A Weekend Of Adventure!

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Yow. This weekend was a whirlwind of adventure. I had assumed it would start with citizenx arriving for the weekend, but I was mistaken. It started earlier in the day when I got a text message saying Les and Rachael showed up on Brian's doorstep. It then proceeded to get more weird when a later text message said “We are at the Brazen Beane. Brandon just married Les & Rachael and we are having cocktails.”

So, yes–this weekend was fun and exciting. It was great to finally meet Mr. X. I was a little nervous beforehand, seeing as someone I had never actually met was going to be staying at the house over the weekend–but that anxiety quickly disappeared. He is just as cool in-person as he is online. It will be fun to have him back at some point in the future — either for visits or if he decides to actually move here (*hint*hint*). 🙂

After a train trip from the airport to the house, he dropped off his stuff and hopped a bus to meet up with the wedding party. Upon arrival, they were mulling around outside. It seems the $3 martinis do not flow like water, but trickle dry when happy hour is over. We terrorized a record store (where Brian picked up some Dokken, Ratt, and Cyndi Lauper–all on vinyl) and went to a hipster bar next to Cinema 21 for food and more drinkering (meeting up with Kim in the process). This was followed by a hotel check-in, a narrowly missed parking ticket, some changing, and a walk to The Fez for some 80's music action.

The Fez…ahhh…The Fez. Something has been “off” with them the last few times I have been there. On Friday, we got there early enough for it to be, quite literally, a ghost town. The music had not started and the lower bar was empty and unstaffed. When things finally picked up, we got some of the worst 80's music of all time interspersed with some more of the worst 80's music of all time. It would have been less painful to have the DJ play BC's Dokken album straight through. The crowd seemed a bit different, too. More hipsters, I believe. The company was great, though, and by purchasing drinks for our group in a round-robin fashion, the drinks once again flowed like water. Later, we headed to The Roxy (in answer to Citizen X's question from the other day: according to CitySearch, The Roxy is open 24/7) for food and such. When you order coffee, they serve their milk out of baby bottles. Walks home, across the bridge, are much more fun with company.

Saturday started with the obligatory trips to Saturday Market and Powell's. In keeping with my tradition (addiction?) of not being able to leave Powell's without getting something, I picked up the first volume of the Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver. It looks like it is either connected or a straight-up prequel to Cryptonomicon, which I really liked for mixing modern and historical fiction. I should really like the Baroque Cycle series, as it is science (scientific?) fiction that takes place in a time period I enjoy a bit more than WWII. A trip home and a lasagna later, we found ourselves at Kim's party.

Now, I must pause to proclaim how cool the game Apples to Apples is. You basically get two decks of cards: one containing adjectives (smart, pretty, evil, dorky, sexy, etc.) and one containing nouns (Hitler, my job, black holes, Brad Pitt, Emily Dickinson, etc.) The dealer takes an adjective card, puts it on the table, and the rest of the players put down a noun card from their hand that they think most closely matches. The dealer then arbitrates who wins the hand. Very nice for parties. Very nice for drunken parties.

The night wound down with another game: someone picks a subject and letter, then each person around the room has to come up with something new in that subject that starts with the letter. Bands/band-members with the letter “S” just went 'round and 'round and 'round. I was rather quickly disqualified (iPod!) [The big funny there is that aside from a bunch of “Soundtrack to…” albums, I only had two bands in there at the time that started with “S.”]

Sunday was a bit more mellow: lunch at a Cuban place, a trip to a photography exhibit at Lewis and Clarke, some bumming around at home, Chinese food, and the Sapphire.

This morning, I dropped off Mr. X at the train station and you have probably already read about his adventures in passports. I totally understand Amtrak's logic. They want to have their asses covered just in case a passenger decides to borrow a train and crash it into a skyscraper. Who can blame 'em?

Wow, I wrote a bit more than I thought I would. Anyway — yes, it was a fun weekend and it was awesome to meet and hang out with citizenx.

Posted in: Books Dear Diary Food Portland

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