I LIVE FOR VACATION!!!
This past week has turned out to be one of my favorites. Back-to-back weekends packed with friends, family and a mini out-of-town jaunt all wrapped around an amazing mid-week house concert in our dining room. But I'll get to that in the next post.
I hit the vacation gate running on Friday with a trifecta of social activity. First up, the weekly breakfast with my sister, Toni. We've been going to breakfast together nearly every week since she retired last June, to catch up while shoveling egg products in our faces in as many different diners as possible. It's been truly a blessing, and something I look forward to every week. This time we dined al fresco at Pamela's, made famous by President Obama's campaign stop.
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| i never noticed the person prepping to hurl in front of the board before |
Sufficiently stuffed, we sat on the deck yakking almost until Koffee Klatch time with two of my old college girlfriends. Another weekly event that has become essential for my well-being. We cover all kinds of topics, but mainly we laugh, I get my doggie fix and there's always something chocolatey to go with Heidi's incredible coffee blend.
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| ghost of klatch past we are the Billy Jo, Bobby Jo and Betty Jo of Javaville (ten points extra if anyone other than fellow dinosaurs get that pop culture reference) |
And finally, the finishing touch on the first day of vacation was a pre-wedding bar crawl for one of my favorite coworkers, Kitty. I love her. She fits right in with our goofy, adolescent sense of humor. Kitty is our on-air traffic report/fill-in anchor. She's super talented, and deserves far better than the treatment she receives at the hands of our misguided management. I know we'll lose her one day, and it pisses me off.
Whatever. Anywho, Friday night was our night to cruise the South Side, drink in hand, because I was on vacation the next day and ultimately, it is ALL about me. What? Shut up! I plan it, I make the rules.
Wisely, we booked a hotel room for overnight. First order of business...jumping on the beds, because we're classy like that, yo!
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| beets, jumping from one bed... |
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| to another |
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| warning: weak bladders ahead |
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| oh c'mon. you knew we'd go there |
Then off to what has become my FAVORITE bar in the entire city, Nadine's on 27th.
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| middle-agers mecca right here (that's right. i'm living to 106, a-hole) |
It's basically a narrow rectangular bunker, but Holy Hell, it's fun and cheap. Like, three-Ketel-One-vodka-drinks-for-$9-TOTAL cheap. TOTAL!!!! Come to Momma.
It attracts a yinzer crowd, but fun yinzers who aren't afraid to hunker down at the bar, blast Journey from the jukebox or make friends with a bunch of chicks less than an arms length away.
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| second round's on Donny (seriously have not had anyone pick up drinks for decades) |
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| with Donny, our benefactor for the evening |
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| glasses are smaller than they appear (but not the eyewear) |
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| drop it! drop it! |
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| kitty, trying to stop hiccups you thought it was about farting, didn't you? |
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| pirate parrot headgear pilfered from a patron |
We were having a blast and had a nice buzz going on thanks to Big Donny buying us drinks all night, but it was time to move on. In hindsight, we should have just stayed at Nadine's. By the time we found a place to park near 12th three hours later, or so it felt in drunk-time, we were famished.
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| mmmmm... pizza good |
This ratty pizza shop is a veritable gold mine at 11pm on a Friday. I couldn't even tell you what it was called, but DAAAAMN it was tasty! The perfect pit stop before Bar 11.
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| ladies and gentlemen, the sensory overload that is bar 11 |
Bar 11 is a place one should only walk into once one is sufficiently inebriated. Otherwise it would just seem cacophonous and stupid. The drinks are large, the surroundings are overstimulating and Dude, they give you free candy necklaces.
As soon as we got near the bar, a twelve year-old came up to us and asked if we were all sisters. He should have stopped there. But no, no he didn't. He then asked Kitty if she was with her mom. Kitty looked him square in the eye and told him we were lesbians, thinking that would get him to leave us alone. But nooooooo. Instead he started screaming to the strangers around him, "Hey! They're lesbians!!"
And that's when we knew we should have stayed at Nadine's.
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| kitty's new lesbian third eye |
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| fraudulent lesbo-a-go-go |
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| stealthily place stick on random dumbass's dumb ass |
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| screw all y'all youngsters i'm having a big ass cocktail, heavy on the plastic toys |
Making the best of it, we picked up blank name tags from the bar and scribbled on them with black light reflective marker, Gay (for Beets), I'm with my mother (for Kitty) and I'm the Mutha (for me). Not to be outdone, a fourteen year-old came with this highly effective pick-up line:
14y-o: You look like my Aunt Debbie from Shaler
Me: Oh. Okay.
14y-o: She's really cool.
Me: Okay.
14y-o: No really, you do. Hrhusg gurble hrshyul blah blah mrysufsh
Me: What?!?
14y-o: Rhsurhgah hmnshry
Me: WHAT?!
14 y-o: By the end of the night, you and me are gonna get a tattoo!
Because of course I would get a tattoo with him, a total stranger who thinks I look like his decrepit old Aunt Debbie from Shaler. Why not. It makes perfect sense.
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| the aforementioned 14 year-old with "Aunt Debbie" and her friends |
In spite of the toddlers giving us shit up front, we managed to have fun the brief amount of time we spent at Bar 11. The main thing was Kitty had a blast at her girls' night bar crawl. But seriously, the next time I get the brilliant idea to move on from Nadine's, slap my ass and call me Aunt Debbie.
