code pink! code pink!
yeah so its been a while, but this thoroughly amused me. My sister is starting an ER rotation at Children's Hospital in a few weeks, so she was reading through all their alert codes (blue : cardiac arrest, red: fire). They have actually had a code pink (abduction of a infant). I mean I know its a kid's hospital but jeez.. code pink?? If I heard that being called on the PA i would think bunnies were invading the hospital or something! Oh and they also have a code MCI... mass casualty incident (very fitting if you ask me...). What’s next code AOL?? Where all the patients walk in and say "me too!"???
week of merriment part 3, the abbrivated version
Right so, I kind of need to finish my week of merriment series and this is taking forever, so. Here is the fast forward version:
Monday: Rich Quodomine came to town. I haven’t seen Rich in years so it was awesome to hang out. Got to Union Station on time (first time ever I’m on time for anything) only to find out Rich’s train is running an hour late. Woot. Well at least there is some stuff to do at Union Station.. like check out the overpriced touristy stuff. Once Rich got there we made it over to the Phoenix hotel where he is staying. The Phoenix is a pretty neat place for sure. Its best feature is that it has a backdoor that opens up right into the Dubliner, one of my favorite Irish pubs *grins*. Yaneev met up with us, and the festivities started. Guiness of course flowed. Afterwards we decided to re-enact an age old tradition, i.e. stumble out to the street and walk down to the Capitol. In the past, we would go to the Dubliner, get trashed, then walk around the Capitol and the Monuments to sober up, before going home. Those days you could walk all the way up the steps of the Capitol (on the back side away from the Supreme Court) to the glass entry doors of the main rotunda. BTW that is the best spot to watch a sunset in DC. Of course now the stairs are off limits for obvious reasons. Anyways we walked around, goofed off, took a bunch of pix, probably ended up on some government surveillance vids. Yay!
Tuesday: MeetinDC Rawbar night! This place by where I live called Ragtime has a rawbar deal every Tuesday from 4pm to close (or well till they run out). $2.95 for a ¼ lb of shrimp, ½ dozen raw oysters, ½ dozen clams, or ½ dozen mussels. Really good stuff too! So the peeps from meetinDC set up an event there every few Tuesdays, and today was the day. I showed up early to try and grab a big table. I was kind of worried cause they do get busy, and I wasn’t sure they were going to let me have a table for 20, if I’m the only person there. So I get there, and go up to the waitress to ask about a table. She just goes “oh yeah, your that seafood group from last time, wait a second”, and goes to find the manager. Not only do we get the hook up with a big table and good space, but we’re told that next time let them know we’re coming, and they will know to order more seafood. What ensued was a delectable feast of seafood goodies, and yes, yet again they ran out of oysters (cause some people were ordering them by the three dozen.. and no it wasn’t me, I don’t eat raw oysters!). I think I cleared 3lbs of shrimp that night.
Wednesday: time for DUCK! Yup I decided to host my first meetinDC event at the Peking Gourmet Inn, an awesome duck joint in Bailey’s Crossroads. This place has always been good to me, and this night was not an exception! The service was amazing, and the food was just….. oh damn….. more than one person was like “this duck is the best I’ve ever had!!!”. Rich, who managed to get out of work early and join us again, was of the opinion that his whole trip to DC was worth it just for this duck. Yes its that good! FOODGASM.
Thursday: because 6 out of 7 days is just not good enough for me, I decided to join a bunch of people at Shamshiri in Tyson’s for dinner. I love that place too. Come to think about it, I do like a lot of good eateries around here. Hmmm I wonder if that’s why I’m fat? (YES!). And what’s a good cap for a whole week of going out?? ROCKBOTTOM on a Thursday night *grins*!
Friday: sleep.
week of merriment part 2
So actually, this is about 3 weeks out of date at this point, but hey I’m getting to it, be cool (I started writing this two weeks ago)! Saturday night. The plan started out as a “Yusef needs a quiet Saturday night after the last couple of days”. Someone once said that a plan never survives its first encounter with the enemy. That person was had a suitably impressive Military pedigree. That person also happened to be right, oh so very right.
Dave and I decide that since we haven’t been to the churrascaria in a while, we would hit the Malibu Grill in Baileys. Its good, its inexpensive (for a churrascaria anyways..), and its close by. We also figured that since it’s a nice night, we would chill for a little while afterwards on my balcony, and then figure out what to do. First off, I really think a cattle train overturned somewhere in the area that day, because the beef just kept coming, in all forms (ribs, NY strip, Sirloin). We ate well THANK GOD. You’ll understand why later.
After dinner we decide to just head back to my place, since we really didn’t feel like going anywhere to drink, and more importantly my strategic alcohol supply was getting too large and needed to be culled. My first inkling of how the night was going to end up should have been when George decided to drop by. Whenever George, Dave and I get together, things tend to get kind of alcohol-y. One of the benefits of being friends for more than a decade is that they already know that I’m an idiot, so I don’t have to waste time pretending I’m not. The second inkling of how the night was going to end up should have been when I made the very intelligent decision that it was ok to drink my Shiraz out of a large coffee mug. Yes coffee mugs hold liquid just fine, but when drinking is involved, depth perception goes to hell. Did I fill a 1/3rd of the mug or ½…..mmm better put in more just to make sure.
