Okay, okay. I suppose I owe it to you all. And just to annoy you further, I'm telling it in 2 parts. For picture commentary, go to the albums over to the right and look in PA Shindig 06. Duh! Okay. Ready? Here we go.
Mike and Priscilla arrive at my apartment at around 9:45 a.m. on Saturday. To Priscilla's surprise, my apartment was just that. An apartment. I suppose with the way I write and attitude I put out there, she expected to walk into a room full of passed out strippers, midgets, bottles of bourbon, needles, bags of heroin, guns on the wall, whips and chains hanging, pictures of naked girlies all over, a poodle and a box of Crackerjack's. How dare she make that assumption! Good thing she didn't show up 10 minutes earlier. I had just put all of that stuff either in my closet or under the bed. Hey, the strippers were asleep and I handled them with care! Anyway, the rest of the NYC posse shows up and we head downstairs to load the cars. Jason had driven in from Boston to give us a ride. Mad props for that because I really don't know how we would have fit all of the donations I had into Roy's SUV. Pris and I rode with Jason and we started a 2 car caravan. That lasted all of 10 minutes. Right up until we got into the Holland Tunnel when we lost each other.
We arrive some time after 1 p.m. to the farm after getting final directions from Kristin and Shauna, our shindig hostesses. Kristin being Shauna's daughter. You remember Kristin, kids. She visited here for NYC Comic-Con back in February. And I believe she still hasn't washed her cheek from when a certain "astonishing" someone kissed her. Ryan and Courtney were already present. We all started to set up the tables and chairs and the like. Shortly thereafter, Roy's posse, including Mike and Gypsy, arrive.
After the set up, we kind of just chilled under the shade of the trees and started with the drinking! Others started arriving and the tent building commenced. Pretty soon, there was a little shanty town full of tents! Elections were held, but I don't think anyone was picked as Mayor. Many others were staying in the house on various couches, the floor, etc. Some in the cars. I, of course, had the guest room. I'm old and spoiled and demanded it. I got it because I threatened to show pictures from when Kristin was drunk in NYC and danced in a burlesque show dressed up like Harley Quinn from the Batman books. Oh crap. I wasn't supposed to talk about it either. My bad.
Kristin's best bud, Emily, arrived a bit later. We had met a month or so ago when Kristin had me over for a dinner party. Emily is a civilian in this geekdom. But, decided to come along to observe. Sort of like Diane Fosse with the gorillas. Trying to fit in, Emily pulls out a light saber from her car. A feeble, yet cute attempt. She and I take off to get some beer and munchies and stuff. Apparently, in Pennsylvania, they have beer stores. Nothing but beer. All beer, all the time. We arrive at the beer distributor, as it is called. Apparently, it was formerly the post office. Now a beer store. It's got cases of beer all over! I find a case I want and go to the counter to pay. Oops. I didn't have my wallet on me! I left it back on the farm. I'm clearly over 21. The guy behind the counter says, "It's okay. If you're friend has her ID, it's fine." Emily, all of 23, pulls out her idea to allow me the purchase. So, let me get this straight. If I walked in with a class full of 8th graders and at least 1 of us had a valid ID, we could all buy beer! Sweet!
After the beer is bought, we stop at the grocery store to pick up last minute items. S'mores stuff, chips and soda. I was tempted to bring back a bunch of random items and act like I really wanted them. A cantaloupe, a water gun, box of animal crackers, t-shirt, balloons, and a plastic flower. Just to make people wonder why I wanted all of that stuff. But, alas, Emily just looked at me like I was an idiot, so I put it all back. Sigh...
We head back and it's about time for some cook out goodness! Hamburgers, hot dogs, macaroni salad,etc. And, Suze was making Bao! What the heck is that? Well, it's meat inside a bun! Mmmmmm.....good! Usually pork and either a bit sweet or spicy. Yes, it's an Asian treat. And me being Asian, I appreciated it much! Gotta say, Suze made 'em great! Not bad for a white woman! Much eating was had by all.
Pris and I had worked on a mini-filk that she dubbed Serenifly. We each made up 3 songs. We gathered some guinea pigs to sing with us and rehearsed the songs for a bit. We were going to perform, for lack of a better term, a little later that evening. As nightfall approached, we gathered in what I call the horse trotting area. We had the projector set up to show movies against the barn. But, musical first!
