Thirtysomething

The Duke

This weekend was a pleasant, get-the-hell-out-of-Philly weekend. We were at the southern Jersey shore, which I refer to as the Philly Jersey shore. Unlike the New York Jersey shore, closer to where my parents live in Central Jersey, practically no one lives at the Philly Jersey shore year round. This probably has a lot to do with the economy and the fact that people will commute a hour and a half each way to NYC, but no one in their right mind would make a hour and a half commute daily to Philly.

So the shore was deserted, which was fine by us. We spend Friday night playing games I haven't played since college, including a round of "asshole" that didn't conclude until about 4a.m. I am notoriously bad at playing games, whether they be of the board, card or drinking variety, so it's amazing that I didn't wind up in a coma Friday night. Ron's friends include a life-sized bust of John Wayne, aka The Duke, which travels with them wherever they go. The Duke sits at the table with us when we play drinking games. Because, yes, we are that weird.

After an early dinner on Saturday and having spent most of the day in vain trying to solve a NY Times crossword puzzle, we headed to the Princeton for a night of debauchery. The Princeton, which is not located anywhere near the city of Princeton, is unlike anything I've ever seen. It's a bar within a liquor store. It's pretty bare bones, as far as bars go, but there was a Golden Tee which is one of the only games I am good at, so everything was o-kay. That the beers are only $2 doesn't hurt either. The end of the night included a snowball fight, Jimmy cooking up hot dogs and Morgan making peanut butter and jelly "hoagies."

The really fun part of the weekend was witnessing the interactions between Ron and his friends. There is something wonderful about seeing the easy nature of friendships that have remained strong for over 20 years.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 6:32 AM