave and Lindsey Lohan certainly doesn't show up. Have you seen how pasty that girl is?

The hot spots that are usually The Place To Be, were dead to all in the world but two silly little girls looking for a good time. We stayed away from the clubs. Not into that scene. We dined rather well. Reservations weren't really necesarry. The bartenders and waiters and waitresses chatted us up usually starting the conversation with, "What are you girls doing in town?"

My best response for this?

"We were not in on the joke."

I failed to mention throughout this timeline that it is STILL RAINING! So sunbathing was out of the question DURING THE WHOLE FIVE DAYS too. (Well, there was one window of opportunity on Saturday.) And our hotel - in character - was ghetto as we had no hotel bar so each day was an adventure. The challenge of finding a bar to saddle up to. We met a bunch of interesting characters. The Judge and his mistress. Even the one 22-year old puppy dog who wanted to ditch her friends - who were down for Hip Hop Weekend - and hang with us because, "..ohmygod, I can't believe you guys are in your 30's - you are so cool [we were walking around with our gin flasks] - and you guys look so great too [like you let yourself go in your 30's]."

In the end, I needed the proverbial 'vacation from my vacation.' But, oh yeah, I still had to move.....

*Spike Lee says your teeth are called grills.

Line Dancing

"Don't stand in line!" -- Ian MacKaye, Al Jourgensen (as Pailhead)

Mav and I don't wait in lines. We like to call it "bucking the system."

I don't remember when it started but I remember a fine show of it. St Patrick's Day 2006. We walked over to an Irish bar - I say "a(n)" because there are about 564 of them in my neighborhood now. And all 564 of them had lines with about 564 people in them. So we decided to go next door and eat mexican food because the Mexican aren't Irish so NOBODY was home. I ask, are we original or unoriginal?

After margaritas sans green, we had the fuel to power through the line and so we walked up to two random guys towards the front of the line. And I say "we" because it was really Mav's doing. All I could think was, "Who is going to beat me up for "cutting"?" I was momentarily transported to 3rd grade and Huston was tugging on my braids as he always stood behind me in line (or I always cut in front of him). And then he would act like he didn't do it. And I'd be all coy about it. That might be when I first learned how to flirt with the boys. Anyways, snap back to 2006, nobody is tugging at my hair so we succeeded with the line cutting....And then, you know, with it being St. Patrick's Day, the Irish bar is allowed to have a cover charge. Mark-ups. Hate them. Well, we must have been walking high on power because we walked right by that Money Taker like we were royalty and, well, it worked. Nobody chased us down.

Then after boredom at that bar, we ventured over to another bar of a non-Irish denomination. It's A-muhr-a-kah afterall. And, well, the drunks were out because there was a line there. This time, all it took was a phone call to a friend inside who kind of "owns" the bar. (And by "own" I only mean he spends 564 days of the year there thus giving them about 564 dollars a day (and this is where I am - seriously - not exaggerating) and so he is kind of like a preferred customer and can call some shots or something like that, one of which is pulling pretty ladies out of line.)

Thus, we spent St. Patrick's Day in no lines. I'll wait while you do an Irish jig.

And so, this past weekend we worked our Line Cutting magic again as we went to Gold Cup. For those not in the know, Gold Cup is steeplechase horse races but that is peripheral to what the day actually is. It entails showing up at a bar at 9 AM. Drinking. Hopping a 45-minute bus ride to The Plains while drinking. Spending the whole day drinking. Trying not to miss bus ride home drinking. Back to the bar drinking. Rinse lather repeat. If you really feel it necessary. It's your liver.

So we bellied up to the bar, partook in some bloody marys and then filled up our jugs of beer in take-home jars. Finally, a to-go cup! And I'm not in the South! We got our cups, our jug and lo and behold. A line! Long lines of people just standing there waiting to get on the buses. About 564 people's worth. So Mav and I were having none of that. We sauntered to one of the buses with the door open and plopped our fannies there. And seriously thought, "Why is nobody doing this?" We watched out the window as people shivered in the early morning breeze, dew forming on their limbs. The bus driver eventually came on cranked up some country tunes and then - I think a little embarrased because he was probably 564 seconds away from boot-scootin' boogeying - noticed us in his rear view mirror with a chuckle.

So we sat there for another 5 minutes in the company of the bus driver and country music until they loaded the bus with the Line Waiters.

And that is how we line dance.

