Are you strokin’ me!?

Today Emily and Faye Hollenbeck turn 21. For those of you a little slow on the uptake, that makes them twins. Happy Birthday to them!The party, however, was last night. Dinner and then a trip to Champaign/Urbana were on the agenda.

Now, I’ve known the twins since high school, and most of the folks who know them around here are college buddies. So it stands to reason that I didn’t know anyone. But that’s not entirely true, I (of course) knew Emily and Faye, and I also knew Joanne, one of their roomies who came along for the trip. There were 13ish folks on the list for dinner and most of them planned on driving down to “Cham-bana” for some evening entertainment. Just to my amazing powers of retention, I will now list the folks who came and stayed for dinner:

Emily and Faye, the birthday twins; Joanne, the birthday roomie; two Jasons, one of whom ate half his weight in food; Aaron, who turned out to be a pretty cool guy; Becca and her fiancé Joel; Laura, who did not bring her fiancé but brought her beautiful shiny new engagement ring; Becca’s sister Renee; Sarah; Olivia, apparently the nut of the group; and me. Kyron (sp?) and his friend Kenny came to wish Faye and Emily the best as well. Spelling is subject to change on any of the aforementioned names.

Dinner was at TGI Friday’s where our server left a little to be desired aesthetically, but was an AWESOME waitress. Emily and Faye picked me up at work, where I stayed late to make things a little easier on the people who cart me around. As we were waiting for the rest of the gang to arrive, we all “oohed” and “ahhed” over Laura’s engagement ring. Very, very nice. Sparkled so much it probably glowed in the dark. Luckily I won’t have to be buying anything like that for quite some time.

Eventually everyone showed up and we spent 15 minutes or so occupying virtually every space in the lobby of the restaurant, waiting for a table. I also noted that every third blond to walk in had the “trapped in a wind-tunnel” hair-do. What’s up with that? Once we got to the table, it was time to start the festivities. Some of us, those who could, started the drinking early. The Hurricane’s at Friday’s are good… and the Long Island’s… well… are stronger than most, and bigger too. …umm… or so I’ve been told. It should be noted that, as yet, the twins were not legal. They were waiting on midnight for that.

Dinner went rather uneventfully, but it was a good time. When finished, most of the group started packing up the cars for the 40 minute trip to Champaign. In the process, Emily managed to shut my hand in her trunk. It wasn’t that bad… but she felt guilty for, well, I think she STILL feels guilty. After determining that my hand was not in need of medical attention, Emily, Faye, Joanne, and I crammed into the car. We stopped to get gas, and to teach emily how to use an ATM. Joanne suggested that she might not be American. Jo also introduced me to a wonderful phrase of astonished disbelief: “Are you strokin’ me!?” I plan to use it. It’s probably funnier when a girl says it, for obvious reasons, but that won’t deter me, much. Oh, it turns out that the appropriate response to this question is “No, but I could be!”

Both cars arrived in Cham-bana, made a group trip to the bathroom, and proceeded over to the High Dive. The club had a nice setup, and the DJ did a good job of flowing between techno and hip-hop. There’s only so much techno I can stand before I’m forced to strangle people with their own intestines. The clientèle there is interesting. Most of the people there who were roughly college age were at least moderately attractive. The other half of the attendees looked like they were kicked out of a trailer park for being to trashy. This, of course, made for some interesting dance floor situations. At midnight the birthday girls went and got drinks, and at last call (which is 1:00am) I treated them to a shot of Jagermeister. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but they didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. Oh well.

We drove back to Bloomington through a monstrous lightning storm, which was pretty darn cool and went to Faye’s apt where the four of us in that car tried to decide if we wanted to keep drinking. We decided against it and all quickly fell asleep in the living room. Well, except Joanne who disappeared to talk to her bf on the phone. This morning we hung out, ate blueberry muffins and witnessed hot girl-on-girl action… and me without my camera.

All in all it was a great time, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten parts… which will have to be added once I’ve been reminded of them. Oh, and if I ever get pictures, I’ll have to post those as well.

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In other news…
Tess discloses that she has secret panty-seeking heathen, voodoo-practicing dumpster divers in Alaska.

Mom brought home a case of Vanilla Coke. It rocks.

Tonight some other web-folk are doing their part for charity… Blogathon is running until 6:00am. You should definitely go support the EFF with kd & Skarlet and, for a laugh or 48, check out Davezilla.

I found this clip over at Jack’s place and you should really watch it… unless the phrase “blow job” bothers you.