To clarify, seeing as I just reffered to our house as a "love nest" and I have received several inquiries on this, 52 Double Dates (TM) is not an elaborate hoax created to trick unwilling couples into awkward group sex or uncomfortable orgies of any kind. At least, that is certainly not the intention. We'll see where the year takes us.
Anyways, this week brought one of my favorite people on earth to my porch: Mr. Aaron Greene. Aaron, as I stated last week, was the bestman in our Wedding. He is such good company, always positive and fun. I knew this date would be a good one. But I had no idea it would be the best double date I have ever been on.
Let's back it up. Here's an example of the calibur of memory Aaron is capable of creating. Remember that degenerate household that I lived in with Jancsi? Aaron also lived there with us. As well as our guest coming in Week Six, Matt Gomez. The house was disgustingly filthy. It looked like a junkyard of somesort or the trash house in the Labrynth. There were dirty dishes on the counter, in the sink, on top of the fridge and scattered on the floor. Used, with caked on week-old food dishes. Everywhere.
So one night, when we were logically impaired via liquid beverages, Aaron and I decided the best method to clean the dishes would be to break them in our backyard, at 3am. So, Gomez, Aaron and I bundle up all the plates and bowls and head to the back section of our cement driveway. Laughing, cheering and screaming, we tossed each individual pieace of diner ware into the night sky and let them loudly shatter one by one on the ground. As Gomez tossed the last dish into the air and yelled "Ooooopaaaah!" we were ordered to freeze and stop right there. With the plate still in mid-air, a flashlight beam highlighted Gomez's surprised face and he froze with his arms raised. It was the cops. And the longest pause in the world came to an end as the dish lost a battle with gravity and separated itself into several small pieces.
The two police officers took one look at the three of us and shook their heads. "Just go inside," they said. It was 3am, we were loudly breaking our sole material possessions while sauced out of our gords, and they just wanted nothing to do with us. It was a bad scene. It needed to end. Go inside. That's it.
But, as with most encounters with authority, our hearts we racing and we were too wired, and stupid, to just call it a night. Looking at the huge piles of garabage bags making hills in our "living" room, we decided to take action. There was a church a few blocks south of our place, and it had a big dumpster. We decided the best course of action was to grab four bags each and go dump 'em. So we hustled down to the Lord's place of worship and illegally dumped a few tons of trash. Done and done. Went home and passed out.
6am. Loud banging on the door. It was the cops. The same two cops from a few hours prior. Aaron answers the door with a furrowed brow in total confusion. I don't remember exactly what was said, but the cops were pissed. They accused us of tossing garbage all up and down the front entrance of a nearby church. Aaron denied it, of course, because we did not actually do this. It turns out, a raccoon got into the dumpster and spread the majority of the contents all across the steps out front. Including several pieces of our mail. The cops, being pretty cool, agreed that if we clean it up, there would be no noise charges from earlier and no dumping fees from now. So Aaron and I cleaned up an entire church lawn full of trash at sunrise, in front of two frowning cops and a variety of unapproving early rising neighbors. Some how the most shameful memories are the funniest to talk about.
On the subject of shame, I have a horrible track record getting along with Aaron's lady friends. I have been called a douchebag to my face by three that I can remember, and probably more than that if I was more conscious when it occurred. I don't know if I feel their pressence impeeds on our bromance or what, but I just completely duff being a gentlemen around the women he dates.
Thankfully, this is not the case with Sarah. Sarah and I get along great, and I give Aaron total approval of her as a person. She's awesome. And she hasn't called me a douchebag. So I was stoked to have her and Aaron over.
I knew I couldn't cook pasta for the third week in a row, so I chose to make gyros this go round. I am a big fan of Greek food. And a quick plug for folks looking for a legit spot to grab some: go to Plaka in Ballard. It's on Market and 20th. It's amazing, and family run. And the family is good peoples.
So I did a beef gyro in a large wheat flatbread, with hummus, diced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, white onion, pitted kalamata olives, shredded lettuce, feta crumbles and tzatziki sauce. I served it with a side of pita slices with hummus and pureed kalamata for dipping, as well as a greek salad. I was worried about getting the meal on the table in time, but luckily Aaron and Sarah were running a little bit late. They wanted to bring a bottle of whiskey, but by the time the whiskey got to the porch, it was an open and partially dranken bottle of whiskey.
The dinner conversation was natural and upbeat. We all laughed a lot and it reminded me of the Pho lunch we did together the morning after the Slow Dance album release party. It was a devastating hangover, which made all our over-sensitive observations seem so hysterically funny to us. That was the setting in which we developed the Pho restaurant thesis involving the serving of water. I am not sure if we are just assholes, or if this happens to other people, but anytime I get Pho, and ask for water, it only comes half the time. When we made note of this verbally (amongst the group, not to the waiter), it only highlighted the problem. It reached an epic conclusion when we finally recieved two cups of water for four people. We decided they wanted us to share, so we did. But we drank the supply fast, and when Aaron requested more, the bothered waitress brought back a third cup half the size of the first two.
I can't say the waiting service at our dinner parties is much better. I guess Smokey got tired of waiting...
Anyhow, we had a good knack for creating Curb Your Enthusiasm style conversation together. We are all really there. And it was so great I can't specifically remember much, except that Sarah comes from a town with a population of 400 people, but graduated from a class of 250 students, which is awesome math or one huge family. And Aaron tossed out a quote in the context of how people dress that was priceless: "I'm just counting down the days until wearing a cape in public all the time isn't weird." Had to be there.
Somehow the conversation lead us to discussing The Handkerchief Code, which is a color-coding system developed in the 1970's by the American gay community. In simple terms, you wear a bandana of a certain color to let strangers know what kind of sexual encounter you are open to or currently seeking. You can check out the details on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code
I wish I could describe the night better, but it was just a lot of fun and I really like those two people. And for those keeping score, the bottle of whiskey was finished entirely by Aaron. At one point he seasoned his pita bread with it. He likes whiskey.
When explaining the 52 Double Dates blog to Sarah, Aaron said, "I don't know, they make us dinner then rank us I guess." Well, not really, but since you asked for it, this was the #1 double date I've ever been on.
Beat that next week, Sarah Abel and Jesse!
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