The Weekend Edition

I can hardly believe it. I haven't written a weekend edition since September...that's pretty incredible. Given that it is my one and only regular post, you'd think I'd stay up to date on it, especially given that it's just a recap of my weekend. Attribute it to laziness, my busy nature, or whatever, it just hasn't been happening. However, it's Sunday night and it was a particularly good weekend (despite a rather devestating Patriots loss tonight) and I feel as if it's time to restart the time honored (and recently ignored) tradition. What happened this weekend?

• Closing the week without having to go in for jury duty once
• A particularly delicious home cooked meal of tofu pad thai
• Big movie night at my place (with many, many guests)
• Breakfast at Snow City with Stephanie, Olivia and JT
• Awesome day at Kaladi Brothers with Brandon, Cate and Eric
• Downtown early evening shenanigans with Eric and Cate
• Catching the fantastic and brutal (for one guy) Pacquiao/Cotto fight
• Delicious breakfast at Middle Way (with complimentary potential job offer!)
• Kaladi day with Cate, Eric and Gary Busey
• Basketball with Colver
• People over for Patriots game that ended...tragically

Note the extreme lack of crazy partying by myself. There are a number of reasons why this happened and likely will be happening much more often. Let us count the ways:

1. It's cold as hell out
2. It's expensive to party
3. Removes (most) opportunities for me to embarass myself
4. There is so much to do without going out!

Staying in solves the first three problems, it allows me to follow through on reason 3, and it opens up the extremely underrated concept of doing things on Saturday and Sunday without feeling like death (oh not feeling like death, how I adore you). There is one additional caveat: it allows me to get to know new friends better.

It seems like every six to nine months (or about when Cate will be quitting a job), my group has a bit of a refresh of people. Every Friend Season (as I will be calling them now), my group loses two to three people yet seemingly replaces them without skipping a beat. This weekend, I had ample opportunity to hang out with great new friends like Stephanie, Gen, Katherina, Kerstin, Olivia, and Eric (not to mention the immortal Gary Busey), and it was a wonderful time. I really enjoy our new batch of friends, and it's perfect timing heading into The-Season-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. It seems as if plans for elaborate parties (ranging from Snuggie Parties to classy dress parties and beyond) are being proposed at a frenetic pace, leading me to grin with delight at the sheer prospect.

As Victor Hugo once said, "winter is on my head but eternal spring is in my heart." Such is the curative power of good friends, providing me an eternal spring during my least favorite time of the year. Now if we could just get rid of this ridiculous five degree weather, teh rest of me could feel something resembling eternal spring as well. C'est la vie, Alaska.