We slept in this morning, but since we finally got to sleep at about 4:30 last night, it still wasn’t anything like an 8-hour night. I’m not complaining; I’m just saying.
We had a bagel and some cheese coffee for breakfast. Actually, the coffee did not taste like cheese in spite of the coffee pot doubling as a sauce pan for cheese dip yesterday. I made the coffee too weak, though.
Party Central opened before noon, and our first customer arrived within minutes of opening the door.
Oh that reminds me, I did have a Goldschlager shot before noon — and in my glass that’s etched with my initials and the name of “my drink”: Bourbon & Diet Coke.
Are those bad signs? Drinking before noon? Having a glass etched with your drink on it? Well, I didn’t drink alone at least.
Various customers sauntered in and out:
- Ross checked in on his way to Concord Mills to shop.
- Ernie stopped by to report in on the morning’s dance lessons: “She didn’t do all that flamboyant shit,” he said of the instructor, who was a bit of a foo-foo dancer.
- Gordon checked in by phone. He was ready to have lunch, and wondered if we’d join him, but it was still too early for us, and then he dropped by after lunch on his way to dance lessons.
Robert and I worked on the crossword puzzle from the USA Today. It was much easier than the ones we do in The Independent. Rick helped us with the second to the last clue, which was “calf sound.” The answer was blat.
About an hour later we — Robert, Rick, and I — walked to the Heavenly Ham place right next to the hotel, and brought back some sandwiches to eat in the room. Yum!
After a while, Michael and Carl came by, and some outrageously funny antics ensued — mostly around them doing caricatures of dances. They were taking steps and adding shimmies, twists, twirls and flailing to them — you know — all that flamboyant shit.
This was the line dance instructor who put the foo in foo-foo:
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His website is www.mrshowcase.com. [Emphasis on the show.] Aside: I do believe this gentleman has a camouflage fetish.
After killing us with their dancing, both of them climbed up into the huge picture window of our third floor room, Carl rubbing his butt against the glass (someone accused him of writing his name with his ass), and Michael was hanging onto the center frame doing a window dance (which is similar to, but different from, a pole dance).
Robert and I took a nap mid-afternoon.
At about 3:30, I think, Rick came over, and he and I had a cocktail, as Robert slowly woke up.
Adam and Van dropped by, and Robert, still in the bed, threw his covers back and said, “I’m accepting gentlemen callers now.”
Adam burned a CD for the DJ with about five songs that we use for some dances, which they didn’t have the music for. This involved Van having to run across the street to CVS to buy a writable CD.
Shortly thereafter, a bunch of people converged on Party Central, and we managed a group picture, including one using the timer, so I was able to get in it.
At about 5:15, we all headed downstairs to the Cocktail Party, which was a little disappointing — as far as the food went any way. No meatballs or little smokies this year.
More disturbing was the lack of dark liquor on the open bar. The only choice was Southern Comfort, and both Rick and I thought it tasted funny — funny weird, not funny ha-ha. But not weird enough to keep us from drinking it.
We had a group dinner at Harper’s, which turned out to very nice. I’m not big on group dinners, but we ended up out on the patio, with a great waitress, who graciously provided separate checks.
I had the Portobello Mushroom sandwich, and Robert had the Grouper Special, and generously shared his salad with me. I took half my sandwich home for a midnight snack.
It took a little longer than we wanted it to to get our credit cards back and all that, and we ended up getting to the Cattle Call Ball closer to 10 than 9.
We all squirmed in line waiting to get in as we heard two songs that we knew line dances to being played — Rocket and Dizzy. We missed them both.
It was a fun night, and “the Raleigh people” got to shine with one of our dances, at least — MLD. The whole weekend trip was worth it just to learn what MLD stands for. I’ve wondered ever since I learned it. My Line Dance!
We dropped in on the “After Hours” party hosted by the Charlotte Tradesmen. There were people strewn all about the lobby area, some in their clothes, some in their pajamas, and some in a mixture of each, some on the chairs and couches, some on the furniture, and a lot on the floor.
They had pizza, which was good, but hard to pick out a piece since it was so dark in there that you couldn’t see what kind you were getting. I felt sorry for the vegetarians.
We didn’t stay down there long, and got to bed at around 3:30. It was a good, full day.