How time flies...

Last week started with a fun Tuesday at Red's house for "book club." Yes, do note the quotes. There was an abbreviated group for club, so we instead wound up drinking way too much vino and giggling around the table.
I brought a yummy-yum chilled-well white wine that we'd tried in cooking class the Saturday past, Four Rivers...Wait, no...Five Vines...no...um...It was Four Vines naked chardonnay (naked, as it's aged in stainless steel rather than oak casks). Now, I'm surely not a chardonnay drinker, but it is a tasty one, and it paired well with the Mediterranean diet foods that we were making that afternoon.

Anywho...after a garbage-y Thursday and Friday at work (I think there's a definition for it), I was very much looking forward to the weekend, even if it were Valentine's Day.

My Saturday started off by talking with Phil Squirrel, who surprised me with a noon phone call. He was painting (and quite tired of it, as it sounds), and was sweet enough to call. Of course, maybe I'll take back the "sweet" and replace it with "upsetting." Yeah, we were talking about potential plans for my next trip, which is looking like it'll be March. Edinburgh? Mmm-hmm, sounds good. Not that I can pronounce it correctly, but another week hanging with Phil Squirrel in London and thereabouts is just what the doctor ordered.

Following our conversation, I went to watch my England team play Wales in the 6 Nations tourney at the Charlotte Rugby Club. Yeah, we won't discuss the final score of the Eng-er-land game. Sigh. Next up? Ireland v. England on the 28th. That day, too, the club was playing at 3 p.m. Red met me up there for that, and we watched the game, along with a bunch of others out in the beautiful sun, with the smell of grilling burgers in the background. Good times.

After the game (and me oversleeping from a slightly-beer-induced coma), Red and I went down to a bar for an Anti-Valentine's Day shindig. She cracks me up, she does. Guys would try to approach her and flirt with her, and Red would exclaim under her breath, "Make him go away!" The icing on the cake? A not-too-bright boy (aw, bless!) who passed Red his phone number on a cocktail napkin. While that doesn't raise an eyebrow, exactly, it's what was written on it that made me howl with laughter: He actually had to cross out a number on the napkin. That's right, he wrote his phone number incorrectly. Yeah, not-too-bright might be a slight understatement, but we'll leave it at that.

So after our fill of this place, Red, Philipp German (that's his nationality, not his last name), and I went to Jack's to meet up with one of the rugby players we'd met earlier that afternoon. With Rocky Horror's "Time Warp" playing in the karaoke room, us giggling in the barroom, and our new friends quizzing us with questions, it was just fun...Home by 2:45 a.m., I think that was the type of Val Day that I exactly needed--silly, light-hearted, and sans roses...