It was a really nice night outside, so we figured we would chill out on the balcony for a while, have a drink, and chill out. The Sheisha (hookah), or as Shari later referred to it, my “baby bottle” came out after the first bottle of Shiraz. Mmmm Wine and Jasmine flavored tobacco….. damn good combo. Of course If I’m going to smoke, I need to drink some more too (you know it only makes sense!), so the 2nd bottle of Shiraz made its fateful trip out to the balcony. I believe it lasted a full 7 minutes. Things get a little blurry after that, but I seem to recall a couple of bottles of sweet wines making it out to the balcony, followed by some Rogue Imperial Stout. Now I got to say, how rockin is a beer that has a higher alcohol content than red wine. I love my 12% ABV stout. I specially love it when it comes in 750ml bottles! Yay rogue.
At some point during the night, Shari came over to hang out. Apparently she was at a bachelorette party in Sterling or Ashburn or somewhere way out on the western horizon (things were pretty damn blurry at this point!!), and wasn’t ready to call it a night yet. She had been SMS’ing Dave for part of the night, so we were expecting her. Of course she did not honor the balcony’s request of bringing her hot friends with her. Tsk Tsk Shari, the balcony is displeased! Well suffice it to say that I was well on the way to toasty-hood when Shari stopped by, and Dave was close on my heels. George was “taking it easy” that night (which for him means only drinking ONE bottle of wine…). So the fifth bottle of wine made it out to the balcony.
Somehow we end up on the issue of my ummm.. spectacularly disastrous dating history of late. Cause the old days, the new days, how we’ve been recently, awesome new games, sweet new cars… not good enough topics of conversation… I mean really what better time to discuss my monumental fuck-ups then when I’m 300 sheets to the wind, with George and Dave there to fill in the parts that I was TRYING to leave out. Well anyways I think everyone was entertained (and knows to keep their mouths shut). Oh and Shari, if these stories make it into your book, I want a mention and royalties *grins!!*.
Well I think it was about 4 a.m. when Shari and Dave decided to it was time go home. They were nice enough to help me clean up a bit before they left. I on the other hand had enough coordination and thought cohesiveness to drag a trash bag over to the couch before I promptly passed out, but not before turning on the discovery channel somehow. The final tally of the night: 6 bottles of wine, and 2 big bottles of that Rogue stuff, one really wasted Yusef, a plastered Dave, and a happy Shari and George (who between them I think drink like 1.5 bottles of wine). Mind you this information is gleaned from the after action report of empty bottles left on my kitchen counter, since god knows I couldn’t count worth shit at the end of the night. Which actually begs the question, I wonder how the hell I managed to light all those coals for the Sheisha.. it was on all night long….. Well I hope that part was entertaining too!!! I digress.
I came to (waking up is not the right word…) as the suns rays were caressing my eyeballs. Folks, if you plan to pass out on your couch, close the shades. This is especially true if you have a huge bay window that points due East. The sun’s warmth was really nice though, since I didn’t really think to get myself a blanket. In time, nature began calling, so I slowly but surely began the long process of getting off the couch. A short stop in the kitchen for some water, and then onto the bathroom. This is when I realized that I had two major problems. The first one was that I had promised my mom I would have lunch with her and my sisters later that day. Now this generally wouldn’t be much of a problem except for the fact that problem number two was around….. that being that its 9 a.m. Sunday morning and I was still plastered.. I mean I couldn’t even walk straight at this point, it was that bad.
I made an executive decision to go back to sleep, and deal with my mom’s wrath later. I had pretty much sobered up, and started the evil hangover phase when my mom’s first call came in. *RING* *RING**Ring* grab cell phone, try to turn off, fail, rip battery out of cell phone, go back to sleep. It wasn’t till around 2pm that I finally decided to get out of bed and try to accomplish something that day. First I had to deal with the wrath of mom, who insisted that since I missed lunch, I had to make family time that evening, after all my sisters won’t be in DC much longer. O.K. fine, sure thing, can I go now? Thank you. The world stopped spinning around 4:30pm.
So you fine folks can imagine how much fun dinner with my mom and sisters was while I was in this state. The hilarious part is that both my sisters knew exactly what was going on, but didn’t say anything in front of my mom. My mom on her part seemed rather oblivious to the whole situation. Of course the minute my mom went up to sleep both Badria and Hessa started in on me about how much fun I had the night before, and was she hot, etc. Got to love the family, but hey at least Daisy was nice to me?
For all the suffering though, it was worth it!!! What a Saturday night!!!
Keep tuned for the next installment of the week of merriment!
week of merriment part 1
Well Ive been meaning to throw out a blog about all the stuff that happened last weekend and this past week, but the weekend kind of extended into oh. lets say I started writing this blog Wednesday night.. God knows when its getting posted. Damn this active social life of mine (and where the hell did it come from?).
