12:05 p.m. - 2005-01-27
urban scrabble
Well, it was definitely time to come to Athens. So far, with the exception of this whole U2 mess infiltrating my good times, this trip has been perfection. Let's see...I got into town the other night, hung out with Matt, then Liz. Geoff and Patrick showed up (better late than never) eventually and we had some laughs and some hefeweizen and some hot dogs. The next day I sat and read at Donkey and visited with Will and Leo. The Brookelyn came to town and we went to the Dairy Barn to see a watercolor showing at the gallery, for which Brooke was asked to write an article which will be appearing in The Insider, which sounds like a British tabloid but is really the artsy part of the newspaper around here. Sarah "Fabulous" Filipiak edits this paper. Please read it.
Well, if any of my comments make it into the article, they will go something like this. "Oooh, another bird. I hate paintings of birds." I'm sure the gatekeeper or whatever the heck the guy at the door is called really appreciated our snide remarks.
The we headed to the Red Brick Tavern, where they offer such metropolitan delights as 75 cent Budweiser drafts and 1.50 shots of tequila. Brooke went for mixed drinks, bypassing the specials altogether and out of financial discipline I went for the Budweiser. With lemons. Lots of them. This fine establishment also offers it's patrons several choices of boardgames, which did not escape Brooke's gaze, a gaze which is always on the lookout for a good time. We got to experience a few rousing rounds of Connect Four, which turned into Speed Connect Four, Two-at-a-Time Connect Four and my personal favorite, Blind Connect Four. Nice. Connect Four is harder than you think it is.
Soon, Matt Cooke arrived and joined us for a game of Hobo scrabble which is similar to regular Scrabble, except that you don't keep score and the only wayyou can win is to spell the word Hobo. This, somehow turned into Urban Hobo Scrabble, which meant that all of your words had to have a somewhat urban connotation or you had to be persuasive enough to convince the other players that the word did have an urban context. Kelly Cooke came on the scene and some really good words were played. Examples include Gat, Glock, Dis, Kool (as in "and the Gang") and Dre (as in Dr.).
Brooke left to prepare for her open stage debut in the Grapes of Wrath room at Baker, which is really called the Bunch of Grapes room, but you know what I mean. Kelly and I went to meet up with Aaron and Libby for a quick margarita (2 dollars at Casa on wednesdays) and a brief chat. Enter new friend Missy Greenlee, exit Jessi, Aaron and Libby. We went to see Brookes Fantastica Show. Where there were LOTS of 21 year old hipster boys with things like boy scout shirts and red shoes and Irish accents. We captured one of them and dragged him back to Red Brick Tavern with his youthful Jared Leto good looks and we sufficiently corrupted him with another rousing round of Urban Hobo Scrabble and a pitcher of budweiser. This far into the evening, such questionable words as Teethachey and Jong made their way onto the board.
The evening ended with a slight tragedy. As we headed up the sidewalk toward the Cooke's residence where all of the inhabitants were long asleep, we walked cautiously on some ice. As we did this, I recounted how the previous evening Patrick took a spill on the ice, in an effort to remind myself and Brooke to be careful. At this, Brooke slips, slides and steadies herself, just managing to avoid a full fledged wipeout. I glance back at her to ensure she is ok and has continued shhuffling along, I say "How ironic that I was just saying how Patrick..." At this moment, I completely 100% bite it, land on the right "bun" (as Gabe so eloquently put it) of my behind, and manage to sustain 4 weird cuts on my hand that sort of look like some kind of stigmata. This is the sort of thing that causes old people to break their hips and wrists and things, so everyone drink your milk and salt the sidewalks everywhere you go.
