4th of July Weekend and the One After That 2011

Oh hey there, dear reader. Haven't seen you here in a little while. Let me explain.

So I went back home to Pennsylvania the last couple weekends. I know, at first read that sounds ridiculous because it's Bethlehem, PA and if you were just going to go to the same place why didn't you just stay there the whole time?

Don't be such a cynic, you.

Here's my explanation:

A little while back I was informed my neighbor would be having a quoits tournament on July 2nd. Oh, you don't know what quoits is huh? Well then you're probably not from eastern PA. Well it's a backyard game with a similar concept to horseshoes but with a slate board with a metal hub in the middle of it at which you are supposed to throw little rubber doughnuts from 18 feet away. It's a load of fun. Anyway. My neighbor was having a tournament on July 2nd and I wanted to attend. It also just so happens that my mom was getting a double knee replacement a few days before then and she wanted some company.

Now here is why I went back to the same place two weekends in a row with me not having enough time saved up to take off for a whole week in between the two weekends being the reason I didn't stay the whole time. No, that's a lie. I didn't stay at home for a week because I didn't want to stay at home for a week and waste my vacation days. Don't tell mother and father. The reason for two weekends though is that my mom was going to be in the hospital for the weekend of July 2nd and I couldn't spend any real time with her there so I was like 'well, I can't justify going home and not spending any real time with my mom and I am not going to be able to do that on the 2nd so I will just go back the next weekend too when she is back at the house.'

So that is why I went to Bethlehem, PA two weekends in a row. And since going to Bethlehem, PA is not really worth two weekends in a row on normal occasions, I treated it as such by not writing last week and will cover both here. Sorry for the delay and thank you for your loyalty.

So I rent a car, pick up my roommate Thomas from my house and we head on up to PA. Basically that whole night once we arrived was spent practicing quoits because I wanted to feel like my $20 to play on Saturday was not merely me donating to someone else's winnings. Except at about 130am we needed a break from all the drinking and quoits clanking. PA is like the closest thing to prohibition so most alcohol places that are not bars closed about 4 hours earlier. The only place I know that sells beer/food this late is a place called Lehigh Pizza. My older sister was home with some of her friends and was designatingly driving them around so she took us there. Well, I was hungry for a cheesesteak so I was bought one.

Now, have you ever seen Four Loco sold anywhere? Yeah, neither had I. Until Lehigh Pizza. Well, Thomas was feeling ambitious so we each bought one. And I understand their illegality. They taste like juice in which someone accidentally dropped a pinch of alcohol, except it was like 12% ABV. Copious amounts of sugar, alcohol, and tasty food pretty much guarantee you're not getting to bed any time soon so, as is custom in my house back home, we played Trivial Pursuit and, as is also custom, I dominated because if I am good at anything in life now that my right arm is out of commission and I can't throw things anymore it is recalling trivial facts. And whistling. Unfortunately, in this economy, the job market for someone with my skills is pretty poor. Fortunately, however, I have a good job somehow so I can pursue my other talents on the side (Jeopardy for the trivia and annoying friends, family, etc. with the whistle. Side bar because there was no one else around when this occurred in real time: As anyone who knows me is familiar, I can whistle in quite a high pitch and it is easily mistaken for something not caused by a human being. Well, I work on this project for a government accounting-type system and my desk is right near all the hardware for it. The other day I was whistling in this high pitch as is a habit of mine as one of the maintenance guys was walking by. He hears the high pitch sound and stops mid-step, looks around, then goes into the room with all the big, high tech hardware and has a gander wondering if the high pitch sound came from in there. Little did he know it was caused by a human being and that human being was I. HA. One of the more proud moments of my life.) Then we played more quoits until about 4 am.

Then I woke up and went to visit my mom in the hospital. Given the unpleasantness of hospitals, I didn't stay long. I know, this makes me look like a moderately to very bad son. But here was my calculus: my mom knows I am not comfortable in the hospital (I don't know, I expected for a knee surgery there would be a little more space in the room and a lot less equipment/person sharing the room with her) and I would be coming home the next weekend to see her in a more comfortable location for me. Which reminds me: if you are on your deathbed, forgive me if I don't come to visit, or, if you are, don't expect me to stay long. I apologize for my insincerity ahead of time.

Shockingly, drinking a bunch of beer and four loco leaves a hangover, so, to prepare for my day of drinking, I called upon nurse Wendy and doctor Gatorade to get me ready. Did the trick just fine.

