"Band of Idiots"

I realize that I have a TON to update on this blog, so I'll try to cram it all into this one entry and hopefully not lose your attention :-) Anyway, Erik and I went to the Red Sox game down in Boston on August 31st and we had SUCH a good time! We both worked a half day (me from home) and then headed down to Beantown around 1pm. We visited Erik's mom at the Chuck (she hooked us up with free parking) and then spent the couple hours before the game walking around the city since we hadn't done that in ages. We each picked a place to go for beer for all times sake (Salty Dog for Erik, Whiskey's for me). Erik's sister and her husband also had tickets for the same game, so we met up with them for a quick beer before the game inside the Park. Of course, the difference between their tickets and ours was that they actually had seats - we had standing room only tickets. Never knew those tickets existed until Erik bought them for my birthday. But you know what, I would HIGHLY recommend them! I thought we had a better vantage point than some of the actual seats we've had in the past, and these tickets were much cheaper! A coworker of mine at Old York had told me about a place to go between home and first, ALL the way at the top that apparently has really good views. We had all intentions on going there, but were sucked into the fact that we could stand right in back of home plate (well, about 40 rows in back of home plate), which is a vantage point we've never experienced before. AWESOME location! You could totally see everything at the plate, and no one looked like an ant. The only complaint I had was that when people hit the ball up high, you couldn't see it because the upper level of seats got in the way. Oh, well, and the fact that it was SOOOOOOO muggy out! I thought for sure I would freeze at Fenway once the sun went down, and boy was that not the case! The air was practically chewy! But all in all, we had a blast.

And that brings us to this past weekend. Friday night after work, Dos and I did the free First Friday Artwalk in Portland which occurs on the (duh) first friday of every month. Besides the art, we like to take advantage of the free food and wine :-) The highlight was definitely the open artist studios. I had never seen that on the schedule before, so they must not do it very often. It reminded me a lot of visiting Rachel on the art floor of SFA at BU.

On Saturday, the Gang came up for one last hurrah before Curtis goes off to Prague. We decided to do dinner in Portsmouth Saturday evening, so Erik and I took our time driving down and even stopped at Old York to tour some of the buildings. Erik had only been in two of the buildings before, and since I can obviously get in for free, we decided to stop. We missed going into two of the buildings that require a tour (I've been in both), but it'll give us something to do next time we're passing through on a weekend. In typical fashion, we had dinner at the Portsmouth Brewing Company, but this time downstairs in the lounge area. I had never been down there before, but it was pretty cool. They had couches and long bar tables which was perfect for our size group. Waiting for a table in the main dining room would have taken an hour, so we said screw that and went down to the lounge. Vivian met up with us for a drink (she was visiting a friend in northern MA), and it was really good to see her, even if it was just for a short period of time. After dinner we walked around Portsmouth a bit and then headed up to Portland.

Sunday was the big end of summer BBQ. In addition to the gang, Curtis' friend Mikki from NYC came up. He was so awesome, and instantly blended in with our wacky group. I also invited Sarah and Aaron from the first floor, and my old coworker Eric's (Tova's) roommate, Aaron, who showed up with his friend Erica. After we had eaten enough food to make us burst, we headed downtown into the Old Port for some karaoke. Of course, the one and only place that had karaoke that night was the gay bar, Styxx, which Curtis remembers very well from his last visit :-) Anyway, being a gay bar, everyone who came up to the mic could have practically been in a Broadway show. Only one guy totally sucked and couldn't sing to save his life. Curtis and Sarah were the only brave souls who sang a few songs, but it was a lot of fun to watch everyone. We had a great time.

Then today Erik went canoeing with Aaron from the first floor. They went on the Presumpscot River in Portland. While on the river, they tried their hand at fishing from the canoe, but nothing was caught by either of them.