Minnesota Summer

The summers in Minnesota are my favorite thing about it. Well, besides the Fall. And maybe Spring. Either way, the weather here from April – October is fantastic, from June – September, it’s amazing. This weekend, I took advantage of it to the fullest.

My workweek ended with Leiney’s Summer Shandy at the bar inside Sgt. Preston’s with a couple of my favorites. Finishing round 1, we headed out onto the patio to wait for the rest of those joining us, and to start the fishbowls. I shared a total of two between myself and three others, and was sufficiently drunk enough to have completely forgotten full conversations which, I was told, all took place proir to 8PM. A 17-shot drink will do that, no matter HOW you split it.

The rest of the night was a blur of campus, dancing, PBRs, and awesome fun. I have the best friends in the world, so to take advantage of one of MN’s finest porches with them was perfection.

I spent all day on Saturday with a different crew of great friends on the boats on Lake Minnetonka. We went out to Big Island, where we docked with the rest of the boats and partied from about noon-6:30. Needless to say, I got more than enough sun, but loved every ray of it.

Today, I’m vegging out at the house, doing a little laundry and relaxing, contemplating whether or not I meet up with a new friend or just lay low all day… Plenty of time to decide, so for now… Twins game and D-time.

Only My Right Calf Hurts

Isn’t that weird? For some reason (blame it on the Murphy’s), I decided it was a great idea to jig on St. Pat’s day (well, why wouldn’t you?!), and the leg you do the kicking with (in my case, my right leg) feels like I pushed myself too hard at the gym. Everytime I stand up and walk, I’m reminded of the blurry image of standing in a circle with my crew, in the back of the tent at The Happy Gnome, and wondering how I got to be such a damn good Irish dancer. Blame it on the Murphy’s.

St. Pat’s was an all-out success. I started by picking up a couple of the early birds from downtown St. Paul and headed back to the Portland House to round up the rest of the troops. Here, I had two Bloody Marys, one of which was topped off with a bit of Guinness. I was told this is how they do it in North Chicago. I loved it. Then there were Guinness, just all in their stand-alone glory, and then we were off to the Gnome. I just basically didn’t stop – had to do my Irish heritage proud. Murphy’s, whiskey, etc…. the whiskey is where my memory goes blurry, but I remember going back to the house only because I remember leaving from the house to go to Sweeney’s Saloon. Another excellent St. Paul establishment.

Driving around St. Paul, I decided this might be an area I next consider living. I’m in love with the bars like the Gnome, the Muddy Pig, and with coffee shops like Nina’s. It’s an easy walk to the bars on West 7th, the bars on Grand, and the bars in the Dale/Selby part. Perfection! I do love the Uptown area too, but this seems to be just the right amount of city with the right amount of neighborhoods.

Who knows…

Next up? A night of raunchy divaness as I hit up the Xcel Center for the Pussycat Dolls and Christina Aguilera show!

Wine, Chocolate, Pizza, Strip Clubs, and Shopping

MY GOD, I love my girlfriends.

Katie, Bridget, Steph, and I met up at The Independent for our bimonthly Wednesday night happy hour. I left the bar, and the night feeling like a million dollars and firmly believing that I have the best girlfriends in the world. I do. We talked about boys, girls, work, bars, celebrities we’d hook up with and then we talked about plans for the upcoming weekends that involve Italian food, strip clubs, dancing, and early AM swimming…

Love my girlfriends.

Call me! We should get a drink sometime!

Often spoken between casual acquaintances or once-friends, the phrase “Let’s catch up sometime,” is one that also tends to fizzle as often as it’s uttered. I recently found myself in just that situation, but have been pleased and even more so rewarded by actually following through with it!

I met Katie and Bridget through Steph. If you want the lowdown, it went like this:

Steph’s bf, Al’s high school best friend is Josh. Josh and Katie have been dating awhile, so Steph met Katie this summer on a double date-like boat thing. Bridget is Katie’s bff. Katie invited Steph to her birthday thing this summer, and Steph invited me since she only knew Katie . It was a four-way match made in heaven. We ran into each other on purpose at bars and such over the summer and fall, but the real connection started about 5 weeks ago when we decided to meet for happy hour. At that happy hour, we set up another one two weeks from then and the tradition has continued. It’s usually on a Wednesday, but this one got changed slightly and we’re meeting at the OC in Uptown this evening.

I am beyond excited that this actually happened. Two new friendships are forming, and with amazingly beautiful (inside and out) women. We’ll miss Steph tonight, as she had some family business to attend to (but we send our love!), but are continuing the tradition, biweekly, Wednesday evenings (taking a break over the Christmas holiday), and always at some place new. So far, we’ve been to:

The Refuge – quiet on Wed evenings, GREAT HH deals (1/2 off drinks and 1/2 the good apps), good 1st Ave location
Wild Onion – LOVE the lettuce wraps! The service is usually pretty decent, but the last couple of times, our server has been really slow and seems to forget about us.
Old Chicago – Honey Chipotle BBQ wings are my FAVORITE here, and I’m on the World Beer Tour and have 70 (DIFFERENT) beers on my tour! (Just 40 short of the 110 it takes to get my name on the Wall of Foam!). Oh the things I aspire to…

Any suggestions for our next adventure?