The "Code"...

The question came up as it has been mentioned in passing on the blog... "Mia, what the hell is 'the Code'?" The "Code" is something we have among me and mine... When "it" is spoken, it means the proverbial shit has hit the fan. Not many are in on "the Code" as it is not exactly something to be called upon lightly...
There's always a secret little something among groups of friends and this one is ours. I won't share any more, I can't share any more... but I sure am glad we have one in play...

Us.....

I suppose it's both a good thing and a bad thing that my friends and I are "birds of a feather that flock together". On the one hand, we can sit together and be as weird as we want to be. On the other hand, there really is no censor or "voice of reason" or anything and that tends to become troublesome too. It's not that we are troubled by what people think of us. We usually end up bringing the good time with us and some are able to hang, while others kind of shy away and give us strange looks or condescending glares. Never quite understood it. Oh well. You're not invited anyway.

WT Crew.......

Our group grows and shrinks, but one thing is always for certain. It is always the three of us sitting around shooting the shit and hanging out. It's been that way for years. Puppy Guts, My Mitchie and I chilling on the couch and hanging out. I'm not too entirely sure exactly when we started doing it, but it's been our norm for so long.

Sure, we've made it "out" on quite a few occasions, (it sounds like the start of a joke.... A Jew, a Guinea and a Nip walk into a bar....) but the thing of it is, going out is expensive and there are times when we've gotten in to arguments over where we were gonna go and we ended up on the couch anyway. We've had "special guest stars" on the couch with us on several occasions and some "regular guest stars", but we'd do the regular thing anyway. It's probably the reason why we don't have "guests" too often. It seems it takes a really special sort to get over our collective quirks and personalities and hang out with us for any lengthy amount of time.... :sigh: At least we have each other. :)

The 9/11 Memorial 5k........

Lucky does a sprint workout on the treadmill a couple times a week. And My Mitchie? Well, not so much. In fact he claims that running is his arch nemesis... But on the evening of September 11th, my man and my bestie ran in a 5k. They each paid $30 (donated to the Travis Manion Foundation), got a number and lined up with 150 or so other people.
Lucky managed to finish in 29 minutes flat and My Mitchie, bless his big giant heart, managed to finish and dragged his carcass across the finish line in 37 minutes 45 seconds.

I'm so proud of the both of you! Well done boys!

Goodbyes...

When we hang out doing our thing, the WT crew normally discuss the coming zombie apocalypse, discuss random shit, complain about shit, debate about other shit, argue about some other shit, chill out and be. Me, Lucky and my best friend Mitchie. Every once in a while, we have "guest stars" that stop by and chill with us.
Meet Riley. Ri became one of "ours" a little over a year ago having met under the "mutual friend" thing. Despite the fact that our "friend" dumped us, Ri stuck around.
A Canadian "misplaced farm boy" he was attending Bridgeport U and recently graduated and became DR. Riley. A full fledged doctor of Chiropractics. We're so gosh darn proud! We went to the graduation and okay, I may have shed a tear or three... Whatevs... I held it together.
Now, he's going to be going back to Canada to go be a big boy and he came to hang out with us for one last WT. We had a great time. We had a Mitchie pizza, we sat and chilled out on the couch, we talked about all manner of things, just like we had always done. It was when we came to the end of our night that I can honestly say sucked. And not just a little. The reality hit hard... And we had to say goodbye to our friend.
We have all run across people in our lives that, for whatever reason, end up holding a special place in our hearts. Make sure they know how much they mean to you.

Riley, safe travels to you on this day dear friend. You will be sorely missed. Thank you so much for being our friend and sharing so much with us in such a short time.  We're very proud of your accomplishments. Go out there and show the world what you can do. Know that there will always be a spot on the couch for you, okay? Keep in touch and be a good boy! We love you! :)

Yet another night with the WT crew...

Hanging out, doing our WT thing, eating cheese and crackers and just chillin' out,  My Mitchie, Lucky and I were discussing something and I'm not too sure how the conversation turned, but we started talking about Krav Maga. At one point, Mitchie said something about beating the opponent unconscious and capping them in the head. The end. Done. No more worries. Lucky mentioned taking the wallet and casing the body for any other goodies.  I don't know what possessed me to say it, but I jumped in with, "Well, wouldn't that make it Krav NIGgaH?"
It became our joke of the evening... I don't think we discussed the zombie apocalypse that evening though... Weird...

The dorkiness of our dorkosity...

So, we were hangin' out one night,  eating cheese and crackers, discussing the zombie apocalypse, surfing the net for "tacti-cool ninja gear" to make fun of and debating how NOT useful said gear would be, playing Battleship online with overseas friends, training outside (and subsequently treating minor injuries), dreaming of opening up Pony G's (our restaurant/ bar), and I sat up and said, "Guys! We don't have a recent picture of all of us!" This is what we got... It's now framed and hung up on my wall... I'll probably say at some random moment that "We don't have a recent picture of all of us!" again twenty years from now... Maybe it's because I know us too well, but I have a feeling, we'll look just as dorky in that picture too...     :)     <MWAH!>

The Zombie Apocalypse....

