Godfathers, Mandanas, Wenches – oh my!

We decided to move up GNO to late June, since the last few times we’ve gone down in August its been too cold to sit on the beach.  The Angels ascended upon AC in the evening, only to visit a local yocal bar by recommendation from the hotel receptionist, which was just that. I felt like we walked into a cafeteria with a juke box.  It wasn’t that bad, the bartender did show us that adding Chambord to a Mike’s Hard Lemonade made it tasty!  Then went across the street to the acclaimed “Bar and Grill” whose parking lot was full.  Can’t say either of these places was our best choices for the night, but they served their food and drink purpose.  At the acclaimed “Bar and Grill” the food was good and the drinks were cheap, we had prime seats and somehow they forgot to charge us for the last 2 drinks. Thank you! And thank you for having the security system on your tvs to pan the parking lot. Unfortunately and unplanned I did not get up to visit the ladies room on purpose to leave one of the Angels alone on a bar stool, unsuspecting to the short yocal who needed nothing more than just someone to listen to his problems besides the bartenders.  Whoops! 

 

The amount of bachelor and bachelorette parties continue to grow, but you will be impressed I only told one group who I will talk about later, not to ‘eat the cake’.  Even after I rode the elevator with a bachelorette party all decked out in matching tank tops, I still bit my tongue (I guess now a days it makes it easier to find your drunk entourage).  We walked passed the Godfathers, who I must say got the award for most creativity for a bachelor party, they were older, and each person had a characters name on the back, similar to Ho’s Bachelor Party with Best Man #1, etc.  Kudos to you guys for not being tacky.  We met Flash Gordon who was babysitting the bachelor party he was with who honestly just wanted some adult conversation with people of his own age.  ‘Flash’ ‘ AAAHH’.  Haha…. Our last group of unsuspecting boys started with a lie.  He came over to the table next to us and was taking pictures with all of them, then fed us a line that he needed to take as many pictures as possible, that it was a scavenger hunt because he was the groom.  At least I got to see the new Samsung phone!  Anyway, this poor guy, well, he did ask for it, had no idea what was about to happen next.  He said he was only with his fiancé, so he really never saw another vajayjay.  (I think you can tell where this is going) The amount of jokes that came from that, well, he asked for it.  He admitted to only seeing his moms’ vajayjay, then said he felt uncomfortable talking about it until he compared himself to the size of a corona bottle.  From then on it just spiraled into another conversation of “Do you like clams?” until the rest of his entourage including “Uncle Joey” and the guy with one chest hair showed up to collect the stray drunkard who was not the groom.  I did tell them to not let the bride eat the cake, but no one seemed to care.

 

Although we were missing one Angel on this trip, she was in our thoughts. We found a new way to kick off the weekend with tequila shots, free drinks from Captain Morgan and the wenches, people watching on the beach and inside the casinos, which led to another fun bought of a A-Z rating system and giving guys with buns nicknames such as MB (manbun), any guy wearing a bandana was a mandana.  They did however leave us confused as to why guys (obviously who do not exercise) would wear ladies fitness tank tops that say ‘It’s my cheat day’ because that could mean many things.  Boogie Nights and Providence rounded out the night for us. Kudos to the 80’s club that never disappoints and we never get harassed or groped in the process of shaking our groove thing. 

 

After the Angels left we still had a day and a half left, being incognito at Bungalow hiding from the ‘Uncle Joey’ entourage, which you couldn’t miss because one had on bright Nike sneakers, which seemed to be trending if you wanted to find your friends the next day.  We closed out the Dueling Piano bar at the Playground, which, as long as they remain open next year, will be our hot spot to hit.  We have to retain our ‘girls with the wavy arms in the back’ status!

And always on our last day on the beach we get the old man who sits next to us, passes out and wears the shorts without a liner….nothing appealing about lifting your head up to see or not see that!  Maybe next year they will have designated beach areas for ‘family friendly’ and ‘seniors only’.

 

 

No Parking and Plenty of Looney Tunes

An overdue girls night out on an extremely cold night led to an unexpected evening of sorts and a parking nightmare.  Let’s just say that the overall ratio of guys to girls more than decent including the variety of age groups.  It wasn’t like the bars in Morristown, the trust fund babies, those home from college who show up at 11 pm already hammered, there were people older than us at the bar and closing the place out when we left.  I’m so thankful to have friends who will drive to hang out for a few hours, who value a friendship, who will put up with the bar-babies even when we’re not looking for any.  But in our typical Angel fashion we met some interesting Looney Tunes that night. 

