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January 04, 2005
New Year's Eve 1
New Year's Eve is night for partying. A long night of partying. Luckily my tape recorder has a half speed so I can fit double the normal amount on one tape. I flipped the switch to half speed and headed out for the evening.
No. Wait. I flipped the tape recorder into half speed and came charging down the stairs naked to find Emma and her brother, Spencer the Cat, in my living room. I got halfway down, turned around, put some clothes on and went back down the stairs
I was running a little late. I was still naked when they arrived and had food cooking on the stove.
It was New Year's Eve and I planned on doing a little of drinking, so I needed to get some food in me to avoid getting too drunk too fast. My fear of doing household chores while naked forced me to cook something that could sit untended for the length of a shower (since I used up all my microwavables already). I chose pasta.
As I waited for it to finish I drank a Sparks. Emma drank a Sparks. StC tried a Sparks and made a face, "Ew. It tastes like cough syrup."
When food neared readiness I took it off the stove "Close enough to done." I said. "You want any?" Emma ate some. Spencer refused, perhaps because he already tasted my choice of drink.
We went down to Daniel's house where we found him readying himself for the evening by sleeping on the couch. "Here!" I yelled after we had stolen into his house. He awoke startled, with a can of Sparks flying his way. Daniel drank his Sparks. I drank a Sparks. Emma drank a Sparks.
Sparks are alcoholic energy drinks. They come in 16 ounce cans, contain 6.0% alcohol and loads of caffiene, taurine, guarana, ginseng and other stuff to keep one awake for hours on end.
Spencer drove us down to Little Italy, where we were going to meet Rachel. In the car I rattled off some of my more notable inventions. "I invented the two alarm alarm clock."
-What's a two alarm alarm clock? D
-I don't want to talk about it. I talked about it too much already. Someone stole it and made it.
-That sucks. D
-I also invented a button for your cell phone that you can push if you are in a club or something -- like, if you want to answer the phone, but if you pick up the other person will only hear noise. There is a button you can push that will say something like, "Brian really wants to answer the phone right now, but he is someplace loud, so just hold on, he'll be right with you.
-A hold button? StC
-Sort of.
-My phone has that already. StC
-Well, I invented the seperate button.
-Maybe you can invent that sequence of words. E
-No. the typing monkeys probably got that one already.
-Do you have any others? D
-None I can share right now.
We stopped near Little Italy and walked to Rachel's restuarant as a Baltimore City Police Helicopter hovered over us. Rachel was serving or tending bar or something at a restaurant down there hosting a Yacht Club New Year's party. We drank Sparks long the way; Daniel, Emma and I. Spencer had already tasted Sparks and decided staying up was not worth the means we had at our disposal.
We walked into the restaurant filled with old rich people drinking champagne, swinging noise-makers, staring at the Dick Clark replacement on TV. We walked over to the bar where Rachel and her coworkers were pouring glasses of champange for the yachters who paid $75 dollars a head, and for us, because we walked in and reached for it.
We stood around talking and drinking free chanpagne for a few minutes before the ball dropped in New York City and the fireworks started over Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Then came the oohs and ahs.
The oohs, ahs and 'woah, Nelly's. Who says "Woah, Nelly?"
Yachters.
I found a back room without any yachters, with several windows looking out at the harbor, and a table full of food. We hung out in back as the yachter party quickly thinned.
Since they were leaving I figured they wouldn't mind if I ate some of the food. In the spirit of adventure, the spirit of starting the new year with something different, I decided I'd place whole servings into my mouth at once. The bruschetta was easy. The chicken breast was a little harder. I walked over to everyone else at the bar. "Ook!" I said.
"What the hell?" Daniel must have noticed my distended cheeks.
"Ah iht a hoe shi-in ih ma mou." My smile showed off the chicken breast.
"Show that to the yachters!"
No way. I thought. I'm not even hungry. I should just spit it out in the toilet. But I didn't want to go into the bathroom with no shoes. I had taken them off somewhere in the restaurant and was left in my socks. I don't know how these yachters' land legs are. They might only be able to aim at sea. "Av ooh see mah shoo?"
"What?" Emma said.
Why is it so hard for everyone to understand a guy with a mouth full of chicken? "Mah Shoo." I said pointing down to my feet.
"Oh, you're looking for your shoes?" I nodded in reply. "Over there I think."
When I came back from the bathroom I kicked off my shoes again and grabbed a beer from the bar. A chef was pouring a drink for his friend. "What happened to your neck? Emma asked the friend - half of his neck was covered with a bandage.
"I cut myself shaving."
"What that looks like you got stabbed or something." I said.
"No, I just cut myself shaving."
"I'd make up a story about a midget with a spear. Looks like a midget with a spear could have done that."
The chef told us he spelled chef with four 'f's. Spencer addressed him correctly and a recieved about 12 ounces of Scotch as payment. Someone mistakenly gave me one of those new year's horn thingys. Then StC, Emma, Daniel and I left walk down to the Harborway. We intended to meet Rachel who was going to drive.
"Wait. I have to find my shoes!"
"Where are they?"
"I don't know. Somewhere on the yacht."
"Brian, this is a restaurant."
"No it's not. I'm pretending it's a yacht tonight."
Posted by calculatoronfire at January 4, 2005 02:48 PM