MONDAY HANGOVER: BIRTHWEEKEND

Okay, so here goes, YOUR Monday Hangover,

Birthweekend started out with a gangbusters baseball game in Upper St. Clair on Friday. Although the Pubbers fell to the South Hills team, putting an end to our season, we fought valiantly, despite being undermanned, and fell in extra innings. I played my first full game at first base since Little League, and performed satisfactorily. Offensively, I found my way on base 3 out of 5 times, with 3 Walks, one which led to our first run. For me, it was a pretty fun way to end a disappointing season. At the very least, I made some cool new friends, and look forward to playing again next year.

Friday night, Drew, Kup, & I headed on d’ahn to the Southside to have some late dinner and throw a few brews back. Fat Heads and Mario’s normally amounts to a pretty good time, and despite the significant lack of single hotties on scene, a good time was had by all. Basically, any time you can have a Guys’ Night Out with your two best friends, life is good. FEM wasn’t ENTIRELY in effect, but the machine might just be warming up the engine.

Saturday was pure spectacularness. A venerable Who’s Who of my closest friends attended an ol’fashioned BBQ at 707. Special thanks to Kup for cooking the meat and ‘dina for bringing along heaping helps of both pasta salad and corn on the cob. If anyone wants to come over this week and eat leftovers (and there’s plenty) just give me a call! Megan knocked one out of the park with mixed fruits and whatever that tasty-as-all-hell cream cheese dip was. Awesome.

However, the food MVP award firmly belongs to Jeanie. She did well with both the Snickers Pie (or so I heard) and also the Milky Way Pie (even though a Milky Way isn’t really “a Snickers without the nuts” as I had convinced her). But most importantly, the HIGHLIGHT of the evening was the Specially Made for the Birthday Boy (that’s me) Blackberry Pobbler (is it Pie? Is it Cobbler? Who cares! It’s DELICIOUS). Yes, that’s right—she made me my favourite dessert. And the two of us ate 99.783% of it ourselves. Needless to say, Jeanie rules.

My brother kicked ass with his gift for me: the brand-spankin’ new DVD of V:the Complete TV Series. Although I’ve never seen any episodes of the actual series, this now completes my V set, and was one of the coolest, most unexpected gifts I received.

Speaking of gifts, let’s get to the list, with specific thanks for each. I can honestly say I didn’t expect any single one of these, and they’re all great.

Not only did Kup go above and beyond Friday night, footing the bill for all of my misadventures in masculinity, he also gave me an éclair (which looks good) and an AMAZING BOOK known as “Mythologies: the DC Comics Art of Alex Ross.” Alex Ross is a comic book artist world renown for painting ultra-realistic versions of heroes. The book is a complete collection of all his pictures of DC heroes like Batman, Superman, etc. It’s a cornucopia of stuff I can steal for the projects I’m currently working on. And it’s the ONE thing I didn’t get from my Christmas list. He really outdid himself, and I can’t say enough about this one.

Jeanie, along with the aforementioned ridiculously delicious edibles also gave me a spiffy Spider-Man magnet for the fridge, a CD of weird and unusual “music,” and a FANTASTIC book called “Tales to Astonish” that’s all about the life and times of Jack ‘The King’ Kirby. Jack Kirby, for those of you not in the know (I’m looking at YOU, everybody!) is the father of all modern comic book art. He created most of the Marvel Universe with Stan Lee back in the sixties, as well as Captain America, himself, in the ‘40s. It’s basically this simple: without Jack Kirby, there’d be no Alex Ross. He’s the Henry Ford of the only truly American artform. It’s an intriguing book I didn’t know even existed, and I can’t wait to read it.

Lara, despite her affinity for Ashlee Simpson, showed great taste in giftbuying with the purchase of a Spider-Man Pez Dispenser from the Pez museum somewhere in PA. We all know that Pez rules, and we all know that Spidey rules, so basically.. ‘Nuff Said! Thanks Lara!

Another thoughtful gift was a picture frame avec picture of Ang and I from my aunt’s prom, sent to my with a lovely card by Ang. Much appreciated and sentimental.

What else do we got? I really think I’m forgetting something, but I’m going to move on anyway(s). All other friends just did a hell of a job showing up and partying, which means more to me than you can imagine.

The party was sufficiently Frat-tastic. We finally dusted off the ol’ Beruit table and got to work on a well-priced ½ barrel of Champagne. You can’t beat a party that features All You Can Drink Miller High Life, can you? It was your standard fare: Kup gets a partner, Kup never loses, everybody gets drunk. We played fratty music and ate man-food. I think good times were had by all. Kup even did his obligatory stair-dive at the end of the night, and many a friend crashed and burned in the living room. I was 0-2 on the table, but not because of my partner, who shot extremely well for a rookie. Basically, as usual, I sucked. We DO have a TON of beer left over, though, so if anyone wants to come shoot a couple games this week, just give us a call.

Sunday, Kup and I headed on down to the Knor Hacienda in Herminie, watched a couple movies with my bro (“Marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries”) and had a fantastic dinner with my entire family. Luckily, Danny didn’t throw any icecubes this time, and (though we reached DefCon 3 on two occasions) had no major meltdowns.

I’ve heard it must suck to get old, but with great friends, great family, and great times, I don’t see how.

Thanks again to all who made it a really really really special and fun weekend. And thanks to all of those who were there in spirit. Also, Banner sent me the Text, mystery solved. So thanks for the shoutout, bro. Hopefully we’ll be sinking our canoe soon, I'd really like to fill the Lake with cement and build a hotel on top of it. We'd make mad coin. (if anyone but Jamie understood that, God Bless You)

Until next time,
-apk