Long Weekend

Long weekends mean that we can go out more and stay out later…and also lose our memories, evidently. As I sit here trying to remember the past three days, I’m realizing that Friday night is a tad fuzzy. Who was on shift at the bar? When did we leave? What did we say when we left? Who did we say it to? Ahh, I give up. Saturday, now that I remember. When we walked in, Tad pointed out our two 1-inch-by-1-inch squares of space that were left for us to stand in. Though I wanted a Guinness (of course), I settled for a Hoegaarden, simply because I was in no position to wait for a 7-minute pour, since at this point I couldn’t even see the bar. Though there were several hundred people standing in front of the bar, Ian, god bless him, still offered to do an Underberg with us (though it was kind of a “long-distance” Underberg). He also bent the rules and gave us our non-Anderson Valley beers in big Anderson Valley glasses (which have handles) since we were standing. Though crowds of people from outside the neighborhood tend to be annoying to the nth degree, it was fun standing over by Tad and the other regulars who were banished to the corner, listening to Tad tell us his stories about all the people he had kicked out of the bar that evening. Tad also dared us to go over to a male yuppie who was sipping Framboise from a flute-type glass and say, “Hey, isn’t that a girl’s drink?” A little while later, Todd walked in with two Safeway bags: in one was some Lloyd’s Ribs, in the other, two boxes of Cap’n Crunch (“They were two for one!” said Todd.)

We planned on stopping by on Sunday evening for one beer and to visit with Ian. Of course, one beer with Ian is never just one beer…we ended up staying for almost 2 hours! A little before 8:00 a bunch of local-type people came in, including a little Jack Russell Terrier named Rachet, who liked to eat coasters. He ate quite a number of coasters while waiting for the Simpsons to start, then everybody got quiet and watched TV, laughing at all the right places. How much fun is it to watch the Simpsons with a barful of people want to watch it as much as you do? A lot, I say, especially when you get to control the remote. I love that place.