Dear Diary: You Had To Be There

Memorial Day Weekend 2005...The kickstart to a summer of Fun.
1 Beach House + 11 House Mates + 11 Cases of Beer + 4 Days + 4 IPods + 4 Bars Within Walking Distance = A GoshDarn Good Time

It is hard to describe it and I tend to shy away from giving a play-by-play diary recap of my weekend doings because, frankly, I'm sure you care. There were just so many hilarious moments of the weekend that tend to be of the you-had-to-be-there variety. Really. Case in point: At one point over the weekend, I was making eye contact with a cute boy. Mav and Goose were both talking to boys. I thought of something and shared it with Mav, Mav told Goose, and then the three of us were literally doubled-over with laughter. The something I said could only be funny to the three of us because it had to do with an inside joke we had working all weekend long that NEVER got old. Never. The inside joke came about kind of piecemail - everything that happened or that we encountered kind of contributed to it - and it stuck.

So now the evidence of the Not Funny. The cute boy took this as his opportunity - us sprawled together cracking up - to move in.

Cute Boy: What is so funny?
Me: {chuckle, snort, chuckle}
Cute Boy: You just made these girls crack up? What is so funny?
Me: I said - {chuckle, gasp} - I said - Wait! - You really won't think this is funny. Trust me.
Cute Boy: Try me.
Me: OK. So, I told my "mom" that I feel like the stepchild of the family and blah-blah-blah (Note to readers: trust me on this, not funny to you so edited to spare you.)
Cute Boy: ????
Me: And- (And he is not laughing.)
Cute Boy: Yeah. That wasn't funny. {Turns away, then turns back.} Oh, and tell that guy standing behind your friend to turn his collar down.
{Once Cute Boy turns and walks away into the darkness. His switch went out but he just set off another lightbulb of hilarity in my head. Time to share with the girls!}
Me (turning to Mav and Goose to tell them what he said because if only he knew how funny that was because he just touched on another inside joke): He said...
Me, Mav, and Goose: {Doubled-over yet again in laughter while the Guy With The Collar Up is still standing behind Mav}

Once Cute Boy became a contributor. And this is really how the weekend went. Funny on the inside, but probably not funny on the outside. The Unfunny will be our Funny. You may just shrug your shoulders and walk away too. But the Guy With The Collar Up Who Keeps Standing Behind Mav is gone now, so let's go with this...

The Car Drive Down, Friday. With my old friend, Mav, and my new friend, Goose. Just three girls zipping east in a shiny, pretty car, packed to the floorboard and ceiling, trunk to front seat, in beach towels, coolers of beers, beach chairs, and stereo equipment, while listening to Mav's Playlist in which she streamed the best party tunes a girl could want. The weekend was off to a good start. I love these gals.

The Bay Bridge. Poor Goose can not drive over the Bay Bridge. She is embarrassed about this but I don't think she should be. I am not afraid of heights and I find the Bay Bridge terrifying. My dad would never drive over it, so I understand it. Mav drove then. Goose in the backseat with a pillow over her face: "Is it over yet?" Me and Mav in the calming voice, "Almost over, honey. Hang in there." Until...the car accident that we just missed involving a PT Cruiser and a golf cart. Yes, a golf cart. How fast do those things go? So we were temporarily held up at the top of the bridge. We eventually made it over and Goose survived. We were ready for the Double Arches now.

The KMart KeyMaker, The KMart Gift Card, And The KMart Bathing Suit. Two trips to the Big K over the weekend. One to get keys made by someone who may or may not have worked there and another to return said keys. Because they DIDN'T WORK. So the return amounted in a lovely $44.80 gift card to which Goose replied to the Customer Service rep in her sweetest, "motherly" voice, "Oh, honey, I'm not coming back here." The girl has never been in a KMart before. Do they even have any in DC? Also in KMart, Mav was able to score a "delightful", shimmery, flourescent, turn-the-lights-down, day-glo, glistening and blinding and - you get the picture - swimsuit because she packed for the BEACH and went to the BEACH with NO SWIMSUIT. In the store, we were like, "Oh, that's cute, that'll do." On the beach the next day, we were like, "Damn, what were you thinking buying that thing? Who told you that looked cute?" Friends. That red bathing suit then became a House fashion show staple, modeled by Goose over her lovely Soccor Mom sweathsirt.

The Crazy Old Lady Who Lives Out Back With The Big Beautiful House That Semi-Blocks Our View. She's crazy. Bipolar maybe. Or drunk. Or sad. Crazy Old Lady likes to come out back and yell up at our deck while it is still light out about how we need to get to the bars and she will call the cops on us because our voices are too loud and our laughs are too much. The next day she was all sunshine in her conversation with us, asking how our night was. It was like the movie Groundhog Day because we witnessed the same conversation and the same Crazy every night.

Backyard Entertainment. Some in the house got to witness Crazy Old Lady's Late Night Drunken Gentleman Caller banging on her door, "Leett mmee iinn!! I wwoonnn'ttt ddiissaappppooiinntt youuuu!" That plea was repeated all weekend long. It never got old.

