Well, well, well, what a weekend indeed!

Friday night started off nice and easy, with chili night at one of the bandmates' houses. All of the Noi!se babies were there with us, as well as the spouses. Unfortunately, Matt and I were more absorbed in consuming delicious grown-up beverages than actually eating any food, and by the time I was being driven home by my very sober wife, I was essentially watching life happen through my eyes like they were twin portholes, my conscious nestled snugly somewhere deep within the recesses of my mind.

Amazingly enough, we still came home pretty early, and I couldn't sleep (WTF!). With no other recourse than lulling myself to sleep with Netflix, I settled into another exciting episode of Battlestar Galactica. I made it about fifteen minutes into the episode before morpheus clubbed me over the head with his sweet harp, and in no time I was coming to on my couch to the delicious scent of french pressed coffee and the perilous threat of a disgruntled wife

So then it was Saturday, and I jumped into the shower and got myself dressed, only slightly hungover, but in a hurry, because I had to take the girls to Seattle to see the Star Wars exhibit there. The exhibit was quite interesting, but I think I would have been more impressed at a younger age. At this point, I found myself gently scrutinizing the very grown-ass men and women prancing around in home-made Jedi regalia. Oh, except for the person in the Death Star Guard outfit (the one that's all black with something like a razor clam for a helmet), which just looked badass.

I'm pretty sure he was an employee of the Seattle Center, though.

After leaving the Star Wars exhibit (forty dollars less the richer because the girls just had to have lightsabers) we headed back to Tacoma, where the ladies had been invited to a birthday party.

But this wasn't just any birthday party. It was a mothafuckin' put put golf birthday party.

The party...

Well, well, well, what a weekend indeed!

Friday night started off nice and easy, with chili night at one of the bandmates' houses. All of the Noi!se babies were there with us, as well as the spouses. Unfortunately, Matt and I were more absorbed in consuming delicious grown-up beverages than actually eating any food, and by the time I was being driven home by my very sober wife, I was essentially watching life happen through my eyes like they were twin portholes, my conscious nestled snugly somewhere deep within the recesses of my mind.

Amazingly enough, we still came home pretty early, and I couldn't sleep (WTF!). With no other recourse than lulling myself to sleep with Netflix, I settled into another exciting episode of Battlestar Galactica. I made it about fifteen minutes into the episode before morpheus clubbed me over the head with his sweet harp, and in no time I was coming to on my couch to the delicious scent of french pressed coffee and the perilous threat of a disgruntled wife

So then it was Saturday, and I jumped into the shower and got myself dressed, only slightly hungover, but in a hurry, because I had to take the girls to Seattle to see the Star Wars exhibit there. The exhibit was quite interesting, but I think I would have been more impressed at a younger age. At this point, I found myself gently scrutinizing the very grown-ass men and women prancing around in home-made Jedi regalia. Oh, except for the person in the Death Star Guard outfit (the one that's all black with something like a razor clam for a helmet), which just looked badass.

I'm pretty sure he was an employee of the Seattle Center, though.

After leaving the Star Wars exhibit (forty dollars less the richer because the girls just had to have lightsabers) we headed back to Tacoma, where the ladies had been invited to a birthday party.

But this wasn't just any birthday party. It was a mothafuckin' put put golf birthday party.

The party wasn't bad. I always feel out of place at these things, because my oldest kid goes to school in the, shall we say, "affluent" neighborhood (because it's a good school and we choose to drive her there). The parents are into shit that is beyond me-stocks and bonds, real estate, tanning, The View, gun control, etc. so it's hard to discuss things with them sometimes. Still, you find a way to make small talk. I usually manage to steer the conversation by mentioning that I'm in the military, which leads to what I do, and BAM I'm regaling them with amazing tales of the Defense Language Institute and what I do with my Arabic skills down range (you may not realize that I'm being facetious here...if you're a linguist, you already know it).

After the birthday party, which ended in a caucaphony of cake-induced party favor duels and ear-shattering screams, I was on my way home when some other friends of the missus and I called to invite us to a barbecue. So no shit, there we were, barbecuing and drinking Puerto Rican rum, and I had to skip out mid-barbie and run down to my friend's Art Expo/Party/Thing/Show at her home, which is actually a massive loft-gallery called The Space, with some living spaces behind a few doors. The art was pretty neat, but I'm not going to pretend to know fuck all about it. There were some very detailed, creepy pieces involving painted material that had also been penciled, and then some pretty basic, cartoony stuff that was still extremely clever (one that sticks out is a cat playing with a bird...the cat has a thought bubble that looks like sunshine and the bird has one that looks like bad weather...clever). And then there were these totally creepy white pencil drawings on black paper, with these little creatures that looked like a cross between a ghost, a shark, and Gunther Straker from The Funhouse (google it, and happy nightmares).

I returned to the barbecue, my elbows greased with culture after so much artistic elbow-rubbing, and had a good time hanging out, especially because we got the youngest to rack out in our friends' pack-n-play. After the kids had stuffe themselves adequately with s'mores from the firepit, it was time to head back to our place. My buddy John was there to pick me up within moments, however, to finish the night off. Evidently, his girlfriend's sister had offered to drive us to our next bar, DOA (Dirty Oscar's Annex), in her car, which was a small spaceship disguised as a GTI. We spent a couple of hours at DOA, and I got sporty and decided to try Absolut Elderflower, which was like a cross between unsweetened iced tea and vodka

After DOA became a bore, we headed to Top of Tacoma (a local haunt full of people waiting to become that cool person you had beers with before they became famous) and having decided to hell with beer, I ordered Jeremiah Banjo Hee-Haw Tea (that's what I call it-I can't remember what the fuck it's really called) for the rest of the evening. A brief attempt was made to walk over to a house party, but it was full of annoying people (except for the host, my pal Buford who sings forBloodhunger, an epic local metal band, who was asleep in his room or something, because he was nowhere to be found).

And that about summed it up for now, since I have to cut this short and watch Mad Men with my wife before she takes me to Fist City. Deuces!