Acting Our Age

Hey All,

Sometimes I find it interesting how grown-up some of the activities Sally and I participate in seem. For example, having dinner challenges like the ones we have with friends every now and then, makes me feel like a character on that late-eighties tv drama "30-Something," with Peter Hornton and Mel Harris et al. I have never seen an episode, but I remember the commercials so I can't quite say the comparison is a good one, but I hope that you get the idea.

Fortunately, Sally and I also manage to engage in some good shennagins and tom-foolery every now and then, harkening back to the times of our early twenties for which I need no tv metaphor, rather simply a few hazy memories.

Last evening, we had night that included both types of events. It was one of the most fun nights I've had in a long time and has some special meaning for me in light of having cancer. I did something new, a thing of growth and maturity that I hope to practice and improve upon over a long, healthy life. I also did something that reminded me to take opportunities to be young, spontaneous and slightly wild, with the fact that the future is unpredictable.

It started with an invite to have an Iron Chef style dinner challenge with our pals Ty and Katie. The ingredient we were required to include was cheese, and each one of us had to secretly cook a dish and serve a drink pairing on which we would judge taste, presentation and the quality of the drink pairing. I am not much of a cook, but I took the challenge on, fully intending to infuse my taste on a dish that would be edible and presentable to the others. It was quite fun as each of us took our turn in the kitchen preparing our meals, guessing what each other was cooking and drinking wine. I ended up making a chicken parmesan, Sally did a french onion soup, Katie a swiss chard/cayenne mac and cheese, and Ty did a cheese injected mini-burger. We cooked, ate and drank the evening along until we were satiated with decadence.

It was cool that we started early enough, because we all felt like continuing the evening out at the karaoke bar with another group of friends. At this point, I will say that none of sang a lick at the bar because we ended up at one of those places where the people are serious as all get-out, and even a twenty dollar bill couldn't get Ty bumped into the rotation by the DJ. So, since Ty wasn't able to get his singing jones satisfied and because we were close to his and Katie's old high-rise condo building in Belltown, the four of us decided to attempt to break into the building and go hot-tubbing in our skivvies. This entailed us walking into the lobby and fooling the concierge into buzzing us inside as though we were residents. It worked like a charm, and we ended up hot-tubbing for a bit before Ty and Sally had a synchronozed swimming contest a la Zoolander in the pool until we got kicked out at 1 in the morning. We then cabbed it home, soaking wet under our clothes, minus a few scruples but with a belly-full of laughs.

Since most of the night was spent in action, we only have a few pictures to post. Sorry that I don't have any photos of me and stanus poolside, but just know that I've been doing some pushups and I am looking pretty good these days.




This is what happens after a few too many and a visit to the late night mini mart where one can buy pretty much anything including these ridiculous gangsta caps.