On Friday, Amanda came into town and we had breakfast at Khatouna’s with our old friend Stacy. Stacy and Amanda were roommates way back, and lived in that cutie pie apartment just over the covered bridge in Waitsfield. We ate Khatouna’s good food (that woman makes anything taste better than anyone else can), and gossiped about what people are up to. Before we knew it, it was two o’clock.
Hot and sticky, Amanda and I dashed down to the river for a swim before heading over to the Big Buck Lodge, to score ourselves a bedroom in our weekend digs. The Buck is Jesse’s weekend ski-house, and is well-appointed in the way of the weekend warrior. The only "big buck" appears as a tattery, taxidermed doe’s head screwed to the wall above the stairwell, old-fashioned tele-skis and boots are screwed to other walls, and six bunkrooms can sleep somewhere around twenty people. We scored the next-to-the-bathroom bedroom and waited for other folks to roll in, before accidentally crashing Chris and Emily’s wedding rehearsal. Sorry, y'all!
Then it was off to Flatbread for our favorite vittles and wine. The experience at American Flatbread is rivaled by none… only open on Friday and Saturday nights, the old barn and woodfired oven produce some of the very yummiest food around. There’s always a long wait, so we sit by the fire outside and drink wine and talk to strangers who become friends. Still the same folks tending to the inside, samesame, goodsame. A little on the tipsy side, after our vino and dinner, we headed back to Millbrook for cocktail hour and mingling. Cory and Annie, Philibuster, Matt Reilly, Shippee and JoAnne, and all of Chris’ siblings were there in full force, and by the time we got there the first keg was already tapped. No worries, there was more to be had. This was not a weekend for want of beer.
We played awhile there, under the tent at Millbrook, before heading over to the Hyde Away for another round. Oh, Hyde Away, you are still the same and I love you. Sean was tending bar there, still there, samesame. Nice to see him. When I found him tending bar the next night at the wedding, there it was again, samesame, littlevalley.
After the Hyde Away, a dark walk up the dirt road and back to the Big Buck, where two refrigerators of Magic Hat and Long Trail and Otter Creek awaited us. Talk turned to the old story of the T-Rex, Chris’ infamous dance of yore, topic of many years’ worth of making-fun-of-Chris Herlihy. T-Rex chatter went on awhile, and a debate ensued about where the photo evidence of this particular form of movement had gone. (Burned by Chris Herlihy, I think.) General consensus was that there would most certainly be some T-Rexing taking place on the dancefloor at the wedding.
I shared a room with Amanda and Matty, and when we went to bed we giggled and talked awhile before drifting off. "T-Rex!" I heard Matty say after awhile, "That is funny."
And that is what Matt Reilly talks about in his sleep, as he drifts off, dreaming of Chris Herlihy. Almost beats the original T-Rex story.
No comments:
Post a Comment