Week Two: Jancsi and Bri w/Miles

Shall we?

It's only the 2nd double date and within the first week of moving in! There's no official set up. No new paint. No fancy new furniture. Who better to invite over for dinner than a POWER COUPLE with great taste to help us decide what to do with our new nest?

Enter two of our favorite people: Jancsi and Bri. With one of our new favorite people: Miles.



Controversy already surrounds the power rankings. At this point we will need to explain the definition of a "power couple" to set the tone for the blog.

Nothing better than an example. And Jancsi and Bri are perfect for this. Both of them are hot, by superficial standards. Jancsi is a big, tall, muscular gentlemen with mechanic and social skills to match. Bri is an extremely beautiful and smart woman with motherly instincts and a newborn child Miles. They both have "their shit together" and hence have their shit together in this game of couples. They are taking on life and accomplishing everything. They purchased a fixer-uper in Lake City, fixed it up, and maintain excellent jobs. Look at these people. Amazing.



Needless to say, we've had a comfortable enough relationship with J+B to invite them over before we were fully prepared to host a dinner. We actually looked forward to their advice on what we could do with our space. Especially since they have utilized their's so well and maintain an adorable house raising their awesome son.

But you don't care about that. You care about... BACK STORY!

Jancsi is a Roosevelt High School Alumni. Go Riders! But, full disclosure: he was a male cheerleader. This is one of the many reasons Jancsi accuses me of not being friends with him in high school. He was also a grade below me and actually hung out with girls. All of those things interfered with our interactions until post-college.

So I met Jancsi when I became his roommate in 2004, shortly after moving back from Colorado to Seattle. The area was Green Lake (where I live now), and the house was the legendary 8-1-9. It was a scumbag dump for degenerates and in-betweeners that landed me in a situation with 5 early-20 something fellas and 3 even younger lasses.

Lots of pizza boxes and empty beer bottles. There was a dead van in the backyard with X-mas lights installed for "chilling out" in. There was a crayon mural on the living room wall. I'm pretty sure the entire place was the restroom, but if not, I am so sorry to those roomates.

Needless to say, times were hard, and Jancsi and I gravitated towards one another, as the more go-getter types in the establishment. We both got jobs selling pizzas on the street for Pizza Time. We spent the entire summer on the beach meeting people and slanging $5 cheese pies to make rent and grocery money. He was the first man I ever sang female country songs along with in public. It was... weird.

Some how he developed into one of the most mature and caring individuals I am currently associated with now. To bring it back to our first post, when Ben (Week 1) and I were stranded all around the United States, Jancsi would diagnose our car problems over the phone and get us moving again when AAA reps who were present couldn't figure out what was going on. He's that type of friend. Still fixes my rigs.

And here he is with his gorgeous wife and their cutest-baby-ever son. Tight.

Sappy stories suck, so I had to present drama. I decided earlier in the week to purchase a disruptive and disgusting mantle piece. And that piece is this awful clay statue.



I don't care who you are or what land you live in. This is awesome. Except my wife hates it and so does everyone else. So I guess I should care. I tried to pawn this off on Jancsi and Bri as a tradition of 52 Double Dates. I tried to say that they must take it home and re-gift the bastard. I tried.

But they presented a more gracious gift: a large bottle of Pino Grigio. Hint: this is acceptable. However, their gift made it incredibly obvious where we are in the couples game. We don't even own wine glasses. So, like, pretty low dude.

But we had the food. I decided to go easy, since I just reclaimed my strainer from the ex-pad, and fix Italian. Pasta is my favorite and quite possibly the only non-breakfast food I can prepare. So I did a cheese, meat and cracker platter, a Caesar salad with lemon wedge, and pesto bow-tie pasta with feta and sun dried tomato course.



Seated in the wide open living/dining/we aren't sure what we are doing with our space room, we ate and analyzed the previous year. How often had we even see each other? I had previously noticed that the last pictures taken on my camera (prior to purchasing the new memory card for the house) were from Erica's birthday in December... 2010. I had not taken a single picture in all of 2011!!! Did we even bother to spend time with Jancsi and Bri? We came to agree that there were at least three meetings. But none-the-less, a good reminder to spend as much time as you can as soon as you can catching up with people you care about.



Suddenly, Ben saved the dinner. Not only did we not own wine glasses, we didn't even own a wine opener! I guess that makes sense. But luckily, Ben had given my wife this creepy baby with twisted extended genitals that seemed to give us access to the desired beverage. Score.



Out comes the chat cards. And I was fully expecting another "back in the day" memory lane journey. But no matter what question was pulled, the theme of the night was how bright we all thought the future might be.

And as Miles crawled around the floor and giggled and knocked over empty wine bottles and filled the place with life, I couldn't help but fixate on how awesome life will be for the five of us. They have a lovely family, I have this new house with my best friend, and things are just great.

I try not to do either past or future. Stay present and you will be happy! But last week was remembering good things that were. And this week was thinking about good things that will be. And I was pretty damn happy about both.

Next week we are happy to have over a couple who has played a major role in our relationship and life: Brianne (Bucket) and Aaron. They will also be bringing over a special someone known as Little Aaron. For those keeping score, we have more friends with kids than not. We are old.

I look forward to seeing them, as I always do, but even more so to ask them a question that Jancsi proposed to us... is our bathroom door towel hanger merely a device... or is it... A METAL MAN???



I won't shower right for a week...