Friday night lights | Long Time Gone

Of course, we can’t get to Friday night until we’ve exhausted the daylight, so let’s start with how that went down. As you might have guessed, the morning was spent hiking.

***A big turnout for the Friday group hike***

We were hoping for a shady walk, and had a 50% success in finding one.

***It was so hot I was hearing voices in the trees.***

***Heading for the hills, we ran into the Virgin Mary (that’s her on the left).***

***There’s that shade we’ve been looking for!***

***Decisions, decisions. We went straight.***

***The female contingent bringing up the rear. Hmm, that almost sounds lewd somehow.***

***Laundry day down by the creek. Cookies make everything sweeter.***

And when it was time to hit the town for some Friday evening excitement, this is how we rolled.

***First stop was a rare visit to my old darts hangout, Alley Cats. Good to see some familiar faces from days gone by again.***

Staying with the theme of places we don’t go to much, we climbed the stairs up to BarCelona for our next stop.

Part of my motivation for the visit was to see my old friend Jenn who is working there again. Except she wasn’t last evening. And I guess the bar ran short of wine because Swan wasn’t happy when she was served a half-full (or was it half-empty?) glass. She was going to send it back and order something else, but I convinced her to keep what she had because we wouldn’t be staying long anyway.

***This meme popped up on my phone right after that wine shortage incident. We both got a laugh out of that.***

And to give BarCelona its due, shortly before we left, the waitress advised that they had now restocked the wine. Good for them, but we were off to dinner. Next time!

So, we planned to visit Jewel Cafe for our meal, but when we arrived, they had a large group (more than twenty) at one table waiting to be served. I knew that was going to swamp the small kitchen staff, so we decided to eat elsewhere.

I was surprised when Swan suggested Mugshots. Another venue we almost never visit, but they do have a kitchen, wine, and beer, so why not?

***A very limited menu, but in my opinion, that’s a good thing for a bar venue. Doing a few simple things well is the way to go.***

We ordered the chicken wings and chicken tenders. Swan said the wings were the best she’d had, and she also liked how juicy the tenders were.

***I personally liked Mugshots better when it had a pool table instead of a dance stage, but it still has a cozy ambiance.***

***Our bartender was also very friendly.***

We moved on to a more familiar place for our nightcap: Wet Spot.

***Our regular seats at the “backslappers” table. It was good to see owner Dave out and about again. He’d been ill for the past couple of months.***

***The SOB was still going on down the road at Whiskey Girl, but the bar filled up later for the Aftermath.***

Our time out was up before the Aftermath started, so we triked back home and called it a night. Our day was more of the usual same-same, but with different seasonings.

***Saw this map on Facebook, which shows some of the more popular places in Barretto and Baloy Beach.***

In other news, there was a big accident on the expressway at Tarlac, with at least ten fatalities. I’ve passed through that toll booth where the wreck occurred (a bus with a sleeping driver plowed into a line of cars at full speed) many times. One more thing to think about the next time I pass this way.

And I came across this controversy involving Bill Belichick and his much younger wife. Made me smile because that age gap is the norm where I live. I know of one old fucker here who dated an eighteen-year-old, if you can imagine that!

***They are making the breast of the weather back in the USA. (That’s real, by the way.)***

So, as my journey through the LTG archives continues, I was shocked to discover that I didn’t post anything at all in September and October of 2007. What the hell happened? It turns out that I was every bit as clueless back then as I am today. And that ignorance led to my blog going offline for several weeks. I wrote about what happened in this post from November 2007. And no, I had no recollection of any of this before reading that post again today.

Facebook memories from this day in history: