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Yesterday was decidedly one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a good long while. I wish I’d taken more pictures, so I could remember more of it. :) Alas, my camera’s battery was nearly dead, and I didn’t have time to charge it.

I worked from 11-4, which was neither good nor bad. I suppose I really worked 11-12 and 1-4, because I took an hour lunch with second-year grad students Scott, Quinn, Matt, and Kate (Merrick) at Don Nachos, which, despite the name, actually serves pretty good and authentic Mexican food. I had a burrito roughly the size of my head. I ate it all. Somehow.

After work, Kate (Hellmann) picked me up on campus and we headed to Ledges State Park, which turned out to be a really good idea, because the fall colors were great (see above) and it gave me a chance to get a little bit of exercise in. We stayed at Ledges for a couple of hours, walking the trails and enjoying the scenery. As we were walking back to the car, we saw three deer grazing not more than fifteen feet away. They seemed pretty unconcerned by our presence, so we watched them for a couple of minutes. As we were leaving Ledges to head back to Ames, we saw manyThousand birds (sparrows, I think?) swarming a field. I got a quick photo of some of them from the car, right before they passed Right Overhead. Like maybe five or six feet above the car. It was pretty cool to see that many birds that close up.

When we got back to Ames, we were feeling pretty hungry (somehow), so we decided to try the Hunan Palace (which I always misread as the Human Palace) buffet for dinner. In other words, after my giant lunch and a bit of exercise, I decide to regorge with a gargantuan Chinese buffet. After we were both stuffed beyond measure, we headed back to her place so she could do some homework. She didn’t get any done. Hmm… that sounds more suggestive than I’d intended. :) In reality, we had a glass of wine and talked with her roommate Tasha, mostly. Then we decided to head back to my place to pick up Tiny and head to the bars.

However, when we got to my place, JJ was there, and they were doing shots. Last night was JJ’s last night in Ames before he left for Boulder (from our couch, about two hours ago), so we decided we’d have to party hard. We took several shots (three or four peach schnapps, a tequila, and a Jagermeister, for my part), played a game of darts, and then headed to the bars. We ended up going to Whiskey River, playing several games of pool, and drinking several (I count six or seven) pitchers of beer. We also played a deer hunting game for a while, but it was madly expensive and we were too drunk to shoot much anything, so we played another game of pool and then headed out. Kate headed home (she had a meeting on campus this morning), while the rest of us went to campustown for our next stop to hang out at Paddy’s with JJ’s ex-roommate Klocke (pronounced clucky). We stayed at Paddy’s until closing time, hanging out and drinking several more pitchers of beer. After Paddy’s closed, we headed upstairs (literally) to Klocke’s apartment.

Let me just preface the next part of the story by saying you know you’ve had a good night when you find yourself sitting on a street corner, next to a great-smelling Greek gyro stand, wearing an Arabic (I think) tunic (I think… cloak?), playing an African bongo drum, surrounded by hundreds of drunk people.

So we sat in Klocke’s apartment for a bit, talking. At one point, I looked over at JJ, and he was trying to put on a cool-looking blue and white striped tunic. Klocke had apparently found the tunic at a garage sale a while ago. For whatever reason, neither of these facts surprised me. The tunic was a little small for JJ, so I took it and tried to put it on. It fit like a glove. That is to say, it was extremely tight and I didn’t really think I could get it back off without a big struggle. So I wore it.

After a while, everybody decided we were going to head back outside, as there were several hundred drunk people still wandering Welch Ave, so I wore the tunic outside, getting more than a few stares. :) The gyro stand was parked down the street, so we headed that direction. There was a guy sitting on the corner playing a bongo drum, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was Ben Kirk, my fellow geek in crime from high school, so I sat down next to him to talk. After a few minutes, he passed me the drum, so I pounded away for a good ten minutes or so, until my arms got tired.

Ben and I eventually traded phone numbers (actually, it turned out he still had mine from four or so years ago) and he headed home, while I headed back upstairs with JJ, Tiny, and Klocke. Klocke and Tiny both picked up guitars and started playing, and JJ found a set of bongos and joined in, so I grabbed a pair of drumsticks (all just laying around the living room… weird in retrospect) and started playing on my legs and a plastic bowl I found. It was a pretty good time, though I played long and hard enough that I now have a pretty big blister on my left index finger from the drumstick. We eventually decided to head home, but Klocke told me I could borrow the tunic for a possible Halloween costume (I’m thinking shepherd, using the staff Tiny no longer needs for his), so I got to wear it home. When we got home I finally pulled myself out of the garment and crawled into bed a little after 4:30am.

So, how’s that for a day? I was pretty happy with it. Plus I’ve another party to go to tonight, though it’ll be at an apartment and with a small group of mostly English grad students, so it probably won’t be quite as wild as last night (though definitely fun in its own right). Maybe I’ll wear the tunic. :)