Weekend of Champions

My weekend started on Thursday when Cassandra organized a dinner with one of our professors/chair of our program, Richard Stackman. Mary and Malaak joined us and we had a yummy dinner at Nopa. I was feeling a little weird because my first glass of wine made me dizzy like it was spiked with ruffies. Dinner was still fabu-yum. Afterwards, after Stackman left, we stood on the corner of Divis and Hayes and gossiped about things. Home by 10pm.

Friday was Lynnie-loos belated birthday dinner at La Rondalla. People in attendance: Jim, Scott, Willo, Mario and Kristin. We had several pitchers of margaritas and some relatively yummy mexican food. Of course anything covered in cheese and sauce is brilliant and, of course, Lyne is the only person I know who can invite people to her birthday dinner and show up and not order food because she already ate.

Oh Lyne.

After dinner we headed over to Medjool to take advantage of the warm weather and hang out on their roof deck. This is my favorite photo of the night:

I have no idea what was going on here but, obvs, Scotty is my new jew-crush. He is also from Boston and in the course of conversation, we discovered that we both had a crush on the same girl in the early 90's. Awesome, except he got to make out with her and I only got to randomly hug her now and then during our headbanging to Wargasm.

I managed to keep the alcohol mildly under control as I had to be up around 8am to get ready for a run with Susan. We were looking at 8 miles with hills. Needless to say, I was mildly hungover the next morning and the incredible heat made it AWESOME. Ugh. Good thing I pounded 32 oz of gatorade the night before and 32 oz the morning of.

You may remember that Dan the Jew found the best thing ever for us to do on Saturday afternoon. Wizard Rock. Namely, Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfloys. They are both from Massachusetts and on a national tour of libraries. We arrived just in time to the lawn out in front of City Hall to see Draco and the Malfloys take the stage. They introduced themselves as being 15 and 19, and honestly, the bald guy? Try 35. These two guitarist played to drum and bass tracks and rocked the house! They had an insane pop sensibility, dreamy vocals and metal solos. What. could. be. better. NOTHING. Their songs were amazing were it not for the fact that everything was about the Harry Potter books. The level of geeky fantasticness was off the scale.

Draco and the Malfloys: NOT 15 and 19

Harry Potter Fashion

Jumping Wizard Rock Boys

I decided to check out the shirts because I saw some pretty cute ones in the audience and, as I was walking across the lawn, I heard someone yell my name. What the? It was Dan with who I had an hour long conversation about running at Willo's birthday party. We both stood there at a complete loss for words to comment what we were witnessing. It was mostly teens. And I simultaneously felt really happy for them that they all had a place to go, a commonality in Harry and the Potters/Draco, and an extreme love of fantasy...but... on the other hand...I think I made fun of people like this in highschool. I, of course, am leaps and bounds beyond that now (well, errr) but it was just really unsettling since I was thinking of how I was when I was 14 or 15. You've seen the pictures. I was a full-fledged metal head and really felt much older then, than these kids looked to me now. I will confess, Ronnie James Dio is not that far off from Harry Potter mysticism.

Harry and the Potters finally came on and the crowd went berserk. These kids knew all the words. It was amazing. HatP's are two brothers from Newton, MA, I would say around 14 and 16. They rap, they rock, they rockabilly and they work the crowd up in to a frenzy with their between song showmanship. They were basically two rapping jews from newton and they were fabulous. I bought a shirt.

Sunday I was supposed to be writing my final paper for my final class ever and the loverly Carolyn pinged in and asked if I was going to the Woodside Friends pool.

Hez: no
Carolyn: why not?
Hez: i gotta write this paper and i have house stuff to do.
Carolyn: ian wants you to drive him
Hez: i can’t go
Carolyn: ok

(phone rings, I see its Ian and answer)

Hez: I’m not going
Ian: come on!
Hez: I can’t. I have house stuff to do
Ian: Loosah
Hez: everytime I go there I am wasted in less than two hours and by the time dinner rolls around I have no idea what I ate or where I ate it.
Ian: the trick is to not stay for dinner
Hez: sigh
Ian: we’ll go taco hunting on the way
Hez: ok

We spent the afternoon by the pool and were home 6pm. I bought a shirt. Just kidding.