Summer of Excitement: Memorial Day Weekend - [a case of the summer]

As promised, for the third year in a row, I'll be doing my Summer of Excitement installment!  I thought the first year was a huge success and the second year was a bit lame.  So how can I fix that?  Well, I'm basically just going to talk about the most exciting thing that week, instead of actively trying to do something and having it fall short.  Which is ironic, because the intent of the Summer of Excitement WAS to actively try to do things.

And the summer, of course, starts with Memorial Day Weekend!  And, despite each day being absolutely exhausting, I CAN say that I went out each night, with drastically different people, doing drastically different things.  And in fact, it ended up being a reverse journey through my life.  Friday night focused on the current stage of my life, as I spontaneously ended up meeting up with a work friend of mine and her sister.  This was pretty significant as I had woken up at four in the morning to travel home from Texas.  But I still made the trek to meet up and it ended up being a really enjoyable time.

Saturday night I ended up going to Rutgers to meet up with a college friend (the portion of my life prior to my work life) for some dinner and some drinks.  We even ended up going to our old hang out spot, and the manager of the bar remembered us!  Very cool, especially since it's been ten years.  Along with that, the bar has a skeeball now, and we totally got roped into playing the bartender and his friend, and we got absolutely killed.  That cost us four shots.  And, again, this was a pretty significant thing since I had a marathon shopping session that morning (not for fun reasons).  Five hours at the mall is NOT a good time.

Sunday night, I hung out with a high school friend (my life before college) and his girlfriend, along with their friends, and we traveled all around New York.  We originally went to Brooklyn in an attempt to go to a Mister Sunday party, but the line was so long that we opted against it.  Instead, we went to the pier and enjoyed a couple drinks as the sun set.  We then returned to Manhattan, where we went out for some more dinner and drinks (and got in trouble for doing a Saki bomb, not realizing that it wasn't allowed) before meeting up with a few others people he knows.  My friend and I ended up having to go separate buses home, as we were going in different directions.  Well, his bus came pretty much right away.  I, on the other hand, had to go all the way downstairs since our bus was actually going to an entirely different gate.  Then I had to wait nearly an hour for it to arrive.  And during that time, there were several REALLY drunk marines who made complete asses of themselves.  They were arguing, cursing, and physically fighting with each other.  It was REALLY unfortunate to watch.  And they were also EXTREMELY obnoxious when people told them to calm down.  And, of course, they ended up getting off at the stop right before mine.  And one was so drunk that he literally had to be carried off of the bus.  I appreciate their service, I truly do.  But that doesn't excuse disrespectful and obnoxious behavior.

And finally, on Monday I spent the day with my family -- the part of my life before high school, college, or work was even a thing!  We went to my aunt's house for a BBQ/pool party (although nobody went in the pool) and it was a really great time.

And honorable mention goes to my work trip to Austin, Texas!  I can't count it as a Summer of Excitement activity because it happened before summer officially started, but it was awesome!  I went with one of my favorite co-workers, and practically every second of the trip was full of SOMETHING fun and exciting.  An incredible time.....just awfully tiring.  The trip began Tuesday at 4:00 AM and ended on Friday at 4:00 AM.  Terribly, terribly exhausting.

Okay, now just check back in a minute or two for my LIVE Payback thoughts...