Bocce Bar Birthday

Exhibit A

This past Saturday, Becca arranged a little 30th birthday get together for me at Floyd. Floyd is a great divey bar in our neighborhood with an indoor bocce lane, a jukebox, living room couches, a projector and a couple LCD screens (for the sports fans), cheap beer, and some Kentucky ginger ale called Ale-8-One. I had heard some blogs mention it as one of Heath Ledger's hangouts. The two of us finally stopped by several months ago and we really liked the place. It's four blocks from our apartment so it made an ideal birthday spot.

Becca thought folks would be more agreeable to come out if she set an early start time (you know, us 30-somethings can't hang like we used to). We arrived a little before 8 and it didn't take long for my new BlackBerry Tour, which uses a different charger (the one that I left at the office on Friday) than my 8830 and Becca's Pearl, to run out of juice. This event was key to me completely losing track of time. It was like being in a casino. Work friends, Binghamton friends, and Raleigh friends appeared at various points in the evening. Several folks I hadn't seen in quite a while, so it was good to catch up.

I received a deep tissue tenderization/torture session (see Exhibit A) from a work friend (Chuck). He kept telling me how weight lifting was bad for me and that I should do yoga and how he could kick my ass (which he proceeded to do by fastening his vice grip fingers on just about every imaginable pressure point). I remember him whispering something in my ear like, "Relax. Relax. Right now your body is feeling a sensation, and you're interpreting this sensation as discomfort or pain. But it's just a sensation. Don't attach judgments to this sensation." Somehow throughout the half hour of "sensations" I was never able to prevent my mind from being very judgmental. But eventually, I was able to redirect Chuck's grips onto my pal Ryan, who made the mistake of asking him what he should do for a pinched nerve in his neck. See the rest of the photos here.

Eventually, Becca signed us up for a spot on the bocce lane, although somehow Chuck and I ended up being the only two that played. We did destroy two random girls before they gave up the lane, leaving the two of us to toss our big dirty bocce balls around. The bartender was nice enough to walk around the bar and tell us each individually that it was last call. In my mind I thought this meant it was getting close to 2AM, when in fact it meant the hour was drawing near to 4. After some pleading from the bouncer and the bartender, we made our way out the door and, thanks to having home field advantage, Becca and I were home by 4:30. We've spent the past two days recovering from those shenanigans. Lots of biscuits, pizza, coconut water, and sleep have been our course of treatment. I think we'll be just about ready to party like that in time for Becca's 30th (which is still two and a half years out).