So much to write about. I'm fairly certain it will require at least two posts to catch up on everything that's happened in the last few days. (I say that as if I lead the life of Indiana Jones! We all know I'm more like Burgess Meredith in that episode of the Twilight Zone.)
I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. In fact my largess extends to hoping that everyone has enjoyed all four of these days in 2009. My own New Year's Eve was quite fun, spent at Pat and Lisa's house, as we have done every year for at least 10 years now. We did nothing but eat wonderful food and play trivia games, but who needs more than that? I look forward to the same every year.
Before I get too much further, I want to tell everyone about a great title I found for the Nintendo DS. For those of you who balk at the DS being only a child's game machine, there is now the 100 Classic Book Collection for the DS. These are all titles in the public realm, and the collection is all over the place, but the software and reading experience are fairly comfortable. The collection includes many of Shakespeare's plays, most of Dickens' books, most of Jane Austen's books, and one or more books each from Walter Scott, R L Stevenson, Victor Hugo, Wilkie Collins, D H Lawrence, the Bronte sisters, Thackeray, Doyle, Verne, George Elliot, and many others. It's a bargain even if you only want to read three or four of these books. To sweeten the deal, more books are available online for downloading, and your game cartridge can hold up to ten of these downloaded titles at any one time. I found an additional ten titles already available for download, and I assume there will be more added as time goes on. This is truly a marvelous 'game' for the DS. The only negative aspect is that the game is only 'officially' available in Europe as I write this. I have not been able to determine if Nintendo intends to publish it in the United States as well. The entire thing is in English, however, so there is no problem enjoying it if you have a copy imported.
As I may or may not have mentioned earlier in this blog, I arranged with my dear friend Lee Ann tovisit her in Long Beach for a few days. Since she was with family in San Bernardino on New Year's Eve and expected to return to San Bernardino on the 3rd, she picked me up on the morning of the 1st and deposited me back at home early Saturday, the 3rd.
I have to say straight off that Lee has a terrific apartment near downtown Long Beach. She is in one of the high-rises that overlook the Long Beach harbor. The Aquarium of the Pacific is about a half-mile walk away, and the Performing Arts Center is so close that we could hear the crowd noise during Friday night's performance of Disney on Ice. Her living room has sliding glass doors on two adjacent walls that lead out to a balcony which wraps around two sides of her apartment. From one you can look directly down to a street used in the Long Beach Grand Prix. The Grand Prix, in fact, begins only a block away. Apparently it is quite the party spot to be in when the Grand Prix is in town. Walking a few blocks north from the apartment, you quickly reach Pine Street, which is the center of a lot of downtown renovation. There are many restaurants to choose from. The ambitious hiker could walk a mile or two in the other direction to reach the ultra-friendly Broadway district, and Belmont Shores is a close drive of a few miles. Lee definitely has a lock on the whole "location, location, location" thing.
Thursday night, after a few phone calls and some wrangling, Lee and I walked off to a sports bar for dinner. There we waited for her sister, Jori, and a few mutual friends, Brenda and Margaret. Yes, if you're counting, I was out with the Long Beach cast of Sex and the City. Brenda and Margaret quickly decided that their New Year's Eve had not lived up to its promise and this night (the 1st) would be their chance to find what they'd missed the night before. So, after dinner, we all piled into Jori's car and drove to a small bar on the south end of Belmont Shores, a place named the Crow's Nest.
If you know me at all, you know I'm not a big drinker. I don't mind a drink or two with good friends and/or in a comfortable place, but I'm not the kind of guy who can unwind enough to drink with strangers in a strange place. To top it off, I had wicked indigestion from dinner. So, we walked in and immediately found a small table centrally located that would accomodate the five of us. Jori had a beer, but the rest of us ordered chocolate martinis, which were not on the menu, until the bartender said he could 'fake' them for us. For myself, I think I got an idea of what a real chocolate martini would taste like, and I'll probably try one some day, but the drinks we were served were too strong for my stomach that night. When Lee had finished hers some time later, I swapped my glass for hers.
Minutes beforehand, as we were parking the car, the other ladies challenged Brenda to find herself a man within 15 minutes. It did not take Brenda even 5 minutes to accomplish that task! Before we had our first round of drinks, she was talking to a 'doctor' wearing an interesting tee shirt. Within 10 minutes she had him writing down everone's sizes so he could give all the ladies one. (I demurred.) I call him a 'doctor' because that's what he said he was... until shortly before he left, when he confessed that he worked in stone cutting. I don't think anyone bought the doctor cover at all anyway. Before leaving, however, he did seem to make a good connection with Margaret and I daresay there will be tee shirts for everyone.
So, not drinking, I spent a few hours in the bar observing my friends and the other patrons. Sitting at the bar directly in front of us was an older fellow wearing a hockey jersey. His name was Rak. I believe that is short for Richard or Ricardo in some way. He ended up monopolizing most of Jori's evening and claimed to be a police sergeant, which I frankly doubted. (His speech even early on when he was sober was a little mushy, and he didn't seem to carry himself like the few cops I've met.) I ended up leaving earlier than the ladies— Jori drove me back to the apartment— and on the way back I asked Jori if she believed he was a cop (since she was talking with him quite a bit). She did, based on her earlier experiences in life working with cops. Rak was determined to get a date out of Jori, and there was some amusement at the idea of liberal Jori going out with a conservative cop. As of this writing, I believe numbers were exchanged and a date is planned for some point.
When I left, there were two other fellows buzzing around our table as well. (As you may imagine, I was getting some curious looks throughout the evening, as I was definitely with this women, but in some undefinable capacity.) A handsome guy named Keith had moved from an early conversation with Lee and Jori, wherein they discussed meeting each other a year earlier and having a fun time in the very same bar. When I left, he was growing animated in discussion with Brenda and Margaret. The last person to join the cloud around our table was a young man named Peter (or Pierre or Petar). He introduced himself as Peter who preferred to be called Pierre. He claimed to be a sailor from Bulgaria, which I doubted. Lee told me that after I left they got to see some identification establishing that he was indeed a sailor. Early in the conversation I heard him mention Bulgaria, bt I don't know if he was a Bulgarian sailor or an American sailor from Bulgaria or something else. That he was Bulgarian by birth I had no doubt.
Anyway, as I said, my tolerance after a few hours had bottomed out. The bar had turned out to have no gay action that night, despite Lee's protests that every guy in there, in turn, had been checking me out at some point. Since my stomach wasn't allowing me to drink, I grew uncomfortable. Recognizing that I was no longer in my happy place, Jori took me home quickly. An hour or so later, Lee returned as well. I don't know how the other ladies fared.
And here's where I'll cut off my synopsis of my Long Beach weekend. I'll finish things off tomorrow.
"It is not the drinker, but the man who has just stopped drinking, who thinks the world is going to the dogs."— H L Mencken
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