Things went surprisingly very well. Yesterday Geoff met all the rest of my family from my Grandparents to my youngest cousin.



They liked him and he liked the ones I care about. Lots of stories were shared and burgers were grilled.

Burgers, instead of pork steak, because I made a fleeting comment to Grampa about liking one over the other. Jokes were made about me being the favorite, and yeah, I probably am. ;)

Had a rockin' Independence Day in My Fair City. Geoff and I started at Fair St. Louis.



They had a stage set up with some musical act. I dunno, she was okay. Geoff didn't like her. But look, there's Gateway One in the background and the Arch behind it.



( More of Fair St. Louis, then the rooftop party where some other friends joined us. )

On this Independence Day, I'm more likely to celebrate my awesome city than my country.

So InBev, a Belgium company, wants to buy the pride of St. Louis; Anheuser-Busch. Phil McClary wrote a song for St. Louis and while I wish I could show it to you right here, I'm afraid you'll have to

click this link

to see and hear him sing it.

Tonight I'm going to go to Fair St. Louis, then I'm going to view the fireworks under the Arch from the top of Jack Buck's restaurant. You can't get much more city pride than that.

Pictures to come.

Yesterday was frippy's birthday, so alacrity_danger decided to take her out for dinner at The Macaroni Grill and kindly invited Justin and I to come along.

In true Frippy fashion, she brought along something she found while walking the dangerous streets of LaFayette Square:


An Olan Mills family photograph from the 80's. I remember we got our family pictures taken there too, but like, not in front of a fake bookcase, and no one gouged out the eyes and mouth of anyone in my family after printing.

We had a skater-boy waiter who kept messing everything up and then laughing to us about how dumb he was. Then, at the end, he sang Happy Birthday to Frippy in Italian. And really, what could top off the evening any better? Oh wait - giving the Vegan birthday girl a big fudge brownie with whipped cream.


She blew out the candle then boxed it up and gave it to me. How nice.

And finally, via alacrity_danger, we felt like this 80's family Frippy brought along was a part of our group, having shared this whole dinner experience with us so we asked the skater boy waiter to take a picture of all of us together.

I'm not really sure what happened last night. I think I stayed at that
bar with a couple coworkers and my boss until... I don't know
when. Now I'm getting ready for work and my chest hurts and I think I
might even still be drunk. Wish me luck!

So far, my award for being here is a beer and 5 bucks. We think they
are going to make this a buy in for a Bocce Ball tournament.

Edit: I just got another 50!

Last night I saw Sex in the City with one very likely person and one not as likely; Justin and frippy. Can you guess which is which?

While some of you may give me a hard time about seeing it, in the end, I was satisfied. Unlike all you schmucks who saw Indiana Jones.

Sex in the City did not suck. That's my review. OH! And St. Louis was prominently featured! Eight bucks well spent. The nine bucks for a "Carrie Cosmo" in a plastic cup, not so much.

How did I not know that Kathy Griffin was taping My Life On The D-List literally across the street from where I sat last winter when she came to town? I don't know if any of you saw the show last night or watch Bravo at all, but the whole first HALF of the show was her tooling around my town. She performed at the Fox Theatre and I looked to see if there was anybody I knew in the many crowd shots they got before, during and after the show. The only person I recognized was the Pulaski bank guy who is a gay urbanite, so of COURSE he was at her show.

Maybe I can catch her this year.



Dammit.