JUL 27

TIMELESS FACTS

Today is Julie's birthday! (I am married to her.)

2024

Saturday: our day started with a quick run to the store, as the cats were now out of treats. I picked up the stuff to make goulash for dinner tomorrow, and on the way back, Julie had me bring a mobile order of Taco Bell home. After we finished eating, I realized I'd forgotten Julie's tuna snacks, so I ran back out long enough to grab those, as well. In the late afternoon, we picked up pizza from Pizzata, and the Genoese I ordered this time was much better than my previous order. We had fifteen minutes to eat before it was time to go to the subway.

The plan for Julie's birthday this year was to do a bar crawl, but we were both coming down with colds. I blame the masses of children at Adventure Aquarium two days ago. We started at PHS South Street Beer Garden, and we lead with non-alcoholic drinks to ease ourselves into the procession. We were there for maybe 25 minutes before anybody else showed up, but we soon had Julie's friend Rachel as well as almost her entire bocce team with us.

After around 3 hours, our next stop was Bob & Barbara's Lounge, where we I nursed a Sprite as we sat out front and discussed what various closed storefronts had been previously. They had a whole lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon memoriabilia on the walls. I was more comfortable just reading on my phone at this location, so I enjoyed myself more on this leg of the trip. The downside was that it had now been long enough since I quaffed my cold medicine, so my sinuses started to act up.

An hour later, we walked down South St to get to Tattooed Mom. It was a nice walk because the weather was cool, and it was getting late enough in the evening that the streets were pretty quiet. When we got to the bar, we found stools on the second floor where Julie and I each had an order of tots, since it had been so long since we'd eaten. It was fine, as bar food goes. We spent two hours here, and my stamina was starting to wane.

Our last stop was just before midnight at the inescapable Ray's Birthday Bar. Julie had her free birthday shot, and our group set up in the back room, somewhat diminished from the numbers we'd had at the start of the night. For some reason, I ordered a Miller High Life, but it was a struggle to finish. I appreciated that we had no karaoke, plus a little bit of Donnie Darko on the TV, but I was moments from drowsing in my seat. Julie invited me to leave early, andI considered it, but ultimately we left together and made our way home successfully.

Since I have a cold, it's time to ask once again: IS THE COUGH STILL HERE? NO... until I made the mistake of trying to take a shower once we'd returned to the apartment. Something about the steam and the humidity triggers my cough in a huge way, and it was all I could do not to throw up.

2023

Thursday: Julie joined Doug and Emily for an outing that stopped by a local brewery. It sounds like they had fun! I was stuck at work, since we're doing our birthday stuff this weekend, but after I got out, we went by the Jim for a drink. (I'd already had gumbo for dinner, and we arrived late enough that their kitchen had closed, or I'd have wanted to try their new menu.) I started with a purple jawn, which was fine: fruity, a little acrid, and I couldn't decide how I felt about the mint flavor, but it was more memorable than the lime-brew beer I had next. Julie stuck with her usual spicy jawn. We reminisced about the poorly considered relationships of our 20s. Since she decided to turn in early, I stayed up to catch up on my Disco Elysium livestream and this Return of the Obra Dinn playthrough I hadn't seen yet on YouTube.

2022

Wednesday: for Julie's birthday, she and her dad and I walked up to Pat's King of Steaks for cheesesteaks. We also stopped into Ray's Birthday Bar so she could get her drink and her photo with the hat.