Carrie's Welcome Home, the Spanking Machine and Sweet Maudite...

Howdy!

Alrighty – so it’s an established *fact* I’m a slacker. Whatever… But watching the Hip-Hop Honors on VH1 instead of writing is a completely justifiable activity. I mean, it’s like, research for work and shit – TOTALLY justifiable. I’m just sayin’… (AND Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were on! Can you deny me THAT?!) Oh, and I wasn’t in town this weekend – so I couldn’t write then… And I was really busy last week, so I couldn’t write then… And then the ALIENS abducted me and I totally couldn’t write THEN…Duh. So, this is seriously the soonest possible time I could’ve written ANYthing down. For realsies…

That being said, how the hell are ya?! Me? I’m just groovy… Tired, but groovy. It’s been an action packed last several days to be sure. Now I’m just trying to recover…

Last Tuesday night, Little Carrie Clark returned home from the Big Toe. YAY! I’m sure the last thing she wanted to do after flying alllll day long was to party until the break of dawn, but WHATEVER. You can’t just come home from a month-long journey and not expect to be welcomed by nearly ALL of your closest friends and family!! Ain’t gonna happen!!! So yeah, we all converged on the SS Risky Business for a Tuesday night of drunken frivolity. (Because nothing says ‘Tuesday night’ like being drunk and frivolous…)

It was a pretty amusing scene on the boat that night. Not only did many people turn out for the event, but everyone represented quite well for a weeknight. AND we successfully surprised Carrie! HA! She’s a crafty one, that Carrie. However, I think that spending all day long in the clutches of modern air travel sufficiently wore down her Spidey senses. She seemed pretty surprised to find everyone waiting for her on the boat. AND all of it to banjo accompaniment!! Ahhh, the soundtrack of our lives… The banjo. Yep – Banjo Boy was there for the festivities and he fully represented with a lovely, ‘welcome home’ accompaniment.

Sigh… It was a nice homecoming and it was great to see Carrie again. It is surreal to think of what Carrie, Greg and I just experienced. Surreal, cool, exciting, etc., but also very sad… Sad because we’re all home now! There’s no more life-line to the Big Toe! ACK! OH well – guess we’ll just have to go to Toronto for a tour or something. DAMN!

Anyway, as the night wore on, many Canadian themed beers were consumed. Good stuff! I am very happy to report that you can get my new FAVORITE beer at PCC, Cost Plus and on tap at Brouwers in Fremont. So there. And that would be, ‘Maudite,’ by the way. All beers from the Unibroue Brewery in Quebec are great. I’m just sayin’… Ooo – and I just found out they have a very special beer to mark their 11th anniversary. It’s called ‘La 11.’ Hey – that’s my lucky number – 11! Cool… 11th anniversary, 11% alcohol content… That’s 11:11!!! HA!

So yeah, the evening was all well and good until the Spanking Machine got called into action. Damn the Spanking Machine! The Spanking Machine is a time-honored birthday event that gets busted out whenever anyone has a birthday. Busted out, literally… Basically, everyone lines up and the birthday chump has to crawl through everyone’s legs and get spanked…

Since Jane’s b-day was Thursday and she was in attendance on the boat, it made SENSE that we’d make her go through the spanking gauntlet. HOWEVER, both mine and Laurie’s birthdays were LAST month. Hey, and it’s not our fault that we weren’t around for any date-appropriate spanking machine hoo-hah. *NOT* our fault… Therefore, the fact that we were ALSO suckered into crawling through the Spanking Machine was just plain MADNESS! Madness, I say! Yeah, and the fact that Greg was playing banjo throughout the whole ordeal was even crazier! It was like a Deliverance version of the Spanking Machine. Gah! Mmmm – crawling down a dock, under many of my friend’s legs, to the sweet tones of the banjo, after having consumed much beer… Yeah, that’s a Tuesday night for ya!

SO - I survived the Spanking Machine. Good times… And I survived the next day at work as well. Which, I must say, was quite an accomplishment given the events of our very entertaining Tuesday night. Indeed… >:-)

On Wednesday night, I went to Brouwers with Stacey. We had a great time as usual. Met up with a couple of Stacey’s friends from Puyallup, Ryan and ummm – CRAP – I forgot his name - and we all hung out for a while. Pretty amusing time! The food and beer are great and it was nice to hang out for a bit. However, Stacey and I always say we’re gonna wrap it up early and ummm, we never do. Whatever – life is short. :) However – I did actually leave a bit earlier that night as I needed to get home to get some stuff done for the weekend, etc. Ohhh, but my friend Stacey (RB™) didn’t get home until a bit later. And I have an amusing message on my answering machine to prove it… HA! >;-) ANYhoo…

On Friday, I left with Pauly D for yet another awesome wilderness adventure. And that, my faaaabulous friends, is where I will leave you for now. Stay tuned for such camping greats as, “Dayna – wake up! There’s a chipmunk on your head!” – And - “Tiny Cheese Grater – It’s not the size that counts!”

Alrighty – have a fan-freakin-tastic day!!

Your Pal,

TRJ ™