~Saturday~ I was up at 8:30, had breakfast, and did a little bit of work on the agenda for our Manbites Dog Theater Board of Directors meeting, before showering and heading to Durham for it.
We had a productive meeting, with a guest presentation by Aden, an accountant volunteer who’s done a ton of work on our accounting system, budget, and preparing our records for an upcoming mortgage refinance request we’re going to apply for.
I left promptly at noon, even though the meeting hadn’t technically ended. On the way out, I asked Gregor if he’d capture the final minutes of the meeting, as I’m the official meeting minute taker.
I arrived in Cary at about 12:30 at the Page Walker Arts & History Center, where my friend Geromy’s graduation party was being held from noon until 2:00. Today he graduated with his PhD in Plant Pathology. As it turned out, the graduation ceremony over at Carter-Finley had run over and he still hadn’t arrived. I was greeted by his mom, who I’ve met at line-dancing a couple of times, and was introduced to everyone else there, the only other person I knew being his partner Jeff.
The room they’d rented for the occasion leads into a back room of Cary’s history and I wondered back there at one point while waiting for the guest of honor to arrive. In addition to learning about Cary’s first doctor, Dr. Templeton, I learned that the town of Cary was named after Samuel Cary. Who knew?
Geromy’s mom had set up a table full of wooden alphabet blocks spelling out things like: GEROMY, PHD, and LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE (one of his favorite mantras). Attached to each block was a picture of him at various times in his life, including baby pictures, growing up pictures, and a few more recent ones.
On the table next to that was a most awesome cake that Geromy had commissioned from Swank Cake Design, providing them with the design he wanted on it.
Once Geromy arrived, there were a lot of tearful pictures of happy relatives (and Geromy!) of the occasion, and here’s mine with rather low quality. I moved a little right when I took it, which didn’t help matters.
After the photo ops, champagne was served all around and after a few people—starting with Geromy’s partner Jeff—made toasts, we got down to eating. They had a nice spread, and at Geromy’s mom’s insistence, I loaded up a “to-go plate,” which I enjoyed later in the evening.
Once home, I made a conscious decision to nap before going to get my haircut, since their website said they were open until 7:00. When I got up, I grabbed my coupon for a $6.99 haircut with an expiration of today’s date and headed down there.
As I approached the still-unlocked door at 6:15, the gal behind the register shook her head no and mouthed, “We’re closed.” I pushed the door open anyway and she said, “We’re closed.”
“Your website says you’re open until 7:00,” I let them know.
Another one of the stylists, a guy, standing next to her said, “We’ve been closing at six instead of seven on Saturday’s since January.”
“Well your website’s been wrong since January then,” I said annoyed and leaving.
As much as I hate going to Flex on the nights that they have a porn star there, I met Joe at 10:30. Joe and I always joke about just ignoring the “stars,” staying on the side of the bar where they don’t perform and enjoying the cheap drinks.
Well the first thing that happened when I walked in was that my friend Alex, who evidently had been deemed as the Raleigh Welcome Wagon for Ricky Sinz, brought him up and introduced him to us!
By the time I finished my first drink—which as you most of you know doesn’t take long—I was so through with the place that I bee-lined it out of there without saying goodbye to anyone but Joe.
Not to self: Do not go there again when there is a porn star there. Period.
At home, I ate two frozen Hershey’s Kisses and fell asleep reading our current Mostly Social Book Club‘s book, The Blind Side, which I’m desperately trying to like, or forge on with at a minimum.