Pris wrote a nice big group number to the tune of "Where Do We Go From Here" from the musical Buffy episode, Once More With Feeling. Recently high-school graduated Sami and I did a duet I wrote to the tune of "I'll Cover You (Reprise)" from Rent. This was followed by another duet by Courtney and Jason to the tune of something from Aida. Court.....ya got skills! Sami's mama and Bao maker, Suze, rocked it out solo style on the song I wrote called "River." And her hubby, Bob, played Joss Whedon crooning a tune (by Pris) to characters he killed off. Pris and I capped off the musical with a duet I wrote to the tune of "You're the Boss." You know there ain't no shame in my game and that no one loves the sound of their own voice than me! So, don't be surprised when I say...we kicked ass!
The mini-musical ends and we start the movie. Somehow, the first X-Men movie won out. I believe it was Kristin's pick. Hey, her farm and all. I dig it. I laid down on the blanket with Kristin, Pris and Em and promptly passed out for about 20 minutes. I've seen that movie many times, so it wasn't like I missed anything! As the movie ended, Kristin went to let the horses out in the field. All 7 of them. So, I went over to the fence to watch them. Em came over and we chatted a bit. She told me some really embarrassing stories about Kristin that I will use against her some time in the near future. Kristin joined us and we sort of just watched the horses. It was a beautiful night and the horses were just grazing. Sounds corny, but it was quite a serene and awesome sight. Some of the horses came over and I petted them and chatted with them. Hey, they were listening! Especially the one chewing on my boots. There was one horse that used to be a race horse. Forgive me Kristin, but I forgot his name. Was it Rev? Anyway, this horse had only won about 10 out of 90 races. So, it lost it's desire to race and was demoralized over all of the losses. I suggested we put in Seabiscuit and let the horse watch it. Maybe it would get inspired and become a champion again!
Later, a bunch of us gathered by the fire for some S'mores loving. Mmmm.....marshmallows. People started dropping off and heading to bed. Well, their tents or couch or floor space. A few of us were still pretty wired and stayed up a bit later. Finally, the rest of us went to hit the sack around 3 a.m. People were sleeping in their cars and tents and the like. One poor girl, the way too cute Carmen, slept in her sleeping bag on the porch. She didn't seem to mind and was a good sport about it. I almost felt bad that I had the guest room. Well, almost. As I said, I'm a spoiled little brat and would have thrown a temper tantrum and awoken everyone if I had to sleep outside! I climb the stairs to the penthouse and get ready for bed. It was nice that Kristin and Shauna had installed the hot tub in my room so I could relax. And the satin sheets were a nice touch as well. Not to mention the massage girl. Tired and happy from a long, but fun day. I fell off to the land of slumber looking forward to the next day and the auction.
To be continued...
Just in case anyone wanted some of the holes in Jimmys story filled....
Although my attempt in starting a light saber battle was "febel", atleast I tried. I know nothing about the infamous Serenity, but I heard the words "we met at a Con". The only other time I heard the too cool phrase of "Con" uttered was by a little dog with a cigar, poking fun of people that thought they were Luke.
And let's all give a hand to Jimmy; the guy that talked a lot of smack, then didn't show up for the battle. Funny, that's what all the strippers he stuffed in his closet were saying too.
Now on too the most imortant subject, my darling loser of a horse that Jimmy doesn't even the courtsey to remember. If you look at his papers he is offifially "The Ronald". No wonder he never won a race! To Bit-By-Bit farm he is Roland.... very regal, right? Even if my baby only one 10 races, it's 10 more then Rev, the lump her was mistaken for (sorry Kristin, I'm defending my boy), and 10 more than the long winded, yet mildly amusing writter of this blog.
Posted by: Emily | June 22, 2006 at 10:45 AM
Ouch! Score Emily. Roland is beautiful - don't think I got any good photos of him, as he was too good to stick his head out of the barn. That bao was excellent. Damn, now I'm all hungry again.
Posted by: mike. | June 22, 2006 at 11:15 AM