Pride: The Kick-Off BBQ

With this weekend being Pride, the week couldn't finish off any other way than with a Thursday night BBQ hosted by T and Xena to start off the weekend festivities. After spending a few hours at home trying to mentally prepare myself for what is going to be a very long weekend, I head up to the city around 10.

The usual crew is in full swing, with a large bar set-up and jello shots on top of it. It's getting so that the usual crew is so large that naming everyone in a list seems superfluous...Now, the weirdest thing happens...never before at one of these parties have I heard a neighbor complain. Not even when I stood three steps down from their landing and spent twenty minutes throwing up on their stairs did they have a problem. But all of a sudden, mid evening on Thursday, not only do the neighbors complain, but the cops show up....

Now, for a group in their mid-twenties, who haven't worried about police since the day they graduated from high school, it's an amusing sight when everyone gets into the apartment and goes silent like we're all about to get busted. An excellent and amusing part of the evening occurs when Nah's friend Yoko shows up...she's drinking, smoking, the full 9, and we're all having a very pleasant evening out on the front sidewalk. With the weekend looking like it is ahead of us, most people are trying not to go all out for the kick-off bbq, and as it's time to go, I'm getting ready to leave when Yoko goes, "Are you sure you're ok to drive?"

Now, no offense to her, but I never drive unless I'm sure I'm ok to, I say, ya, I'm cool....she takes about two steps down the sidewalk in the other direction and loses her stomach all over a poor tree by the curb. It's amusing to see someone so concerned about you that they completely forget how trashed they are. Either that, or it was some extreme projection, thinking that I was sick because of how she was feeling.

At any rate, the amount of inebriation is a perfect table-setter for the rest of the weekend to come...no sense in coming into work hammered on Friday unable to get ready for Friday night, right? Here are a few pics from the BBQ, along with video of the most quiet Pride Kick-Off BBQ ever...don't worry, it was only like that for five minutes or so before the music went back up and it was time to go.