Deep in the Liver of Texas

When I got to San Antonio, what do you know...there were two girls there waiting to get me drunk.  Once the three of us came to the consensus that driving back to Whit's place in New Braunfels only to turn around and head back to San Antonio was stupid, we decided the next best option was to drink there, so it was straight to the Riverwalk for a little taste of Texas.  I opted for a chopped brisket sandwich and chose to close it out with a couple Shiner Bocks and a Lone Star.  From there, we still had some time to kill before I had to be back at the hotel, so we wandered for a bit and landed at Pat O'Brien's, a New Orleans style bar right off the River.  What do you get when you put the three of us in a New Orleans bar?  Three hurricanes, of course!  How else was I going to deal with a wedding rehearsal?

Whit and Katie picked me up after the rehearsal dinner, and we headed back to New Braunfels where I got my first look at what would become the party house for the weekend.  We changed and began the trek toward Austin.

Say what you will about Texas being...well...Texas and being full of Texans ridiculous people, but I defy you to find a better bar scene than Sixth Street in Austin.  I can only imagine what a debacle that place would be when school is in session.  Going to have to figure it out and get back down there to visit when that happens.  Additionally, prices of adult beverages in Texas are much more palatable than those here in SoCal.  Draw your own conclusions on how this thing went.  I don't remember too many details of it.  I just remember posing for some pics with Katie that I'm sure will end up on facebook and two-stepping with Whit in a bar.

What do you do after a night of drinking?  Let's go to the phones, Johnny!  First up was my brother, on whom Katie put the full court press to try to get him to come down to Texas...the next day.  Clearly this was not going to happen, but she was convinced that she could change his mind.  It was a valiant effort, but it was ultimately unsuccessful.  Then came the best drunk dial ever.  Short.  Sweet.  Straight to voicemail...Grant.  I was in the back seat and held my phone up between the seats so everyone could say hi, which is exactly what Katie did.  Whit, however, took a little different route.  Grant had to piece this one together for me a couple days later, but what he heard on the other end of the line was Whit saying, "Mississippi...I don't know you, but I would like to get to," which, of course, elicited a "Proooooooooooooove iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" from me in the back seat.  Then I hung up.  Amazing.

The capper for the night, though, was something my roommate will appreciate--Whataburger.  For most of y'all (yes, that is a y'all) who read this, Whataburger is not a late night drunk food option since you, like me, are located in the Pacific time zone.  This is better than Del Taco.  This is the Texas version of Tommy's.  It's not drenched in chili, so it's a different animal, but it is definitely that quality of drunk food.  Open 24 and very drunk-friendly.  (Of course!  It's in Texas!)

Saturday morning/early afternoon saw the brief warmup float down the Comal River referenced in the previous entry.  The party house is walking distance from the river, and with a 15 minute walk, we got in at the beginning.  My first float was pretty solid....got through the chute with my hat and glasses intact and without losing my beer.  Not bad for a river rookie.  Once we got to the river exit by Whit's house, it was time for me to bail and get ready for the wedding.

As it turned out, the best way for me to get to the wedding on time and keep all party house guests happy was to take Whit's car, which turned out to be key to life.  (See Julie references in previous blog entry.)  However, it also caused me not to get back to the party house until after 5 a.m., meaning everyone was asleep, and I had to call Whit multiple times to be let into the house.  Oh well.

What do you do later in the morning after you've just gotten back at 5?  Of course, you get up a few hours later and get ready for another day of drunken debauchery.  This day, though, the river to be floated was the Guadalupe.  This would be the source of the various gashes on my feet and legs (I wiped out hardcore on the first rapid) along with the atomic sunburn that I apparently couldn't feel because I'd had too many Lone Star Lights.  This is also, however, where the group really expanded.  I have a slew of new facebook friends (big shout outs to Becky, Megan, Tim, Tom, Jenn, etc.).  Once you share beer, river junk food, rocks and rapids with a group of people, seeking them out on facebook doesn't seem nearly as weird.

Those who were staying around headed back to Whit's house for some burgers grilled expertly by the brawl tandem efforts of Whit and me.  Sided up with some H-E-B macaroni and cheese and some potato salad along with an outdoor setting, they made a great dinner for along with our post-river drinking.  Not too long after that, we passed out.  Weird.

Aaaaaaaanyway, the next morning saw a Whataburger breakfast run and my introduction to their breakfast taquitos.  Now, I am very disappointed that we don't have this fine establishment on the west coast.  It's a tortilla with egg, cheese and sausage wrapped tightly into, shockingly, a taquito.  There are no words to describe how great this was on that particular morning.  Nonetheless, the traveling contingent left, and it was down to Whit and me.

Since I'd checked into my flight the night before, all that was left was to pack my stuff up and get ready to go.  Since we had time, Whit took me for "real" Texas barbecue.  (Apparently what I'd had before was fake...who knew?)  Whatever the difference was, it was amazing.  Rudy's was what you would expect out of a BBQ place in Texas with license plates and neon lights all over the walls and where you order your meat by the pound and they hand you some white bread.  The rest is up to you.  There is a salad bar looking thing with pickles and peppers.  I crushed a half pound of brisket, five slices of bread and a lot of pickles.