Do you remember how I told you how one of the more proud moments of my life was when I made someone mistake my whistle for a problem with some really expensive computer hardware? Yeah, that's pretty much because I haven't accomplished much in my life to be proud of, including being out after three matches in the July 2, 2011 quoits tournament. It was about then I started questioning the point of driving home for said quoits tournament. But don't you worry, I got my money's worth consuming a ton of food and drink. Then we went swimming. Then we went to eat more food a this delicious Syrian place in Allentown called Aladdin even though I was on the brink of exploding at that point. Then I stopped consuming things and we went to the casino where I immediately lost $20 and realized my winnings in Atlantic City a few weeks ago were almost certainly a fluke and gambling is not a profitable venture. More hopes and dreams dashed right there. Then after about 36 hours in Bethlehem, we left.

But wait, the ride back was not without event, if you count eating at a chinese buffet an event like I do. If there is a chinese buffet to be found, Thomas and I will find it. So, if you are ever hungry driving through York, PA, there is an excellent chinese buffet there in the shopping center right off the highway. After getting back to DC I just sat on the couch because somewhere along the line I subconsciously decided to try to become a fat person. Upon realizing this I made the conscious decision to try to not become a fat person because with my bone structure and tiny head it would look ridiculous.

Oh yeah, there was the 4th of July. Well, I slept late because those hours described above did not leave me feeling that well for some reason. But I made a day of it by watching your national capital's fireworks show from atop the hill at 13th and Lamont, which, btw, is probably one of the best non-rooftop locations to see them in DC in case you're ever in town on the 4th, which, btw, I do not recommend because you will be sharing that idea with about 2723948 million other people.

Then work that week was pointless because pretty much everyone but I decided that week was not a waste of their time off.

Here's another reason why I decided to go up to PA the next weekend: I had a couple roommates going up to Philadelphia so it would be cheap for me to take the bus up with them and spend the night drinking in Philadelphia, sleep there, and take the bus up to Bethlehem the next day. Which is exactly what I did.

But, just to reinforce that it didn't make the most sense to do that, jesus made it rain while having to walk the good distance from the metro to the bus. Then he created traffic and placed our bus in the middle of it so that it took us about 4 hours to make the otherwise about 2 hour trip to Philadelphia from DC.

I'm not sold there's much more to Philadelphia than the Phillies and cheesesteaks. (I really want to like Philadelphia so if you can convince me there is more to it than those things, please please do.) So, first things first, we ate cheesesteaks from JJs on South Street, which were good but not as good as the other popular places in the city. Then we went to any old random bar on South Street for a couple beers before heading back to Temple where our friend was staying and where we would be sleeping. We didn't think this one through. Scratch that; we didn't pay enough attention to her email detailing basically that there wasn't really any real place to sleep at her place as it is a dorm with a tiny bed and a linoleum floor.

All right, well this was definitely not a problem alcohol couldn't solve. So, either I was finding a random person at the bar I could shack with or I was getting sufficiently drunk that sleeping on a linoleum floor didn't seem like such a bad thing. If you've been keeping up with this blog I can promise you you know me better than if you actually had a real life, interpersonal relationship with me, which all two of you that read this do, so it probably didn't take any in depth thought to realize which option I took.

So we started off with the 'shot of the day', swedish fish. Then I drank a few of yuenglings mixed in with a couple more shots, then another beer, crossed my fingers, put on a smile and hoped a random stranger wouldn't find me too creepy and would offer my a place to sleep.

Yeah, that didn't work.

Sleeping on an almost bare linoleum floor is not as bad as it sounds.

Then we went to one of the big famous cheesesteak places for breakfast and I got on a bus back to Bethlehem straight to the casino. Seriously. Kind of. I had my dad pick me up there.  I didn't gamble.

Turns out hanging out at home with a mother coming off a double knee replacement surgery is not as blogworthy as it sounds. So not too much write about there. Other than that though was a mediocre bar experience Saturday night, a stop by my friend's slow pitch softball game on Sunday, of which I was quite jealous (believe me, world, even though I live in a moderately large city I in no way think I am better than those that live in the small towns and wouldn't desire something like a Sunday slow pitch softball beer league with a bunch of friends from high school. I mean, I know I come off arrogant most of the time, but I promise that is just a lack of confidence and a bit of social ineptness.), and a visit to my grandfather where I would be like 'hey, grandfather, do you need anything?' and he would be like 'a redhead.' OK, 86 year old man, what on earth would you do with a redhead? And there was some good, father-cooked food in there, too.

And there it is: my three straight weekends in PA. Maybe now I will get back to the point of this weblog and visit some tourist sights here in DC. I won't be leaving town for a while, so we'll see. But, DC was just ranked the 6th hottest city in the country and there are 2340983 million tourists around at any given moment during the summer so the motivation to not be here is quite great.