The Barbs, On Two Non-Consecutive Occasions

Despite their seeming similarity, those two strips of from two non-consecutive events. Right along there with liking the way you look is that when you try to push 6 people into a photo booth there's gonna be a whole lot of somebody's head. I guarantee it. One of these came after a day-long birthday party on American street, watermelons and piñatas included. Also a thunderstorm. We showed up at 1:00 AM perfectly drenched to blend in with the the sweat-soaked crowd that was already there trying to finally topple building to the ground. 

A couple weekends later I was wearing a bowtie and we had all been at a wedding. It sounds more out of place than it actually was though; I was wearing shorts and we had ridden our bikes to the reception. And there's nothing The Barbary appreciates more than riding a bicycle to a fancy event. Beth & Rafiq had put on a little summer fête champêtre up at the B2G2, complete with a jumble of wine-inspired glasses.

The original plan of course was to pedicab the bride and groom to the reception down Germantown Ave., with a procession of bike riders following behind. It eventually turned into just Evan, my dad, Larry, and me making the ride. It'll still be hard to beat that time we took a warm summer evening's ride through North Philly in bow ties, seersuckers, and pink jackets though.

Or that time they had self-serve Vernor's and Evan Williams at the reception. The worst part of that sentence is Vernor's, but the best part is self-serve.

Also, the Trudeaus came. Because what kind of party would it be without them?

The Triple Wedding: Part 3

Wedding #3: The Footloose Wedding

Katie and I started this one off with some Jack & Gingers somewhere over Michigan. Disturbingly, it was Katie's first drink plane-side, something we fixed by continuing to drink Jack & Gingers all weekend long. Or maybe that was because they're the perfect drink to kick up your heels with in the crisp New England air. The point being, we drank a lot of Jack.

Unfortunately our destination this weekend was not Portland, ME; The Double Portland would have to wait. But we were going to Maine, and after recovering from our first bottle of Jack, taking a couple of trolleys, and doing some artsy loitering, we couldn't wait to get ourselves up to the Vacation State.

[City Loitering]

[Country Loitering]

Sure, we may have done some leaf-peeping on the way up (don't act like you haven't done it), but what we were really looking to peep were some fat, red lobster butts. Did you know that Southern Maine is chock-a-block with Thai restaurants? We had to peep a bunch of those, not to mention a pile of HPV pumpkins, before we found just the right lobster spot with our preferred list of supplies—lobsters, a pot, butter.

Post-lobster, we had to pop our hopper into high gear and get ourselves dressed and de-lobstered to make sure we didn't miss the wedding trolley out to the barn. This time the very open bar was not sidelined by lack of dancing floors and/or music; the barn was a-dance before dinner was over. Take that Kevin Bacon.

Breakfast saw us reconvene at the hayLoft restaurant down the road. Things that weren't surprising: Katie's poor ordering skillz, the 20oz beers. Things that were surprising: that capital 'L', Crapples being great for breakfast too! It was the game's inaugural New England appearance, and it was a huge success among the Husky alums. So much so that we changed our flight and stayed to play again that night.

Despite the brief scare we had at the check-in counter involving first a missing reservation, and then a single boarding pass to Detroit, it turned out to be a really good decision.

Evaluation:

Location: a barn not that close to Portland, ME

Highlights: Katie, the party trolley, Crapples2Crapplesx2, the barn dance

Music: dance party

Company: 2 new Facebook friends, so many Crapples lovers

Food Discovery: Kristen's brussels, Kristen's sausages

Sway: Chansky's Sway, originator of the reverse headbang

On a scale of 1 to fun: FUN

[Katie, Whitney, Hotdog Hat]