When Irish Eyes are Hitchhiking

This last Saturday was Justin's famous annual "Irish Beer-Tasting Party". Well, it's not that famous. And this was really the only one, so it's not really annual. But we all wore green shirts and drank good beer so it was at least an "Irish Beer-Tasting Party".

But Princeton is a bit of a hike for me. I felt that if Liz and I were going to commit to this party, we should do a trial run first. So Friday evening we drove up to Princeton to dine with Justin and Alycia. We made pretty good time, but I think we could have done better with a decent pit crew. Justin made an excellent dinner, of course (is that a pun? no). Even if it sucked, I'd probably lie on this blog since he might read it. So did I like it? I'll never tell. Mind bullets! After dinner, Justin and Alycia wanted to surprise us with Quark Park. They wouldn't tell us what that meant but since we were in Princeton, I just figured it was some hipster-homo hangout with coffee and uninteresting books. I was pleasantly surprised. Apparently, the local Princeton University (whose name escapes me) had funded a series of socially experimenal art pieces. The amazing thing is that all of these exhibits were left out in a small public courtyard for all manner of persons and elements to influence and potentially ruin them. The even amazing-er thing was that the entirety of this exhibition was completely unharmed and unvandalized in any way. I could have walked out of there with a silver beach ball, a couple throw pillows, and long strains of blown-glass bubbles if I was so inclined. But I, like many others, was not so inclined.

It was surreal. But not as surreal as the game of Scattergories that awaited us back at Justin's. I'll save you the play by play and just give you the highlights:
1. Liz tried to pass off "Pound Puppies" as a farm animal...survey says 'no.'
2. Justin admitted that he would: "Totally give [Liam] goneria." Poor Alycia.
3. Liam is ugly and stupid. That wasn't really a highlight of Scattergories. It's just been a whole day since I've berated him properly.

In short, Scattergories was fun. But there was a more important matter to attend to that evening. Sure, we'd made it to Princeton in pretty good time, but what about the trip back? The test-run was only halfway completed. And boy am I glad we took precautions. As I was approaching my desired exit, a loud shreiking pop in the hood of my car told me something was awry. This was confirmed by my battery light glowing red, my engine temperature rising very rapidly, and the loss of a little something called power steering. I'm not an extremely weak man but I sure did miss power steering when veering around the excessively winding exit ramp. When the temperature gauge on my dash hit the big red H, I decided to pull over and call AAA.

No, I wasn't binge drinking (not that night anyway), AAA is the company that steals my money and me sends crappy roadside service. I phoned in a tow-job (out of the gutter guys) at 1:16 am. When AAA called me at 3:00 to apologize for the delay, I was a little impatient. But I didn't expect to finally get service at 3:40 am. Some of us have bladders you know. The man was nice enough to tow my car and drive us to a service station about 3 miles from where we live. During the ride, I gathered that he was a Nickelback fan, a sports nut, and had been awake for the last 52 hours. At least it was raining so there was absolutely no chance of feeling safe in his care. Lack of good personality aside, we were still hoping he'd give us a lift to our house after the tow. A curt "No dude, I live that way" and a sound ditching confirmed that we were not getting a lift. Not trusting AAA to send us a taxi before Thanksgiving, we decided to hoof it and walked the rest of the way home at 4:30 in the morning.

The following day, after I paid the mechanics $250 to put a rubber belt in my car, I felt that I was well-prepared for the evening ahead. If need be, I was fully trained to ride in a tow-truck and walk great distances. Fortunately, that sort of trepidation was not required for the beer-tasting that awaited us that evening.

There was stew, shepherds pie, spinach balls (that's what we're calling Popeye nowadays), beer bread, artichoke dip, mashed potatoes, and of course beer, beer and more beer. I had the pleasure of drinking a robust porter, a black and tan, an irish ale, a double-chocolate stout, and a shot of Tallamore Dew on top of all the aforementioned food. I don't think I've ever wanted a second stomach more than last night. But being fat and drunk doesn't make a party "Irish". You need to be fighting as well. So Liam, Sean and I punched and tackled each other whenever a moment presented itself.



Other battles occurred that night, most of which were Soundgarden vs. Pogues related (don't ask). But all in all, we were eaten, drunk and merry. I rested well that night.

Movie time! This next video was actually directed by Mike Nesmith, the bobble-hat-wearing fake guitarist from the Monkees. He left the band to pursue a career in movies and this is one of his brainchildren: