August 1 - A Glimpse Of The Good Life

Somehow four of us managed the rare simultaneous night off.

So Lauren and I zipped down to Mike & Holli's real life house on the edge of town for a real life double date.

Over sips of Irish whisky Mike gave me a tour of the backyard and garden.

It's a whole new world.

Penance: I have never mowed a lawn in my entire life.

I have never chopped dead branches from a tree.

I've never tended a garden.

I grew up in apartments and then a town home community, where it would be a violation for me to do any of these things. My adult life has been spent with a landlord overseeing all green thumbed activities.

I hope to change this at some point.

I would actually love to live in a place that didn't share any walls, floors, or ceilings with a neighbor, and would gladly accept the extra responsibilities that came with that luxury.

In six days, Mike & Holli will be wed in this same backyard.

This, too, is a whole new world.

One thing at a time.

Steak.

Seared on the fire pit with garlic and seasoning.

Roasted potatoes with little elfin onions.

Singed corn.

Wine.

Delicious.

More wine.

Wait, are we all turning into Sideways jerks?

Probably not.

We talked about commercial pilots packing heat, hush hush pregnancies, and Three's Company spin-offs.

I suppose it's better than being self-congratulatory Big Chill masturbators.

Before we left the outdoors, Lauren and I compared the sounds of Mike & Holli's backyard to the sounds of our apartment.

Backyard: Crickets, cicadas, air traffic, distant stream of the highway

Apartment: Roaring nearby trucks, sirens, shouting neighbors and derelicts, thinning stream of drunk douchebags

Gee, I don't know.

Could we really sacrifice all that for our own house with a backyard?

Inside we played a 1984 edition of the board game Password.

We were all a bit terrible at playing it.

Your partner has to guess words like "compete" or "dynamic".

For each turn, you get a single one-word clue to give.

After eight rounds of no one being able to guess "dynamic", I gave the clue "Nirvana".

It didn't work.

We switched to my favorite parlour game of all time: CELEBRITY!

I included some of Mike's least favorite musicians (Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen) in hopes that he would have to describe these odious annoyances in full detail. To annoy himself (?) he did the same, submitting Stevie Ray Vaughan in both games.

However, Mike was wrong when he referred to Stevie Ray Vaughan as a worthless blues guitarist that was wonderfully killed in a helicopter accident in Texas.

It was in Wisconsin.

Verdict: Win