A Dog Named Fu Manchu AKA Fu. Crazy Old Lady's dog. We have photo evidence of the Crazy Old Lady screaming up at our balcony in her mumu and poor little Fu looking the other way as if to say, "Who is this Crazy Old Lady? I don't know her. Send help." Goose promises to kidnap Fu by the end of summer and have Fu drive over the Bay Bridge for her because he the Little Dog AKA Fu.

A Game Called Dance Moves. That never got old either. It involved lot of butt-shaking and The Pants Dance and The Ear Muffs. And lots of forgetting of who's move was whose.

House Underwear. Emblazoned with the logo, "Open 24 Hours." The best 99 cents I ever spent. Worn over clothing by many people in the house. Mav even wore them out in public under the Red KMart Bathing Suit and over gray yoga pants. Fashion Maverick, that girl.

The Photo Ops. Many, many photos of the sleeping posing with various objects, including lit cigarettes, stacks and stacks of beer bottles, Soy Chips bags, hats, and the blow-up swordfish that turned into the Where's Waldo of the weekend because he showed up in many pictures. His home is now above the mantel because he was hooked and blown up for our very own house. It's a 20-pounder, I tell ya!

Trashy Beach Reading. Including an article from Cosmo about the "new" "positions" you just must try. Notably one involving a Krispy Creme donut. Donut on a stick, anyone? And one involving saran wrap and humming. I'm guessing they don't mean humming something like, "Cuts Like A Knife" or "The First Cut Is The Deepest." Others involved a lot of right to left, no left to left to right, leg to knee to shoulder, then flip and then stand at a 35 degree angle. And don't breathe. You would need cue cards to follow along.

Random Characters. Remember the "it's Brad Pitt in disguise" story that ran about a year ago where it was supposedly him with the long hair, hat, straggly beard in cognito? Well That Guy was at the beach. Except he really wasn't That Guy. There was also the guy in the British flag skivvies, strutting his stuff, not shy in the least. Also, the Big Burly Branded Black Guy who told Goose he would do her all night long any way she wanted. And, the Guy With The Cracked Head, who took a dive over the ledge into the water and cracked his head open on the rocks. Owww.

Words Of The Day. It's "delightful." "What a delight it is to still smell your scent on my clothes." "Outstanding." "He's a Fu." "Holla(back)." And finally, "I hate people."

Hooch, My Weekend Boyfriend. {Sigh} Good kisser. I think he was cute. Doctor. Phone number demander. He will never call.

Road Rage On The Car Ride Home. The crazy family of four that would not let us in at a merge, the father grimacing all stone-faced shaking his fist in the air, the two daughters in the backseat flicking us off, and the mother all Mrs. Cleaver there-there-family about it. So we took photos.

Bed At 8:00 On Monday Night.

See? Wish you were there.

Plump Up The Volume

One of the best things my brother ever did was marry who he did.

It was a fast courtship. It was also a long distance one. So when you are talking on the phone every night for hours and living hundreds of miles away, what do you do? You get married! Or rather, you elope to a very far away land where nobody will know you. And that is what they did. They hitched their fingers together and jumped to Italy - just the two of them. The pictures sure were pretty. And when they got back, the fun didn't stop! They got married by a justice of the peace to make sure it was legal in the eyes of America. They also did a church ceremony to make sure it was sacred in the eyes of the Lord. And they had receptions everywhere, with this part of the family, then that part of the family. It was a matrimonial whirlwind really. So when you ask me when their anniversary is - I just don't know. My head hurts trying to do the math.

But they did things their way. And it worked. They produced two of the three most beautiful children nearest and dearest to me. They love each other. Very much. Or they are very good actors.

I remember the first time I got to meet my new sister. Mom and Dad had already met her and loved her. But my first time meeting was going to be as sister-in-law. So I had to like her because she was here to stay and I couldn't give my little brother shit about it. So, in my mind, I was going to try my best to like her regardless.

Turns out I didn't have to try, I just did. She was so likable. Easy-going. Warm. Vivacious. Sweet. I felt like I had known her forever. We jumped right into conversation like one we had been carrying on for centuries. I loved her instantly.

She has fabulous taste. She is a great decorator, a terrific cook, and a devoted mom, daughter, sister, wife.

But you know what my favorite thing about her is? She is older than me - by 19 days. So she checks out the age before me. She dips her foot into the water. Shakes it off. Then we hold our breath and dive in together.

While we are not quite at the "39 and Holding," "40 is the New 30," or "I Don't Get ID'd Anymore" age yet, we are creeping up on it. We regularly bemoan our aging bodies and how we have to work harder at it. So this year we need a plan. And I think we found it. Cosmetic trickery! The Lip Plumper! They say it will smooth the wrinkles and create a mild "swelling of the lip tissue" and it doesn't involve painful injections. It's genius really. Because every aging beauty needs big lips. Yes, we are starting small on the body beautification. Baby steps. Next year - maybe Crest Whitestrips?

Pucker up, Gina!
Happy Birthday, girlie!