Strange days are here.  Over the weekend I lived the strangest life I have ever known.  It started on Friday evening, when most people’s weekends start.  I had an awesome time at a blogger meetup.  I met some really interesting new people behind some very interesting blogs like STLWorking Mom (the meetup organizer), WOBL in Training, Marriage 101, The Non-Billable Hour, and Mamalogues (old friend, but I always love hanging with her).  The BF accompanied me on this journey into a land where I could talk about my blog for three whole hours and no one would roll their eyes, yeah!  That wasn’t the weird part though. 

While at this meetup, I imbibed with a couple of glasses of wine but stopped before any buzz was too great to handle because I had a birthday celebration to attend to afterwards.  The BF drove us to Bailey’s Chocolate Bar in Lafayette Square to meet the birthday girl and some friends and we were seated on the back patio.  Having patronized this establishment before, I am well aware of the smoking rules there so I tried to go out to a back area of the patio to light-up, but found a plastic encasing would not allow me to pass.  I weaved through the crowd inside to go out front and brave the whipping winds and cold without a jacket.  I stood out there for a few moments and huddled against the building to keep myself warm.  I almost forgot… when I arrived I had passed my Ex-fiancee’s friend, who is also a manager there, and I had said hello… that is possibly where things went awry. 

When I returned to the table, the waitress informed me that she felt I was too intoxicated to serve.  I was stunned because I was far from drunk so I sat there for a moment and blinked quietly.  Having worked in the restaurant industry for some time during college, I knew there was no point arguing and had I done so I would have appeared belligerent- thus proving their false accusation about my condition.  It became readily apparent that there was no winning when she said I was stumbling and slurring my words.  How she came to this conclusion I do not know because I had not talked to anyone on the staff to order and I barely had spoken to my friends after arriving, choosing instead to smoke.  I just quietly picked up my belongings, knowing that this was personal but also knowing that they have the right to refuse service to anyone, on any grounds, because they are a private establishment.

Never mind that in the number of times I have been there in the past I have seen them serve to women lying on the table and I have seen at least four women carried out over their date’s shoulders as waitresses and the management smiled and looked on.  Classy establishment, right?  Regardless, it appears I am not welcome there because I called off a wedding a million years ago.  I don’t regret calling off the wedding, but I do regret the other $200 I have spent there in past visits.  I am advocating a ban on bars that refuse service based on the personal preferences of the manager, starting with Bailey’s Chocolate Bar in St. Louis.  They stand behind their decision to ask me to leave I am sure, but I am also sure there are plenty of other people to attest to the truth of my condition.

Saturday we stayed in and while I played with my new Treo and acted like a domestic goddess drying and baking pumpkin seeds, the BF carved a pumpkin.

Pretty fancy carving for the BF I must say. Staying home was ideal I have found because my Sunday was just as strange as my Friday.

I brought the pup home to feed, water, poop, you know the basics.  As I walked to the side of my apartment building I noticed some weird old dude sitting outside of my bedroom window with a backpack, drinking from a glass liquor bottle.  He didn’t acknowledge me being there, so I thought it best to do the same and not acknowledge him.  A couple of hours later I brought the pup back out and noticed him in the same spot, still drinking.  I went inside for a spell and suddenly he was banging on the secure front door of the building and knocking on the windows of the neighbor across the hall, yelling, “Let me in!”  I, of course, did not but instead watched through the peep-hole as he charged into the apartment across the hall.  The poor guy across the hall was yelling, “Hey, that’s my house! Get out.”  My heart was racing.  He finally walked out of the building and raced around the corner on foot.  I later discovered urine on the side of the building… under my bedroom window… and an empty vodka bottle. 

It was truly the strangest weekend I have had in a lifetime.