Post-Birthday

I had a big birthday.

I got a new tattoo. It's pretty awesome.

Sonya and I had dinner with Jen and James at Bosco's. Beer! burgers! More awesome!

Then we went to Celtic Crossing. More drinks! More friends showed up! It was a crowd! Totally awesome!

Sonya gave me one more birthday present when I got home. Land of the Awesome!

The hangover today, though, is the Least Awesome Thing Ever. I'm going back to bed.

Beale Street

It's been a long time since I've been to Beale Street. When I lived here before, even, I didn't go to Beale much - I was more of a Midtown guy.

But our friends Dean and Kelli were in town this weekend, and Saturday we gave them a Big Day Out In Memphis. Graceland, the Rendezvous, ducks at the Peabody, then drinks at Side Street...and a trip to Beale Street.

What's changed?

We had to go through security to get it. A gate, metal detectors, pat-downs, everything. I guess somebody got shot one time.

Also, it was really, really crowded. Crazy packed.

And Schwab's was open! I probably hadn't been in there since college, and nothing has changed. Great huge piles of interesting and useless crap.

We had a last few drinks at Pat O's, which is creepy it's so much like the original. Just as much butt-sniffing going on, too.

Dean and Kelli were impressed with Beale Street.

"It's kind of like Bourbon, but wider," Kelli said.

"And so much cleaner!" Dean added.

A wedding.

A whirlwind weekend, to New Orleans and back in 36 hours for the wedding of one of Sonya's coworkers from back in the day. Some moments:

• England out of the World Cup on penalty kicks. Thrilling on the radio.
  
• But France beat Brazil. Actually caught the end of this one at the hotel. Equally thrilling.
  
• We were out of Memphis by nine, and we made it to New Orleans about three-thirty. We went straight to the Cane's on Clearview. Is that sad, that we drove all the way to New Orleans - and were hungry as hell by the time we got there - and we went directly to a chicken finger joint? Whatever, dude. Cane's is good.
  
• We stayed at the Hilton above the Riverwalk, and it was very swank. Our room had a doorbell (!) and a great view of the river. And a well-stocked minibar.
  
• The wedding was at a jaw-droppingly beautiful old church on the Westbank. We were sitting, waiting for the service to begin.
  

  "It smells like Tower Records in here," I whispered to Sonya.
  

  "Incense," she said wisely.
  

• The reception was at the Riverview room in Jax Brewery. I stood out on the balcony, stuffed full of little nibbly foods, drinking a vodka tonic and smoking, and felt like the Lord of Creation.
  
• The vodka tonics really weren't doing it for me, though. We went back to the hotel to change clothes and I had a slight headache after only three or four drinks. "Maybe I'll slow down, ride herd on these drunks," I thought to myself...
  
• ...but then we went to Tropical Isle, sat at the bar, and ordered some drinks. I had a beer and realized "oh-ho! This is a beer night! I did not know." And proceeded to get shitfaced.
  
• Sonya and I sent out the call, and people responded. Ahmet and his crew, out for drinking and dancing, came by to hang out with us. Siobhan, sitting quietly at home, came by and had a few beers.
  
• And then things got kind of fuzzy. I know we stopped by Mr. Flynt's dry-good emporium, but I couldn't say what we got...and somehow we made it back to the hotel.
  
• The Vietnamese kid from East New Orleans was not at all happy to bring me the minibar key at three in the morning, I can tell you that much.
  
• The next morning we were thinking brunch downstairs but the people we were with had a babysitter crying for mercy so they had to head out. We went to La Peniche instead, which was just as good as it ever was. It was strange and deja vu-ish to sit there, mildly hungover on a Sunday morning, sucking down coffee and going over the night before, no kid in sight. It could have been 2002 instead of 2006, before I knew John or Katrina.
  
• And it poured rain on us all the way out of town. Later, New Orleans!