Beep Beep!

Before I tell you about the best part of my weekend, I need to put it into context, by telling you about the other things I did this weekend.

In no particular order (OK, I guess it's pretty chronological):

1. Had dinner at Fado with Lindsay and Rachel Friday night. Fado, it seems, has introduced a "fancy" drink menu. On this new menu appeared one of my all-time favorites, the Caipirinha. I decided to give it a whirl, even though I thought it was kind of weird that an Irish restaurant featured a Brazilian cocktail. And my suspicions were confirmed after one sip. Terrible. It was essentially a bad excuse for a margarita. We decided then and there that we should stick to Irish drinks at Fado. So we had a round of car bombs and left it at that.

2. Attended Rachel's birthday party at Rocket Bar. Rachel and I had scoped this bar out before she decided that this would be the venue for the party. I was immediately sold because they had a video game table featuring Frogger, Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Pac Man Junior, Pac Man Plus (there are a lot of Pac Mans), Tetris, Pooyan (this game features fire-breathing dinosaurs that fly through the air on balloons. You have to pop their balloon before they reach the ground or they will come and eat your babies! UPDATE: Wikipedia says the "dinosaurs" are actually wolves. But I don't believe this for one second.), Burgertime (Don't play this game. It sucks. I *think* the goal is to hit the bad guys with burger toppings, but I lost before I could really figure out what was going on.), and Tetris. About a week before the party I asked Ted if he would challenge me at Pac Man, to which he said "do you even have to ask?"

There was a lot of smack talk leading to Friday, and a lot of Ted telling me that he was going to "waste my ass."

I came prepared for battle: $12 worth of quarters in my Marc Jacobs tote.

Long story short, I don't think Ted will be disrespecting my skills any longer. By the end of the night, he declared me the undisputed Pac Man champion.

3. Attended Jessica's Bridal Shower. Conclusion: I need to trick someone into marrying me so I can get a shitload of awesome stuff from Crate and Barrel too. And while she was being inundated with toaster ovens, indoor grills, wine glasses and lingerie, I was manning the blender to make sure Jessica's mom was getting drunk on Blue Hawaiians and Pina Coladas. Charlotte did an awesome job prepping for the shower and turned their house into a veritable "House of Leis," Jessica looked super cute in her new Lily Pulitzer dress, and we dined on Outback coconut shrimp all day long. I posted some pics from the shower in my "Summer 2007" Flickr album.

Also, for one reason or another (probably me not paying attention), I hadn't really absorbed the full scope of the beachhouse we're renting in Maui in September. All I really absorbed was that I am staying with pretty much the coolest people I know for really cheap for 10 days. I was enlightened on Saturday at the shower, though, as to the full extent of the awesomeness. Pool table. Pool. Hot tub. Blender.

If you don't think we're having a pool party every night featuring tropical mixed drinks and Jimmy Buffet blasting from my i-Home, you are sorely mistaken. SORELY.

4. Punched myself in the face (accidentally) twice and stubbed my toe, all in the course of an hour on Sunday afternoon. This really was never a contender for the best part of my weekend. But, man. I just wanted to go on record and declare what an idiot-klutz I am. The inside of my lip is still broken.

OK, so considering I went to dinner with two of my favorite people, a kick-ass birthday party where I dominated at Pac Man (obviously), and a sweet hawaiian bridal shower where I discovered the life of luxury I'll be living in for 10 days in September, the best part of my weekend was....wait for it....

5. Saturday night visit to the Bowie Rita's Italian Ice stand. Who knew Rita's was such a magnet for the weird and ridiculous?

If you've ever hung out with me, you know that one of my favorite things to do is stand around joaning on people. But honestly, if you could have seen the odd ducks pulling up to the italian ice stand that night, you'd have agreed that they were just asking for it. The best was this 40-ish guy wearing a yellow tye-dyed shirt with an airbrushed roadrunner (of roadrunner and coyote Looney Tunes fame) on the chest area tucked into his stonewashed jean shorts. As soon as he queued up behind me in line I snickered a little to myself about his ridiculous outfit. When I got back to Robbie, Jessica, Levi and Rachel (who were already enjoying their italian ices near the parking lot and watching this guy all along) they told me to take a guess as to which car he arrived in. I scanned the lot for about two seconds before I said "That one."

It was a souped up canary yellow hot rod with a roadrunner decal on the back window and Maryland license plate "BIRD 8 U."

The best part was when we all finally got a back view of Mr. Roadrunner. His yellow tye-dyed airbrushed roadrunner shirt had a catch phrase airbrushed on the back: "Beep Beep!"

At that, we all had to step away from Rita's and into the Rent-A-Center parking lot in the hopes that a few more feet of space would muffle our comments and uncontrollable laughter. I think things really hit rock bottom when I noticed that Robbie was spitting out his gelato onto the sidewalk because he was laughing so hard.

That guy, in all his ridiculousness, made my weekend.