A Night Out in November

Over the course of last week, Riff Raff, Finnigan, Quako, and Bitz (AKA, Brad, Bev, Brenda, and Catherine) conspired to create a gathering. The original idea was to recreate the Minden day off experience hear in T.O. by heading to a park armed with a micky for some outdoor shenanigans. However, this being November, I was relieved to find out that the plan had been altered to a gathering at Brad's followed by heading out to a bar.

By gathering at Brad's apartment, or his lair of forbidden love as I like to call it, we also had the added bonus of snacking on many yummy appies and listening to a soundtrack that could only have been constructed at Church and Wellesley. Eventually a good group of people gathered, including myself and MB (who years ago thankfully decided it was ok to be called Mrs. Fletch), Orio (Beth), Deepe (Matt Chamberlain), Webbis (Matt Collins), Sketch, (Leslie), Nyza (Natalie). I hadn't seen half of them in eons, but as Catherine said as soon as we were chatting to one another the years melted away as though nothing had changed since we all left camp. The fact that I had brought my old staff shirt from 1986, which I found in my mom's basement a couple of weeks ago, was a particular good choice, and a popular one for Deepe, who wore it the rest of the night and all the way home at the end of the evening. Of course the booze helped, as the evening became a slippery slope of debauchery.

As the evening progressed, the island that separated Brad's living room from his kitchen became more of an alcoholic war zone, with remnants of pitas, somosa sauce and bbq'd pork dotted around. Supposedly, Bev and Brenda decided that Brad's home needed a liberal amount of olive pits hid in and around it --Good luck finding those man. Things really started to feel like a day off when we raided Brad's liquor cabinet in order to set up a shooter bar. Several of us took turns making shooters of varying success (FYI, Catherine, looking back on it, the coke and vanilla vodka sounded like a much better idea than it actually tasted). With numerous shots consumed we did what most people with 'the buzz on' do: talk even louder and altogether at the same time. I don't think Brad's neighbours were really cool with that considering the man received three noise complaints, and something which I had not heard in ages either, the threat of police intervention.

Around ten we all stumbled out of Brad's (soon to be evicted) apartment in search of a place where we could continue to drink, talk loudly, and maybe play a couple of rounds of 'Boma-hawky, Boma-hawky' (I still don't know what that means). Of course this meant that we stood on the corner of Yonge and Bloor for about 15 minutes while we tried to decide where such a place would be, which was ok since it gave time for several of us to "meet the Lord". Webbis suggested the bar he DJ's at, the Cloak and Dagger. Now this is a cool place, but its not big, and previous experience told me that it fills up quickly. Webbis reassured us that it would be cool, and so we all hopped into cabs (in a manner not unsimilar to musical chairs with cars; last thing I heard before I got into mine was somebody on the curb saying, "hey, shouldn't somebody who knows where we're going be in our cab?"). We all got down to the immediate area in staggered groups, with mine being the second set --just in time to see a couple of people in the first group heading back down the block towards me. They said, as I had feared, that the place was packed and that we should find somewhere else. At this point people were spreading out everywhere, with Catherine and Leslie going for pizza, people spilling out of the third cab, and the rest standing in the middle of the C & D. I tried to get everybody relocated at Amato's so that we could decide what to do next. Catherine and Brad, who were sucking back pizza like they were the last slices on earth, were of the idea that we should just sit and drink the the pizza joint, which was licensed afterall. It did have the saddest looking bar on College st. and after Deepe discovered that they didn't do shooters in Amato's we were resigned to carry on (note: you have to be loaded in the first place to want to do shooters with 10 people in a pizza joint at midnight). We decided to head up the street to Paupers, which being a big place, was fairly certain would have space for us, and sure a place where nobody would mind if I sang the PG13-rated version of Brown Squirrel loudly. So everyone struck out to Bloor st., the only problem was that we had lost Webbis, who I was certain was chatting with his buds at the C & D. I ran back to tell him where we were heading, and found him in a dark corner of the bar chatting intently with a cute girl...I actually felt bad that I interrupted...you dog! Needless to say, we didn't see Webbis again that night.

Once at Paupers we were able to get ourselves settled on the second floor behind the piano bar. I'm not sure, but I think we may have drowned out the piano and singer, much to their chagrin. But I do think it helped late arrival Gator find us. Our waiter was very cool and seemed to be enjoying serving drinks to a group who so obviously did not need much more. Unfortunately, it was around this time, especially after the round of brokendown golfcart shots --including the numerous extras I had to down because some people were too wussy to drink their 0wn...whimps...you know who you are! The conversation was a strange melange of the nostalgic and the surreal: Had anyone heard from Ted Pimm lately and was he gay; surprising Bev with the revelation that yes, we made out twice at camp; conspiring that all us should buy the property surrounding Big Hawk Lake for cottages so that we could throw stones at the Hawk Lake canoeists, hang out at Moss Mansion whenever we wanted and test camp security by acting as late night intruders, etc.; And, trying to figure out what all the graces were at camp. For the record, we could only think of three of the latter: Morning has broken, Johnny Appleseed, and the one that started, "For health and strength...". I know there are more, but I can't think of any. In fact I spent wayyy too much time on Sunday trying to think of them, but to no avail. If you remember any more, please tell me.

Finally last call hit, and so did the time to leave. I have no idea if I said goodbye to everyone; it honestly felt as though I fell out of the bar and into a taxi, luckily with people who were going the same way I was (though Matt did try to take us all back to his parents place at one point). Somehow, despite being dropped off at a street corner that no longer had streetcar service and hanging around for 15 minutes looking like the saddest male giggalo in town, I made it home.

All in all, it was a great time and really had the feel of a 'night out' (sans in/out board). We all agreed that we should do it again, and I think it was Natalie who said we should do drinks in February --which I found wonderfully arbitrary-- but there were also rumblings of actually doing a real day off this summer in and abouts the Haliburton Highlands. Kev and Will have both mentioned that we should all rent a place such as the Pinestone or 'the Beak' for the weekend if possible. I'd have to agree, since my only complaint about Saturday was that it didn't last long enough.