1. Sean – “See those older guys over there, the one with the Irish ‘turban’, they double dog dared me to come over here and buy you ladies some drinks” >> it was actually his father and for once a guy didn’t believe an Angel’s real name
2. Dougie Houser – “I go to Med School” >>He ordered a Long Island Ice Tea
3. Metro – “How old are you? You don’t have a ring on you must not be married?” >> He asked all the wrong questions and admitted to waxing his eye brows and manicures once every 3 months
4. Egghead Jr. – “I just wanted to come over and say you ladies are beautiful, just let me order a drink and I’ll get outta here because your husbands and boyfriends are around here somewhere who will kick my ass” >> He ordered Fireball on ice and gets the nod for best conversation of the night.
   
5. Jesse – “You gonna pay my tab too?”  then he paid his tab at the bar with the blond bartender and ended it with “By the way my name is Jesse” >>Thank you Tony Siragusa for making an appearance
6. Justin – >> he left that much of an impression we don’t even remember what he said
7. Prick – “OH! OH! You wanna dance?” >> “No thank you”.  I’ve never seen a guy drink from a straw that still had the wrapper on it.

Prick ended the night…the nice bartender came by and asked if he was bothering us.  Apparently he was the trouble token for the night making his rounds.  So the next time he swung around and wouldn’t go away after I deflected his drink from being spilt on us we got ‘security’.  At least I wasn’t given the sign to get my dukes up….this is why we go out with bulky rings on J

The 'Cost' of Friendship

Throughout the years I’ve lost friends, or they wrote me off because our lives were not going in the same direction and vice versa.  Many of my good friends got married, had children and I too was married at one point without kids, now divorced without kids.  How were we going to get along? Very easy, how did we become friends in the first place?  Yes this is something the girls talk about when we’re together, the married, the single, the divorced, separated ones we talk about it.  We talk about the friends we have lost because they refuse to leave their town to go out and have a good time.  We talk about the friends we have lost because we’re the only ones not talking about our children at their bbq.  We talk about the friends we all can’t hang out with at the same time because someone doesn’t like the other one or whatever gripe it may be.  We talk about them because we can’t figure out why they wouldn’t want to go out with their friends.  But we get together to talk, to chat, to catch up.   Yet I find it funny that once their children get older, they all of a sudden have time for you, years have passed by and they think its okay now to catch up.  I’m still not sure how I feel about that because so much time has gone by and no effort was ever made on their part (no Christmas cards, no text conversations, no emails).  If they truly wanted to catch up, there’s 9 digits to dial, an email or a text to send, a halfway between houses to meet up where the husband watches the child for a few hours.  It all comes down to how important is that friendship.  I’m not saying that all parents are like this, just using it as an example.

I too have had a schedule full of softball games or other hobbies I am interested in, and I may live an hour from most of my friends, but at least I put it out there, even if that means meeting up after work.  For example, three weeks ago, because I know scheduling things with friends with children have to be done ahead of time, I text a good friend of mine about today for lunch.  I heard nothing back.  I’ve extended the same olive branch in a few Christmas cards to others with no response either.  Nice huh?  When do I stop putting in the effort?

I can say the same for some of my single/separated/divorced friends (with and without kids).  Try a month in advance, a few weeks to days in advance to plan something, come up with a date that’s set in stone, find a place to go, then day of I get the cancellation.  Yes this can happen to anyone and everyone who has heard all the excuses in the book.  Yes you can try to appease the situation and hope for next time, but when next time this happens again, then again and again ‘when do I stop putting in the effort?’ At what point do I end the friendship?

I’ve made efforts to drive to my friends’ houses, meet them halfway, but some of them (not all) won’t pay it back.  I shouldn’t always have to be driving to your house to go out or better yet, pick the place to go out by you when I don’t even live there.  I shouldn’t have to pick you up and drop you off when you don’t make the effort to do the same.  There are no excuses and I’ve realized that real friends compromise and make the effort no matter where you are in life, what state you’re in, how far you have to drive, even if it means rescheduling until you meet up.  Chances are if you get a ‘reschedule’ request, most of the time you end up going out anyway and making new friends (maybe next time I’ll send the ‘rescheduler’ a bill).