Week 42 - Sometimes its better than you thought.
Current mood: cheerful

Thursday, 10/19/07: La Bellas: New beer

The impetus for this blog was my 29th birthday and my dread at getting one stop closer to the big 3-0. I don't want to be 30. I don't wanna. I miss my 20's and I'm not even out of them.

This week was my 29 birthday and I did not die, or cry or burst into flames or whatever I thought would happen. I also didn't loose my shit or freak out or spend the whole night on the floor. What I did do was go to LaBella's (again!), eat too much Mushroom Gorgonzola Ravioli (again!) and wore the cutest shoes in the entire world. I love them and they make me happy.

I did try this new beer called Leinenkugel. It tastes like happiness, rainbows and laughter. It is so good, better than Blue Moon and my new favorite. I drank it all weekend and then picked up a case on Monday. It's the only beer that I don't mind drinking every night. I recommend it highly - but only if you like "fruity shit" as my sister would say. If you like beer like Blue Moon or some kind of Oktoberfest, this would be good for you.


Here is my beer. So yummy. I don't think our neighbors liked the flash. I took this picture 3 times trying to get it to look right.




Here are my super cute shoes. I love them. I'm not a shoe chick, or really a girly girl, but I love them.




That damn flash again! It made my head shiny.




I always steal Troy's mints - he's not fast enough. This time he licked it so I wouldn't take it.




My family bought me all kinds of cool shit. Troy and Tre bought me a half dozen rolls of swedish cookies that we usually buy at IKEA. Troy bought me a new necklace from smallthings.com. I also got this guy - the Transformer DVD that TRANSFORMS into Optimus Prime. It's pretty rad.







Fri-Sun, 10/19-21/07: South of here: Sean & Kim's.

It's probably been 2 years since we say Clutch last in Philly. It's also been about 2 years since we saw Sean and Kim, two of our very favorite friends from college, in Maryland. I wanted to combine the two and Troy and I headed down to the Maryland/PA border and hung out for the whole weekend.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a dumb ass and forgot my camera charger, so I don't have many photos from the weekend. But that's ok, because I have tons of bad ass memories of these two truly lovely friends.

Friday night was my birthday, but it didn't really feel like it. It felt more like old home week. We drank beer, caught up, screwed around and took too many awesome pictures. These wonderful shots (probably about 75), sucked all the power from my batteries. Sad.

We got there about 5 or 6. They showed us this really gorgeous house that they are renting. It totally made us green with envy because it's so nice and big and just kind of perfect.

We met two of their friends and headed out to get some beer. We did shots (I, tequila, they, sambuka) and picked up some blue moon.







We took a picture of the newspaper and the schedule of the next day's "Downtown Hagarstown Live '07."




We sat on the porch and laughed and laughed and they smoked.





And we looked around and it was midnight, so we finally ate dinner. Yummy pasta salad and shiskabob. Both being some of the best food we've ever had.




Then we took some shots. They live right off of Rt. 81, so trucks drive by all of the time. How we did not crash any really beats me. I thought we were going to have a manslaughter charge by the end of the night.

This is Sean.




This is me laughing.




This is Troy.




This is what I imagine it looks like when I punch anyway.




I call this my Justin Timberlake.




I can't remember what I was so thrilled by.




I think that Sean should name his beard because it's so damn huge. He and Troy get along well because they are both gingers.




I LOVE this shot and it's my favorite of the weekend. I imagine that this is what the end of days will look like.




We've been friends for 10 years and I love him tons. And Kim. They are really 2 great and loving friends and I miss them so.




Saturday morning we were off to Hagarstown. It was the first time I was ever there during the day. It was also the first time I was ever at a concert quite like this. The entire downtown square for about 7 or 8 blocks was blocked off with large chain links fence. It kinda felt like you were at the zoo.

We were really hungry, so Troy and I went to the pizza place on the corner and ate some really good pizza. I forget the name of the joint, but I do remember that they were pissed that the Hagarstown Live board wouldn't let them sell pizza inside the fence so they undercut the prices of the vendors.

Here is Troy eating.





We sat through a lot of shitty and mediocre bands to get Clutch, the worst being Alter Bridge. Ugh. Not fun. Not good at all. I think almost worse than Creed, the loins from which this group was born. It was really the longest hour and half of my life.

Clutch finally took to the stage about 6:30. They rocked the house as always and they never disappoint. They played a lot of new stuff and got the crowd nice and rowdy. The staff there was eagle-eyed and didn't take any bullshit from the drunks, getting right on top of their asses if trouble was started. Here is a crappy cell phone pick from crappy phone.




Afterward, we went to this bar and grabbed something to eat before Sean's band, Gubment Cheese, started their set. We drank some beer, I got some god awful churro or something shitty like that (keeping to the adage that "just because it's new doesn't mean that it's good." They weren't good. I did eat almost an entire plate of fries by myself with sour cream. Yum.



Here are Sean and Kim before the set.




The next day we hung out and talked. And talked. And talked. It was a beautiful day, probably around 70 degrees, and the nicest birthday I've spent in a long time. Just gorgeous.

Thinking back on it, I'm sad that we don't live closer to our good friends. I'm sure that Troy feels the same seeing how he fished around for a job at the local graphic shops. It is their turn to visit, which will probably happen in the spring, and i'm sure that it will be bittersweet as always.



This was my big 29. It was great and everyone was so cool and nice and generous - it was easy to have a great holiday. If they are all this easy, maybe I won't go clawing and bitching in the rest.