Posts tagged with "parties"

Housewarming '05

It’s a new week, and I final­ly feel like myself again. The only time I have an unsta­ble mind is when I wake up between two and four every night. All the thoughts I push to the back of my mind come flood­ing back, and I have trou­ble falling asleep for anoth­er hour or two. Other than that, I’m okay, more or less. All it took was a house­warm­ing par­ty and a week­end of no wor­ries.

Thumbnail: Corona bottles

Thumbnail: Cat and kitty

Trolley and I start­ed prepa­ra­tions on Friday. We were expect­ing 14 peo­ple (with three not drink­ing) and we got that exact­ly — Pat, Jen, Jeff, Pita, Mike, Iain, Aaron, Karen, Kat, Sebastien, Eric, Jen, Trolley, and I. In all, we had four bot­tles of Keith’s (left over from pok­er night last week), three bot­tles of wine, a 12 of Corona, and two 5‑Liter Kegs of Grolsch. In addi­tion to this, Aaron end­ed up bring­ing six more Keith’s, while Mike gave me a mick­ey of Smirnoff, and Pita sup­plied a 12 of Blueu (the dis­tin­guished Quebec vari­ant of Blue). A few major drinkers pow­ered through the alco­hol, and while we ini­tial­ly believed our­selves to be over­stocked, we end­ed up with only a few Blue and the wine.

It was a pret­ty good mix of peo­ple. While I was grilling burg­ers on the new bar­beque, peo­ple were min­gling, hang­ing out on the couch­es, catch­ing up on hock­ey on TV. Some were even soak­ing up the sun in my lit­tle back yard/patio, which has an accom­mo­dat­ing set of stairs and a few lawn chairs. There was­n’t as much seg­re­ga­tion, and I think that Aaron, Trolley, and Pat helped blend the two (and a half) groups a bit. For a suc­cess­ful par­ty, I’m always sure to have all three in atten­dance. To my sur­prise, we all end­ed up play­ing some four-play­er Gamecube games towards the end of the night, some­thing I was­n’t sure that every­one was inter­est­ed in.

Thumbnail: Barbecue thermometer

Thumbnail: Crystal lowball glasses

Thumbnail: Moonray solar-powered lanterns

All-in-all, it was a good par­ty, even if I was too busy run­ning around, mak­ing sure every­one was well fed and thor­ough­ly drunk, to hang out with my guests. I even got a few house­warm­ing gifts. Trolley and I built the bar­beque Pat gave us in time for the par­ty, and Iain got me a nice set of crys­tal low balls (which have a nice weight to them, but need to be hand washed). Aaron gave me a set of six solar-charged patio lanterns that real­ly make my yard stand out from the rest. I could­n’t ask for more.

Pita crashed that night, but not before I got him burned for the first time. I think his mind was a lit­tle too rigid, and he was ana­lyz­ing things a lit­tle too much to be able to relax and enjoy it. He stayed for the rest of Sunday, and we played the old Gamecube games we used to enjoy back when we were still liv­ing togeth­er. I had such a good time, that I was able to real­ly for­get about every­thing else that’s going on right now. It was like a lit­tle get­t­away in my own house.

I need­ed this week­end.

Bancroft '05, Part 6/6

And so, the week­end had to come to an end. It was great to get away, and refresh­ing to hang out with some decent peo­ple. Adam most of all, who renews my ever wan­ing faith in human­i­ty every time I see him. I had a few songs in mind for the video, but the first song I thought of, and the one I even­tu­al­ly used, is by The Postal Service. Before I start­ed edit­ing, I could only recall the first few bars, but I knew that those notes would be able to per­fect­ly define the feel­ing I want­ed. Funny that it hap­pens to be named There’s Never Enough Time. There are so many things I could say, but the videos say it all.

Thumbnail: Atka in her house
Thumbnail: Cows
Thumbnail: Atka on the roam

One of the best things about the farm is that it’s a farm. There are the two large and loy­al dogs, Willow and Atka. There’s the chirpy house­cat, Femo, who likes to twist and turn her body for one to scratch. There are cows, who can jump real­ly high if fright­ened.

Thumbnail: Broad side of a barn
Thumbnail: Shotgun shells
Thumbnail: Woodpile
Thumbnail: Snowmobile treads
Thumbnail: Snowmobile tracks

Aside from the ani­mals, there are all oth­er sorts of lit­tle things that make the farm rus­tic and dif­fer­en­ti­ate it from the city life I’m so used to liv­ing. It’s not every place that I’ll find ran­dom 12-guage shot­gun shells on a cab­i­net, or piles of fire­wood that are big­ger than my house. It real­ly makes me feel like I’m away; away from com­put­ers, school, work, or traf­fic.

Thumbnail: Eric's flask

I’ll end off with a shot of the inscrip­tion on Eric’s flask.

Here’s to them.

Bancroft '05, Part 4/6

Euchre has become uni­ver­sal for our group now. We must have played near­ly a dozen games that night, and I man­aged not to lose a sin­gle one, with the help of Aaron as my part­ner. For the last four points of one game (as seen in the video), I was dealt one of the best hands I’ve ever had: both bauers, an ace/jack trump, and an off king. I was lucky enough to make the trump suit too, since Aaron flipped over a red bauer. I seem to have tremen­dous luck when I’m on the farm. Last year, when I was part­nered up with Nick at the hunt­ing cab­in, we had an unde­feat­ed win­ning streak. It’s gen­er­al­ly nev­er a good idea to play against Trolley’s cousins, though. They grew up play­ing togeth­er, so it’s impos­si­ble to track the num­ber of sig­nals they use.

I’ll admit that this is me. Good times because of good peo­ple. One of the best nights of my life.

Bancroft '05, Part 2/6

There were three main crews vaca­tion­ing at the farm that week­end. The Ottawa crew con­sist­ed of Trolley, Aaron, and I. In the Toronto crew was Adam, Efrem, Lyda, and Jim. The main group, the ones orig­i­nal­ly from Bancroft, were Tyler with Meryl, Eric, Sarah, Matt, and Kate, although Trolley and Adam would also be con­sid­ered mem­bers, and brought their respec­tive crews. Of course, even Trolley’s cousins showed up, as they always do, since they’re only a short snow­mo­bile ride away.

It took a few hours for every­one to arrive, since peo­ple were up to five hours away, so time was spent The Streets lis­ten­ing, card play­ing, and alco­hol induc­ing while wait­ing. When Eric walked in and said, “WOAH”, Aaron and I com­plete­ly stopped what we were doing and looked at each oth­er. It was obvi­ous that Eric was loaded already, because he’s rarely so bois­ter­ous.

Thumbnail: Snifter of Baileys

And Sarah’s brown cow filled the snifter when she start­ed.

Some Fucking Guy

Left the par­ty after an hour. Some fuck­ing guy, as well as oth­er stuff. Aaron, Karen, Drew and I all bailed at the same time.

It’s too bad, I was hop­ing to hang out with Christine more, or even talk to Sheri, Emily, Eric, or Katrina a bit. I was expect­ing to be home past two, but instead I was home before mid­night.

I did­n’t even bring any alco­hol because I did­n’t feel like drink­ing, but after five min­utes I was steal­ing Aaron’s wine.