Friday night my bro was originally supposed to come over with a couple of friends to check out my new place, but he ended up bailing at the last minute to take his family up to Boston for the weekend. I had reserved the club room in my building for the occasion and decided to keep the reservation since Jones and Tai were still going to come over. I also invited Tom, Kerri and Andrew since they’re my closest friends in Westchester. I got a bunch of beer, a bottle of Grey Goose and a couple platters of shrimp cocktail and we just played pool all night. It was cool and I definitely want to invite the 211 crew over for the same type of deal whenever I can find an open weekend to have an actual housewarming party. Amazingly, every weekend until mid-December has something going on, and then it gets kind of hectic around the holidays, so I dunno when I’ll be scheduling that.

Saturday morning we were off to PA to play golf at The Club at Morgan Hill. We were playing a scramble with me, Gar, Kat and Rick versus Twoin, Rog, Lisa and Ken. Since we were playing for a dinner at Fleming’s we had to handicap Gar by having him tee from the green tees and only allowing him to pack 7 clubs. And also since we were playing for steak, Kat encouraged Twoin to go meet up with Rog, Lisa and Ken at some birthday party in the city the night before. It worked out fabulously as Twoin was a wreck when I got to his place in the morning. He was maybe still a little drunk and definitely queasy and hung over. Apparently their whole team had done a ton of drinking and stayed out until 4am, so they were all feeling it that morning. Nice.

Our round got off to a shaky start as we somehow managed to bogey the opening par 5. Amazingly their team birdied #1, but then proceeded to bogey the next three holes. From there we were in the lead or tied for pretty much the entire round. Kat was having a particularly good day off the tees and we ended up using like 4 or 5 of her drives. Rick struggled thru the front nine, but we finally used one of his drives on #10 and a few holes later, he started to really pick us up with his putting. By the 18th hole, he was putting lights out from any distance. Maybe all that effort busted a blood vessel in his head because he broke out with a nosebleed somewhere down the stretch. Fortunately we all ham and egged it really well throughout the round. We only used 2 of Gar’s drives through the first 15 holes and we all seemed to be able to get a serviceable drive out when we needed to. Gar had one great par saving putt, I sank a birdie putt when Rick stepped away from his putt because of his nosebleed, and we were all really going to school on each other’s putts. When it was all said and done, we finished at -1 and their team finished +3. Woo hoo! A couple of randomly amusing things… You know how some courses have fairway posts painted like barber poles that are meant to give you a point of aim from the tee box? At one hole, Gar said to “aim at the barber shop”… Kathy’s KW balls kept falling out of her cart and rolling all over the place, so I kept telling her she lost her marbles… Ricky uses a “brush tee” so part of his setup routine looks like he’s giving the tee a wet willy in order to spread the bristles before placing the ball on it.

So after the round we had a beer and some wings in the clubhouse and then made the journey back to NJ for dinner at Flemings. Twoin and I got there first and he had one of their awesome Absolut Peppar Bloody Mary’s and I continued with the champagne kick I’ve been on lately and ordered a glass of Moet. As we waited at the bar, we munched on some of Fleming’s home made potato chips which were awesomely well seasoned and a little garlicky. When the rest of the crew arrived we headed to our table and ordered our feast. Naturally I started with the carpaccio which if you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you’ve heard me rave about it a million times already. Well at least this time I now can provide you with a visual thanks to Rick:

I followed that masterpiece with a cajun ribeye, usually my steak of choice at Flemings because they just do it so darn perfectly. Seasoned just enough to give some interest on the palate but not too spicy or salty to overwhelm the beef flavor. To accompany our steaks we ordered the usual jalapeno mac and cheese and the sauteed mushrooms which were super deliciously garlicky this time. Then Kat made the move of the night by ordering a side of the creamed corn which was so luxuriously rich and sweet. That will definitely be another standard item for us from now on. Man it’s making me hungry just thinking about it again… And speaking of standard items, we of course also drank several bottles of the David Bruce Petite Syrah as usual too. Another terrific meal at Flemings. To cap off the night, Rog grabbed Gar’s jacket without him knowing and went outside and put in on. When Gar came out, they kept asking him if he forgot anything and he kept saying no until he realized that he had forgotten his jacket. Lisa was cracking up but Gar still didn’t notice Rog was wearing it, so he went back inside to look for it. He of course came back out empty handed and it took a minute before he realized the gag. Score a point for Rog on that one!

Sunday I went with K to catch a Japanese flick “Linda Linda Linda!”. It was kind of a slow film, with lots of seemingly pointless scenes where absolutely nothing happens, interspersed with really cute, funny moments and a few doses of super catchy musical scenes. The movie is about a four Japanese schoolgirls in a band trying to learn three Blue Hearts songs in time for the school festival. The best part was that their lead singer was a kind of awkward and homely Korean exchange student with iffy Nihongo skills. That role was brilliantly played by the Korean singer/actress Bae Doona. I was thinking throughout the film that it was kind of dull and slow, but after it was over, I realized that was kind of the point; their school lives were exactly that slow and dull without their music. And boy, that title theme song really stays in your head after watching this flick. After the movie, K blew off her appointment to look at an apartment so we decided to grab a bite to eat. But me being me of course, a bite to eat is just an opportunity for something extravagant. We were in midtown east, so… we went to March! But that meal deserves a separate post of its own, so I’ll write that up another time. Stay tuned… 🙂