We all have our theories as to how the world is going to end, right? Well, you know it's a zombie apocalypse, right?
Mitchie, Lucky and I discuss it way too much... We even run drills and have "a plan" for when the zombies take over... We also have the theory as to how it's going to happen...
We over-medicate for everything, pumping ourselves full of all sorts of antibiotics and antivirals   and medicine for this and medicine for that... I'm not saying NOT to take medicine when you need it... That's not it at all. I'm just saying that you don't need to take something every single time you get the sniffles...
Well, diseases, like the flu, are changing and getting worse every year... They're growing smarter and evolving... Changing... there's gonna come a time when a strain pops up and it'll start wiping people out... And the dead will rise... Zombie apocalypse...
We've also discussed whether they will be those super speedy, smart zombies that run and stuff and come hunt you down and kill you or whether they would be those slow, stupid shuffle-y zombies that chant "Brains! BRRRRAAAAAAAAIIINSSS!" that a three year old could outrun...
We've discussed the plan of attack for different scenarios. Plans for where we would go and how we would get there...
<Sigh!> Yeah... We all need to go out and find hobbies...

Whiskey...

Mitchie, Lucky and I have been traversing the world of hooch. Whiskey, bourbon, rye, scotch... We sit down with a couple of different varieties... We don't drink to get shitty. There's just no point to that. There's really no enjoyment... Color, nose, body, palate and finish. I'm no expert, but I know what I like...
We normally go for the Beam Distiller's... Aroma of spicy and sweet browns with subtle wood notes. Tastes sweet with a blend of caramel and vanilla on a toasted background for a full, smooth taste. Finishes warm, lingering and mellow for easy sipping. It's not too expensive and for what it is, it's decent. It works well for sippin' at our WT garden parties. If the Distiller's isn't available, it's the Jim Beam Rye... The nose is kinda lemon-y and minty with something else. It tastes fruity and oak-y and it finishes kinda cocoa-y.  
We've expanded our horizons a little and here's what I came up with...
Now, with the scotches, there's the highlands, the lowlands and the islays. Me, personally? Not such a big fan. As with any other ANYTHING, it depends on personal preference... I don't particularly like the peat-y or earthy flavors, although the Lagavulin wasn't too bad. The really bad ones taste a lot like bog water. Yuck... I'll stick with a glass of a creme brulee stout at room temp. those nights. (Southern Tier puts out a really nice one...)
Ironically enough, it was the American of Italian descent that had to teach the American of Japanese descent about the Japanese single malt whiskey... Yamazaki. There was the 12 year and the 18 year. I preferred the 12 year as the flavor was a little milder and not as "charred oak-y"...The nose on this baby was like cake... Vanilla and honey? (Yum) Body? Curvy and smooth like a VS catalog model. It's soft and almost creamy, but it'll also punch you in the mouth with bold "flabammo" and it finishes is like buttah... Our "for special occasions only" bottle sits almost untouched as it seems to be such a waste... Besides, it was expensive as all get out!
The bourbon... Maker's Mark. That's the one with the red drippy stuff on the bottle. Also another "yummy!" . The nose is warm and caramel-y (and if you've been reading along, I love caramel...) and a touch fruity(?) with honey. Body, sweet and light... Caramel and vanilla notes  to soft notes of burnt sugar and molasses towards the end, then finishes like fresh molasses cookies. Mmmm... Cookies... This one was a gift, but another one of those "save for mini celebration" ones.
It takes us a while to get through a bottle so critiques will come slowly... Another post that will probably grow as time goes on...

So, we were hangin' out one night...

Mitchie, Lucky and I were hangin' out one night. The kids were away with "him" and we decided that we might go out... After too much deliberation and arguing about where we should go and what we should do, we ended up instead, lighting off some fireworks, calling up a couple more friends and had them come over, sparring in the driveway, tending to some injuries shortly thereafter, sipping on a very nice rye (Jim Beam), watching Food Porn and calling it a night... And THAT was an exciting night for us... <SIGH!>

A Jew, a Nip and a Guinea walk into a bar...

Sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn't it?
On a Friday or Saturday  night some time ago, when neither Lucky or I had our kids, the three of us decided to go out... Mitchie, Lucky and I went to a little bar in Norwalk where they sell over-priced beer to twenty somethings. Basically, it was an upscale meat market.
So, here we are, the three of us thirty-some odds, watching the never been married, don't have kids, in college or just out of college kids parading around in designer clothes flirting and laughing and carrying on... The place reeked of cologne, perfume, stale beer, drunken beer breath and the sexual tensions of all those co-mingling, to find a bed mate for the night...
We wandered around long enough to find the bar to order up a few brews and find a place to be to people watch...  You can generally tell what the conversations are like just by watching the body language between the people having them, so we ran our own dialog while watching them, just to amuse ourselves for a little while.
A few sips into a very nice chocolate stout, we came to the realization that we were out of place... <Sigh!> So much for a night out. We ended up going back to my house and watching something on the food porn channel. I think it may have been "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives". I love that show!