Social? Tu parles!

Oh MAN! Little did I know that going out on Friday would be an all-night enterprise!

I left my house around 7 with my friend Willie. We went to Kilmer's house, where she had prepared lasagna and salad for us, along with homemade blueberry wine. We had a great dinner and then talked for awhile, lounging around her condo (her roommates were gone, so it was all for us!). After awhile she suggested we go to a local bar, Harry's. (Kilmer has an eye for local dives. The first time we went out with her, for karaoke, she found the seediest bar ever, called the Dockside. It will forever be known as the Darkside--and we need to pay it a visit, soon!) Harry's was full of marines and sailors. Willie did the best he could to protect Kilmer and me from their assault techniques, and was unfortunately followed into the bathroom where a so-called marine asked him to introduce us. Another sailor, Reggie Love (I'm permitting myself the use of the actual name he gave us because I think it was already a pseudonym), bought us a pitcher of beer and told us that the other marine was in the Taliban. Oh, Harry's! What a place!

After Harry's closed, we went to ihop, since Willie was feeling like a midnight (or 2:30am) snack. I think everyone who closed out a bar decided to go too, and we had about a 10 minute wait for our table. After chowing down on French toast and pancakes, we decided to call it a night and went outside to drive home. Unfortunately, Kilmer had parked Willie's car in the Home Depot parking lot, which was patrolled by a "predatory" towing company. We walked across the street to withdraw money and were approached by a "private taxi." Kilmer promptly told him where to shove it, and he left when she threatened to call the police. I had the taxi dispatch number programmed in my phone from my trip to the social security office, and they sent one over right away.

We paid to get Willie's car back, and on the way out Kilmer gave everyone the finger. "Willie," she said, "Just give that guy the bird, okay?"

"Sure," he said wearily, flashing the doit d'honneur at the owner of the company. Right then Kilmer stopped at a stop sign, and Willie begged her to get away before he came after us. Of course, we were the big loser, because we lost about $115 combined on our little trip to the towing company. I finally got home at about 4:30am.

This wouldn't have been too bad, except that my dad was coming to visit me on Saturday! He told me he would arrive about 12 or 1pm, so I dragged myself out of bed at 10am to clean and shower. When he hadn't shown up by 1:30, I called him. "Oh, I'll be leaving within the hour," he told me. Either he was cleverly pretending he had never told me he'd arrive by 1pm, or I'd misunderstood the night before and he'd told me he'd leave by 1pm. It's probably the latter . . .

He finally got to my apartment at 6pm. We headed out right away to the No Frills Bar and Grill where we had some great sandwiches, and then went to the movie theater to see Little Miss Sunshine, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After we had gone to bed, Dad's phone rang at 11:30pm. It woke me up, and I heard him talking in the other room.

"I think you have the wrong number. [pause] Oh, Joey! Well, Joey, are you okay? [pause] Where are you? [pause] Well, all right. Have a good night, Joey." My father is a teacher and a chess coach (for a few elementary schools), and one of his former students decided to get drunk and call him up! Although we felt kind of bad, it was hilarious.

On Sunday morning we went to ihop for breakfast, and then picked up some important items from the hardware store to put together my bed (the frame and headboard have been separate ever since I moved in). We also picked up a new bike from my friend's house and then Dad headed home, leaving me tired, lonely, and with a ton of homework to finish.