the rest of my weekend

Last night a group of us went out for my birthday. The whole experience was, in my opinion, subpar. We went to Jolly's Piano Joint downtown for some fun drunk sing-along antics. The bar was ridiculously loud and crowded. There was a huge bachelorette party there. They had three tables reserved, but they weren't using them. Instead they were crowded around the piano being obnoxious, as drunk bachelorette party guests are wont to be. So we crammed ourselves into a back corner. The waitress came around to take drink orders and informed us that there was a 2 drink minimum per person after 8 PM. (Which wasn't mentioned on the website or posted at the door.) We almost left, but then decided to stay for a few songs to see if the situation would improve.

There was a small back section with a few tables and some cushy chairs. Three people were sitting there taking up the entire space. When they got up to leave, my friend asked the waitress if we could sit there. She said yes, so we started to move our stuff back there. Then one of the men said he was staying there. He sat there, by himself, smoking a cigar and nursing his drink. We were furious, because there were like 6 chairs and 3 tables back there. One of my friends went to ask him if we could sit there, and then the manager came over, told us that it was a reserved area, and put up a velvet rope to keep us out. Totally unecessary. After about half an hour, more people showed up and joined the man in the back. They kept the rope up all night. How pretentious.

Anyway.

So the music was okay. The piano player played a Ben Folds song (whoo-hoo!) and some Beatles, but way too much Springsteen. Then, of course, there were the quintessential piano bar songs: Sweet Caroline, Build Me Up Buttercup, Tiny Dancer (!!!), Piano Man, Friends in Low Places, Take Me Home Country Roads... good stuff.
Then the drama started. One of my friends didn't show up (she had fallen asleep and didn't wake up til after 11), there were some fights involving people and their significant others, there was much discussion about where to go after the piano bar - and everyone kept saying, "It's up to you, it's your birthday!" C'mon, you all know I hate making decisions! Ack. But it wasn't completely awful. It just wasn't how I had hoped the evening would go. Next year, I'm going to have a fondue party at my house for my birthday. No more going out.

Today I went to dinner with the family. Yummy dinner... tiramisu for dessert. And my parents gave me a Magna Doodle as one of my birthday presents! (That wasn't a completely random gift - I kept saying I wanted to buy one.)

So that's my 28th birthday in a nutshell. My Weekend O'Rock is over, and tomorrow it's back to work. Bleh.