OK SO! I already know I’m going to be too busy tomorrow to write, so I am going to do the weekend recap while it is still fresh in my non-work-scrambled brain. And just because they’re sexy: bullets!
- Friday, we booked our flight to Vegas. Six of us. Second weekend in January. It is going to be the most ridiculously awesome trip ever.
- Cin and I had dinner at Hot Plate, a little diner near Lake Nokomis devoted to Tacky Era kitsch, notably paint-by-numbers. I would verymuch like to return there soon for brunch.
- We decided to be brave and finally venture into the cowboy bar (aka Shorty and Wag’s Country Bar and Grill) on Lyndale, since I’ve only been driving past and expressing my desire to go in there for years now. My trepidation evaporated the second I opened the door and realized I’d set foot in Wisconsin, or possibly Darwin. There are buffalo heads on the walls, and lamps made of antlers. We were quite in love with the place, and took turns compiling the ultimate jukebox playlist with a couple extraordinarily drunk boys who kept giving us props for such classics as Girls by the Beastie Boys, and Rock You Like a Hurricane. However, our enthusiasm dissolved once karaoke began at 9:30, and hipsters began to pile in. We got our tab and made a hasty exit.
- I dropped Cindi off and joined Matt, fresh from the suburbs, for a show at the Entry, featuring one of the funniest lineups ever: Shaun Walker’s Gay Witch Abortion, Total Fucking Blood, The Awesome Snakes, and Chooglin’. The first two were exactly what one would expect of bands with those names. The Awesome Snakes were one step beyond drunk, and their songs were all about themselves, even featuring an awesome chant (A-W-E-S-O-M-E Snakes!). Of which we were huge fans, obviously. And then, Chooglin’ rocked our pants off, what with their horn section and great energy. I need to see them again.
- On Saturday, I began the Christmas shopping in earnest, although I didn’t get very far beyond supplies for the best xmas present ever. Also, who knew it would be so hard to locate a 12″ springform pan in the Twin Cities?
- Once said pan was located, I made a pumpkin cheesecake for pre-Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night.
- Cindi and I went to Lyle’s to watch the first half of the Gophers game, and were entertained by a guy who was completely trashed and raucous before 7pm in the evening. Good work, dude.
- Midway through the 2nd period, we left the Gophers to their victory and headed to almost-Wisconsin to a party for the purpose of welcoming Chaely to Minnesota, and also meeting Nate. Ken was in attendance, and got some well-deserved hassling about the fact that we hardly ever see him.
- Around 10, we formed a caravan and crossed the river into Hudson to see Nate’s brother’s band at Dibbo’s. Now, Dibbo’s is a bar I’ve been hearing advertised on crappy radio stations for nigh unto 15 years now, so I was kind of excited to see it, in a “hooray, Wisconsin!” sort of way. And oh man. It’s kind of half-roadhouse, half-bachelorette-party. We did shots called ‘Wild West’, featuring Soco. We watched the band, which covered all the rock and/or roll of the last four decades. We saw innumerable fashion tragedies on the dance floor. It was great.
- On the way back to Stillwater, Katie got pulled over in North Hudson on the pretense that her license plate light was out. That’s Wisconsin-cop code for ‘from Minnesota, under suspicion of drunk driving’. But we were merely lost trying to find the bridge back to the homeland, and he was actually very nice about pointing us in the right direction. Score one for friendly cops!
- Today, I accomplished a substantial amount of gift-shopping, both for Christmas and for my parents’ 35th anniversary. Most of this took place at REI, and you have no idea how happy that makes me; I’m considering just moving in there someday.
- Matt and I went to Grumpy’s for the pre-game celebration, and then joined Stephanie and my dad at Mariucci Arena for part two of THE GLORIOUS SWEEP OF THE STUPID BADGERS. Man, it was great. And yes, we had pretzels. Why do you think they won?
- Tonight I still had the baking itch (it’s the time of year; it will probably disappear round about the Holiday Cookie Fundraiser, when I’ll never want to see dough again), so I made a batch of orange brownies to bring to work tomorrow, while listening to Sam & Dave, because Hold On, I’m Coming is one of the best songs ever written, at least according to me, right now.
AND NOW: holy crap, I seriously need to sleep. G’night, dudes.
Jenni