Weekend Recap

It’s been a while since I blogged a weekend recap. Since I haven’t blogged in general in a while, and since the weekend had some fun highlights, I figured today was an opportune time to bring back the Weekend Recap. To be clear, I’ll define “weekend” as the traditional Friday evening – Sunday evening stretch. As compared to my current weekends, which start on Wednesdays at 2:30 p.m. this quarter.

The weekend started out innocently enough. At around 5 p.m., I curled up in my warm bed to watch my Hornets take on the local JV squad, the Clippers. Since it was Friday night after all, I decided I needed a Scotch. Then a 2nd Scotch. When the two Scotches hit me harder and quicker than I expected, I decided I needed a shower and a meal. Unfortunately, only a few minutes after said meal, I decided to meet Seema, Ena, Anuj, Vijay and some others at Father’s Office. For non LA-ers, Father’s Office (supposedly) makes one helluva burger, which I’ve still yet to try because the place tends to be really crowded. So I limited myself to munching on some fries and having a couple beers – a pretty good White beer whose name I’m forgetting at the moment, and an Arrogant Bastard (had to try it because of the name) – a bitter, non-enjoyable Guinness-like beer. Anyways, the night was tame and I was home sleeping by 1ish. Like I said, the weekend started out innocently enough.

Fast forward to Saturday night. Terence was in town for his annual LA birthday celebration, which was fortunately taking place at Zanzibar, a small lounge a block and a half away from my apartment. I invited Terence and his entourage over to my place for some pre-gaming, where everyone proceeded to pound 2-3 drinks pretty quickly. It would be a sign of things to come for the next 24 or so hours. After the pre-game, we scurried over to Zanzibar through the pouring rain (seriously), and I was thankful to have had a few drinks in my system. I was not thankful that I only brought a broken umbrella to shelter me. Anyways, the night continued pretty much as expected. Waited in line for too long to get in. Waited too long at the bar to order drinks. Ran up too high a bar tab. Drank too much. Fortunately, I think we all got Terence sufficiently drunk, as the word-slurring, more-cursing-than-usual drunk Terence showed up not too long after he got there. Happy birthday bud.

After taking a cab home 1 ½ blocks (seriously – it was POURING) I stumbled into bed already looking forward to Sunday, as a handful of us had pre-planned that wonderful Sunday tradition – Brunch. When I woke up in the morning, the excitement (and fear, to some extent) built up as I saw I had a text from Kush – at 3:30 a.m. – confirming the brunch plans. Game on.

At a little after 1, we showed up at Belmont Cafe. The hype around the Belmont had been building for a couple weeks. Apparently, I had been informed by Seema, Kush, and other Belmont non-virgins, they have a do-it-yourself Bloody Mary bar. Wtf? What they do, basically, is give you a tall glass full of ice and the Vodka of your choice (I started with Skyy, which IMO is good enough for the purposes of a Bloody Mary, but once Anuj and Kush started ordering Goose, I figured I was paying for Goose indirectly so I might as well step it up myself). Then, at the bar, they have all the typical Bloody Mary fixings – a couple different types of Bloody Mary mix, Tabasco sauce (red and green), Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, all sorts of different olives, etc. They also offer a wide variety of non-traditional fixings. Chalula, chili powder, A1, Slim Jims (as a substitute for celery), etc. I’m not gonna lie. At first I was quite intimidated. After Seema helped me make my first one though, I had the confidence of a gourmet chef. I was throwing in all sorts of crazy concoctions – Chalula, A1, chili powder, asparagus, generous servings of horseradish, whatever (I didn’t have the cajones to try the Slim Jims, though). Incredible. Though at $11.50 per Goose Bloody Mary, anything short of incredible would have been grounds to leave quickly.

One Bloody Mary led to another, which led to another, and so on. We watched most of the Lakers-Cavs game while sipping (sometimes pounding) Bloody Marys and eating omelets. The game ended, and we pondered our next move. Seema tried to convince her parents, who had just seen Wicked in Hollywood, to come by for some food and maybe a drink. They’re clearly wise with their years though (NO, I’m not calling your parents old), and declined our invitation when it became clear to them that we were all half-drunk. So what to do now? Since Shaily had told “her man” (I don’t exactly know “where” they’re at, so I figured that was safe) to come meet us at the Belmont straight from Staples Center, we had no choice but to stay there and hang out. And drink.

At around 4 or so, our waitress was leaving for the day, so we had to settle our bill, which was something like $360 between 6 of us. After she changed into her “regular” clothes to head out, I swear she had a “so long suckers” look in her eyes as she took her 18% to go do lines with her unemployed actor boyfriend. We ordered what we thought were our final drinks of the day from our new waiter, and soon decided it was a good idea to go bowling. Seriously – is it ever NOT a good idea to go bowling when you’re already drunk? So we got our second check of the day and were ready to head out. Then, somehow, as if we needed it, we learned we were in the middle of happy hour, which lasted until 7. 22-ounce Fat Tires were $4, as were Mimosas. Hmmm. I guess we should stay a little while longer. I mean, we had already spent $60+ each to get drunk, so it only made budgetary sense to take advantage of the specials and keep the buzz going.

At this point, most of us switched our liquor of choice. I switched to Captain and Diets. Kush and Anuj switched to Fat Tire. Seema decided to ask for a glass of white wine. The waiter inquired, “Chardonnay? Pinot? Zinfadel?” To which Seema responded, “Yes.” Classic. The drunkenness continued, and sure enough turned into a game of “Never Have I Ever.” Always a fun game to play when you’ve been drinking. Even more fun when there’s not 1, but 2, couples at the table. Good times. Unfortunately, Never Have I Ever always depresses me a little bit, as I find myself drinking less than pretty much everyone else at the table. Even Anuj.

Sometime in the middle of Never Have I Ever, LA Clippers point guard Sam Cassell (“Sam I Am”) rolled into the restaurant, along with fellow NBA-er Damon Jones. Jones is a bench player for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The same Cleveland Cavaliers who we watched on TV earlier that day. While drinking Bloody Marys and eating brunch. So, evidently, we had been drinking long enough for Damon Jones to play ¾ of a basketball game, shower, meet up with his buddy Sam, and then go to the Belmont. Good times.

Finally, 7 p.m. rolled around. By this time, I think most of us had gotten drunk, sobered up a bit, and then got drunk all over again. We learned a lot about each other’s sexual histories. And we decided we were going to Vegas for the first weekend of March Madness (the only productive thing any of us did all day). We paid our third bill of the night and went our separate ways. Which, for Seema, Shaily, Vishal and I, was, of course, down the street to Spanish Kitchen for some Mexican food, Pacificos, and Margaritas. I think the owners of the Belmont must own Spanish Kitchen as well. How else to explain the random free margarita?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Seema just informed me that The Belmont and Spanish Kitchen, indeed, are owned by the same company/person. Frequent drinker points?