Week Forty-One: Austin and Kristin

Having left Seattle to visit Minneapolis for our friends Mike and Claire's Wedding, Erica and I needed to squeeze in a date in the middle of the week. The Wedding was incredible and we had a great time. Both of us needed a vacation badly. We were coming back directly into a work week and it was date time already. Luckily it was a good friend from my past, Austin from my old crap crew, and his awesome lady Krisin.



I've been buddies with Austin since my senior year at Roosevelt. He was close with my bestfriend Aaron (Week 4) and he also lived with us in the infamous 8-1-9 in 2004. We would make beats, rap and record there. And we continued to do music together off and on until around 2006.

I remember being at the house party where Austin met Kristin. We all thought she was pretty cool. I think that was 2005ish. But for once, this date did not include the typical exchange of how we met each other, which was refreshing! Also refreshing: no Table Topics! Kristin even brought a game of her own for us to play.

Austin and Kristin are fun and comfortable people. I was excited to see my old friend and have over a couple Erica is familiar with (they were at our Wedding, Kristin gave Erica a memorable gift: a remote control spider). Nothing like good folks and, hopefully, good food.



After last week's disaster in the kitchen, I decided to play it safe with the food. I couldn't think of anything easier than sloppy joes! So I got some ground beef, an onion, a green pepper, seeded rolls and some red potatoes. I mixed the ground beef up in a bowl with garlic, salt and pepper, some olive oil, paprika, a little mustard and a lot of ketchup. Then I tossed the mix in a skillet to heat it up. I cut the red potatoes into homestyle fries and baked them in butter, lemon and garlic. It was all simple and straight forward.



The food was tasty, but I must admit, the sloppy joes turned out more like beef on a bun. Good beef on the bun, but it was NOT a traditional tasting "joe" by any means. The next date, I'm going to really have to come with it.

Speaking of coming with stuff, Austin and Kristin came with a cake. And it said "Happy Birthday Austin" on it, which is hilarious because his birthday is June 6th. It was good too! And after drinking the wine they brought us, we starting playing Kristin's game...



She brought along Truth or Dare Jenga, complete with blank blocks for us to write our own suggestions on. Aaron came up stairs to join the fun and we had a lively run before he eventually knocked the tower over. Highlights included Kristin singing R. Kelly, Erica pretending to take a dump and Aaron walking on a fake tightrope.



With early morning work for both Erica and Austin, Kristin and I decided to go to Yen Wor with Aaron and sing some karaoke. Yen Wor is by far my favorite bar in Seattle. I've been there at least 20 times, and at a 100% rate, I have the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. Yen Wor with Kristin and Aaron was business as usual. Good times and Kristin knocked it out of the park with her performance of a song from the musical Chicago.



I always dreamed every date we would have on 52DD would end at Yen Wor. This was the first! I almost would crown it champion, but the bobbled sloppy joes and the split couples to end the night put this right in the mix with the other good ones. The readers will just have to get through these next 11 to finally get the Top 12. I won't ruin it with any spoilers, but I will leak this: next week's couple to take a shot at the thrown is my friend from the cheese shop in Melrose Market Katelyn and her boyfriend Kyle. The race to the end begins!