So I guess my merriment started two Thursday nights ago at Lenores Seder. Yeah folks, my muslicatholic ass actually went to a Seder. No Moses did not come down from the heavens and lay the smack down on me. No bolts of lightening immolated me either (though I swear a couple of clouds up there were looking at me funny). I digress. My first comment is that Lenore is a freeken fantastic cook. Im still dreaming of that brisket. And the chocolate moose holly!! It was cool too cause we all go to tell part of the story of Passover, so it was a learning experience. I must say I was a bit shocked that the story of the Exodus told for Passover, is pretty much the one that I learned in school in Kuwait, where I had to take religion (aka Islam) classes. Considering all the other propaganda we were taught about Jews (mind you, there was no differentiations between Jew and Zionist to them) , I had pretty much expected it with the story of the Exodus too.
Side note: No wonder all the jews I know have such strong livers, your supposed to drink at least 4 glasses of wine during the Seder, and thats for the official part!
Speaking of Wine, someone one day is going to have to explain to me why the hell Total Wines has a section called Kosher/Israel, and puts non kosher wines from NEWYORK in that section? I MEAN I know NY has a big jewish population, but jeez.. Not to say that Love My Goat wasnt a good wine. It was! And I enjoyed it very much, but the whole point of me buying kosher wine was that so that everyone could partake. *Sigh* good thing most people there arent very good jews since I bought three bottles from that section. Total Wines stopped me from properly getting my jew on. F-
So that was my Thursday evening fun night. Then comes Friday! (woo hoo). I have been promising Stacy I would meet up with her in Baltimore for the last oh a lot of months. She lives in southern PA, I live in Northern VA, its a good meeting point. So Friday night I go up to Baltimore to meet up with Stacy, Michelle, and Kelly. Of course I sort of forgot that it was Easter weekend, and that there perhaps might be a little bit of traffic on I-95. Opps! Well luckily this is where the quirks of my cars Navigation system came in really handy. Overall Honda (Acuras parent company) has a really solid Navigation system, even though my system is gen 2 and their on gen 3 systems now. Sometimes thought the system will map a convoluted route, where a much easier one is available. I entered the bars address in the system, and it gave me a route through the district and up 295 into MD and onto the B/W parkway. I decided, what the hell, Im early anyways. Man let me tell you, it was great!!! Weather was awesome, windows down, sunroof open, blasting some sweet tunes, and seeing all the traffic signs saying I-95 severely congested, expect large delays, seek alternate routes. The only problem I ran into, was that I got into Baltimore right as the Orioles game was letting out. The B/W parkway ends at Camden Yards so I sat in traffic waiting for pedestrians and police directions. It wasnt too bad though, and I saw some Oriole players giving interviews before boarding their bus, that was kind of cool!
I get to the bar in high spirits. I take a look up at the name of the place .. and I know Im home. How can I not like a saloon called The Horse you Came in On?? and I wasnt wrong either. This place was pretty cool. It was lively, but not overly crowded. The crowd seemed a good mix of people, with a lot of regulars (including my friends I was meeting there).
I must say, It was really cool to Stacy after so long (and yes I know whos fault that is Stacy *grins*), and her friends are pretty cool. Lets not also forget that all three of them were hot. Dayyam yo, smoking you know what Im saying?? Its funny, for once I was actually thankful my parents made me take horse back riding lessons in Kuwait and over the summers in Switzerland. Not only did I learn how to bribe horses with apples and dates, I was also able to show off my horse knowledge to the lovely ladies I was hanging out with, since their all involved in things equestrian.
It was definitely a kick ass night, and it ended way too soon. We pretty much closed down the bar, but werent ready to go home, so we hung around Fells Point for a while afterwards just chilling and talking on the street, well it was nice outside.. except for the dumb fuck in the 20 year old Turbo Diesel Porsche Carerra that decided to get in his car, start and rev his engine, and sit idling about 5 upwind of us. Mmmm diesel fumes. Aight dude, you got yourself an old Porsche, and to be fair it was in damn good shape for its age, way to go, congratulations, now stop shortening my lifespan with your exhaust shortening my lifespan is my job!!! The best part though, that made me laugh all that off was this other dude who came up and started slobbering all over the car. He wanted to check out whats under the hood so the dude in the car pops the hood. OMFG so I guess the Porsche wasnt even the posers car to begin with. Perhaps I should explain to the non car aficionados here. Porsche Carreras all have rear mounted engines (both the Diesel and the Gasoline powered ones, regardless of the year). It was a Master Card moment:
1986 Porsche Carerra 911 Turbo Diesel $45,000
going out to fells point on a nice night to show off $150
looking like a total idiot poping the front hood of your car to show the engine off , when the engine is in the BACK making you look like a moron in front of everyone..
priceless.
What an awesome night!!!
Happy Birthday Stacy!!! And Congratulations Michelle on the lil foal!!
And then there was Saturday night but thats part 2 of our week long blog series
