About Last Weekend

Four bromosapeins, TK, UK, 4M and I, headed up to Kirkwood for our annual brocation the last weekend of July. We hit a lot of traffic the first few hours and then it was smooth sailing. 4M helped us pass the time with his evocative reading of passages from the new novel I gave him, Rebels: City of Indra. He recently repaid me with the first season of The Gilmore Girls. At our Starbucks stop, TK discovered that he really likes their version of the Arnie Palmer. I think it might be the custom mix of botanicals. Regardless, it does not take much to please TK. Like the rest of us, he's a simple man.

As we stepped into UK's abode, we encountered a scattering of dead carpenter ants, so we stayed in the garage while he vacuumed. Then the fun began. We eschewed our usual dinner at the Kirkwood Inn as a change in management had precipitated a major quality dip and concomitant negative Yelp reviews from The UK. Instead we dined on a tasty tortelloni salad his wife had graciously prepared. After our vegetarian repast, we headed out to The Philosopher's Deck for the rest of the evening. I think 4M made a remark about tethering me to the railing. I don't appreciate his weak attempts at humor.

Many of the old stories were told but we did mix it up a bit. With the Quadrophenia video playing in the background, we came up with a game requiring you to name 7 tracks from classic albums. I think we failed on Sgt. Peppers, Who's Next and Born to Run, but finally succeeded with Darkness On The Edge Of Town. We even managed to screw up The River, which I felt compelled to remind the fellows, was a double album, Teenage Dream did not come up. Unlike last year, I went to bed at a reasonable hour and slept like a log.

The next day 4M and TK disappeared early for a walk to the general store. They forded a stream on their way back, making a timely return with milk for my coffee. The UK prepared gourmet bagel (House of Bagels of course) sandwiches for breakfast. We lazed around a bit and then the entire crew took that walk to the village, where many vendors had set up tables. I almost bought a cute plaque with "Love Lives Here" for UK's cabin, but unfortunately I was low on cash.

We finished off the tortelloni for lunch. It was even better the second time around and I would like to give a shout out to Mrs. UK. 4M cracked open a Pinot Blanc, TK headed to the hot tub and we all got a good rest or nap.

Before heading out to Ciera in South Lake, The UK set up his camera and we got a good shot of the boys, which he posted on FB. This got a lot of likes and comments from our classmates, although MOC, whom I've mentioned a few times here, stated that it "lacked gender diversity". I believe we reminded her it was a brocation.

Dinner at Ciera was very good. We were hoping that our favorite maitre d' Tommy was there. We were not disappointed. Below he is opening a magnum of 1997 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel that 4M brought. I think it may very well be the best wine I have ever tasted. It paired perfectly with the steaks.

After dinner we hit the casinos briefly without much success. TK broke even but I dropped a President Grant I had been carrying with me since I turned in my euros at SFO. The deck awaited.

We headed out Sunday in the early afternoon. For lunch, The UK gave us a choice of Taco Bell or Subway, which kind of reminds me of an oft asked question from my pre-teen years. "If you were up to you neck in puke and somebody threw a bucket of boogers at your head, would you duck?" OK, OK there was no call for that. We voted for Subway and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not terrible. The UK is a man of class and I should have known better.