I closed out the weekend by replacing the string on Whit's guitar (that had broken earlier when I was trying to tune it for her).  After that, it was time to head to teh airport, where I cleared security in about 15 minutes (take notes, LAX), checked my e-mail on the free airport WiFi (take notes, LAX) and boarded my flight back to reality.

The checklist I received from Sarah (who, no doubt, cringed at the very reference of pickles in this post) will be addressed in a subsequent post.  It's legit.  Check back soon.

The Rehearsal, Dinner: Beginnings of a Bromance

Friday, after I'd gotten a bite to eat and had a few adult beverages with Whit and Katie, it came time for them to drop me off at the St. Anthony hotel before the rehearsal dinner. Now, any rehearsal in which I'd been involved (which, in fairness, has only been one), has been pretty low key. I figured it was kind of weird that we were required to be in shirt and tie for it, but I wear it for work, so I just kind of rolled with it. Then we met the deacon and things made more sense.

So Deacon Napoleon (who, in subsequent mentions, will be referred to simply as DN) rolls in and decides that not only are we going to rehearse the ceremony (essentially half of a mass - the liturgy of the word) twice, he is going to give all of us a lesson in the Catholic faith and explain everything that is going on ad nauseum. People in attendance were either Catholic (Nicole's side) or disinterested (Chris's side), so ol' boy was whiffing either way. To his credit criticism "credit," he didn't care.

Now, this might have been acceptable, had he not been a jerk about it, barking orders at Cathy (the maid of honor) and condescendingly calling her "sweetheart." So for about 10 minutes, this guy had our attention, but then we collectively decided we didn't like him, so we became like 5-year-olds trying to get away with anything and everything.

We were gathered around the altar and getting our lesson in God only knows what obscure and impertinent area of the Catholic faith, when I decided to be friendly, as our other reader Michael got there. We whispered a quick introduction, shook hands and then turned back toward the altar to receive our icy stare from DN. Anyway, these little things went on back and forth all through the two complete run-throughs we did.

I emphasize complete, since the multiple Shiner Bocks, Lone Stars and a hurricane had absconded with my sobriety a while before, and I was perturbed to find out that I had to do my reading as part of said dry run(s). So since I had the second reading, I got to sit up there facing the congregation and Nicole and Chris, since they were at the front on the sweet little two-person wedding kneeler. So after Michael has read and taken the seat right next to me and DN is droning on and on about how important all this stuff is, Nicole is sticking her tongue out at me, and I am mouthing the words "I'm drunk" to her. She laughs, and leans over to Chris to relay the message, which causes him to laugh too. Then when Michael and I proceed to have a sidebar up on the altar, DN finally catches on to the fact that he is completely losing us and says it's time for the second reading.

I managed to get through my reading without slurring or otherwise butchering it, so Michael and I headed back to our seats for the rings and the whole "I do" thing. Since Nicole and Chris have to move, the best man comes up with the rings and "sweetheart" has to wrestle with the train. After that, it's showtime for the third member of our reading team, Jill (best man's gf), who was quite nervous about the prayer of the faithful and the responses and such considering she is not Catholic. Michael and I coached her through it, and it was really then that we declared ourselves a team. Team Readers: we like to party. (Jill did not have time on Saturday to get our t-shirts made: FAIL)

Mercifully, the rehearsal finally ended, and it was time to go get dinner at Paesano's on the Riverwalk, which is a great venue, as, on a Friday night, it was packed. Since I had gotten a ride with Michael after the rehearsal, we chatted and got to know a little more about one another and figured out that we were the only two single guys in this entire operation. This seemed like a fair time to introduce him to the zero-one evaluation scale, so once we got to the Riverwalk, there were "zero" and "one" calls abounding.

The night ended with Michael, Nicole and I walking through San Antonio and eventually back to the hotel while talking about old times and the day ahead. Then I changed, grabbed my stuff and it was time to get back to Whit and Katie for a recruiting trip to Austin.

There is no other explantion. We are hated.

The baseball gods have frowned upon the Crespi freshman team. I don't know if it's the baseball sins of their coaching staff, or the ugly uniforms, or what the deal is, but they hate us. Another battle that we were right in until the end, resulted in another L.

We lined into three inning-ending double plays. These were not baserunning errors. These were balls absolutely scorched right at infielders...no shot to avoid getting doubled. Even at that, we were still in the game down 2-1 when we rallied and picked up a run in the top of the 7th to tie it. We then threw up a zero in the bottom half to take it to extras...where we got left on the field by a run scored by the leadoff hitter who got on via a bitch hop that almost killed my 2B.

Such is life...we're sitting at 2-4 and could easily be 6-0 (or 0-6), so I suppose it depends on how you look at it. I'm getting frustrated for the kids, though. They're battling and competing like crazy (which is the first/most important rule) and seeing little of it translating in the win column. We're going to see very quickly what they're made out of mentally. So far, I still love what I see with these guys and think that when all is said and done, this will be one of the better classes to come through Crespi. We just gotta keep grinding.

This, by the way, is when I REALLY hate that I gave up drinking for Lent. I need a beer.

Ugh

More awful at bats with runners in scoring position. 7-5 L. I'll write more when I'm not so bitter. (So...probably not until we pick up another win. Hopefully Saturday at Loyola.)