Mestee Blogger

I am back from New York, feeling refreshed after sleeping in my own bed last night. We went to see the Country Gentlemen perform in Central Park on Saturday. They played at "The Gentleman's Corner" for a while, until they were forced to move by an amplified jam band playing on the summer stage. They moved across the park and ended up playing next to this guy. After the gentlemen called it a day, Spiro, Irf and I went to play some wiffle ball on the Great Lawn. Spiro, in all his gimpy glory, was victorious...which he went on to tell every person we ran into for the rest of the day. We were later joined by a shirtless drunk guy, who insisted on playing. I am a lefty, and this (coupled with a healthy dose of Jack Daniels) apparently threw him off, as he threw roughly every pitch behind me.
On saturday night, we went out for sushi (thanks, Irf) at Gowasabi in Astoria and then met Spiro, er, Alex's physical therapist for a drink at a local bar and then went to get another drink at yet another, even-more-local bar. Irf, Spiro and I went back to Spiro's place, where he took us up to the roof to enjoy the view of Manhatten -- his favorite method of seduction. Apparently, it worked, because Irf would later choose to split Spiro's bed rather than share the futon with me...a decision that would make all three of us happy. We ended the evening in familiar style. Big Lebowski style.
We took a walk throught the village on Sunday and ate some delicious sandwiches in a cafe, where we later met Spiro's ladyfriend, and the four of us headed over to a "Red Sox friendly" bar to watch the first inning of the Sox game before Irf and I had to leave. There were some minor gaffes in our return to Port Authority, such as getting out of the subway at 47th instead of 42nd street. We ran to the station, but couldn't find the Peter Pan gate to Boston. We ended up catching the 6:00 bus instead of the 5:00. Irf took a seat near the front, initially, but I realized that the seat in front of mine was stuck in the "reclined" position. I insisted that I couldn't deal with the seat in my face for five hours, so Irf followed me to a seat in the back. As luck would have it, the women who would soon occupy the seats in front of us insisted on reclining fully (let me tell you, those seats go back pretty far) for the duration of the trip. Who does that? Apparently just those women and the people across the aisle who were with them.
This morning, I ran into our landlord, Bill, on the train. Much to my surprise, he greeted me with a semi-enthusiastic "Hi, Brian", not so unlike Irf's impersonation of me and my Dad talking to each other after I took the GRE's. I guess the "Ralph" chapter in my personal history book has come to a close.
|