No, Really, I Am an American

A very GrAl Saturday Part 2

It’s a gosh darn good thing I split these up into two posts — can you imagine how long it would have been if I kept it as one? I’d edit, but where’s the fun in that?

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After leaving Brookfield Zoo, we were back to Grant and Al’s apartment for their housewarming party. I wish I could tell you the time, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I think it was near closing time for the zoo, so maybe around 4:30 or 5 is when we finally departing. (We spent like a billion hours at the zoo!) It’s also quite possible I’m making that up.

I’m fairly certain we were all pretty beat by the time we even made it to the cars. Even though the car ride was fifteen minutes or so, Grant fulfilled his new nickname as Sleepy McSnoozepants (again, it’s a better name than Tick Boy) and fell asleep, much to the amusement of everyone else in the car.

I was riding back with Grant and Al (obviously) and Dan and Lindsay. I hadn’t realized that Lindsay was an English teacher as well; I vaguely remember her saying something like going into education back in the day when Al still had White Elephant parties, but Spanish Education had stuck out in my memory, not English. Anyway, throughout the zoo trip, I asked Lindsay a bunch of questions about her first teaching gig as I had with Chris. We also discovered that one of my old friends from St. Hubert’s teaches science at St. Charles East. I thought that was hilarious.

Once everyone was returned to the apartment, we pretty much split up between the two rooms. The folk in the living room were primarily Paul, Jason and his girlfriend, Marvin, and anyone else who wanted to watch the Olympics, and the dining room contained Lindsay, Toni, Rich, Chris and Mark, Al, and me. Chris was making her awesome bacon wrapped water chestnuts, you know, the ones I can eat hot or cold? (So good!)

I wish I could say that we all had a nice conversation…but really, it was mostly talk about old times and teaching. I kinda felt like a jack ass. And yet, there was some part of me that was okay with it ‘cuz I knew what was going on. I can’t always claim as such when we have discussions and the like. Besides, those of us who dominated the conversation, also reminisced about our days at Conant and oh, the fun we had.

More people were starting to arrive then; Mike and Bert as well as Carrie and her boyfriend. For the better part of the evening, I hung out right where I was in the dining room. There were various parts in the whole of discussion that I wish I had something better to contribute; I kinda realized I suck at talking with my friends. ‘Twas pretty five-by-five overall ‘cuz I like listening to my friends at least. And again, I have to point out how I’d forgotten how much fun Lindsay Paige can be.

Eventually, the dining room folk dispersed more; we substituted people in and out because of the Olympics. I wasn’t overly invested in watching the Games, so I pretty much stayed put. I ended up harassing Grant for a spell while Al was picking up the food. VoW decided it would be fun to play a watered down version of Encore. I played when I could come up with songs, but otherwise just kinda went back and forth between the living room and the dining room.

For dinner, Grant and Al were kind enough to get the new Pizza Hut Tuscani Pastas. It was actually pretty good.

Here’s a thing that I realized while writing this post. So the night kinda reminded me of the episode “Sandcastles in the Sand from this season’s How I Met Your Mother where “revertigo” is explained. Sometimes when you’re around old high school friends, old high school things come up. ‘Twas kinda funny that it happened. Oh the drama.

I can’t actually recall the exact events that took place after dinner. I remember I actually sat still long enough to watch some of the Olympics. I caught some of women’s beach volleyball and some swimming events. Later in the evening, I even got to watch Michael Phelps swim. (I don’t follow a lot of Olympics stuff so I had no idea who he was until that night.) I was definitely happy to have caught the interview with the women’s individual sabre fencers ‘cuz that’s one event I wish I could have seen.

Joe and Cristina joined us again after pretty much everyone who wasn’t part of our usual gathering group departed for the evening. (It was a really long and fun day, after all.) They brought Can’t Stop, so some people used Grant and Al’s bedroom to play the game since I think the dining room table was still in use. It was kinda cool that all the rooms in the apartment were being used for fun and games.

The party was starting to dwindle (dwarf…we got dwindle we got dwarf…dwell!). By the end of the night, it was left to Mike, Al, Cristina and me in the dining room once again just talking while Grant fell asleep in the papasan chair, and Bert and Joe watching Olympics while Toni fell asleep on the couch.

Everyone peaced out around 1 AM. Essentially, Toni and I spent 14 hours hanging out with Grant and Al since we went to the zoo and then stayed through the night to the party. I thought that was pretty impressive.

It was definitely a great Saturday spent with good friends. I hope everyone else had just as much fun as I did.