friday night

In my continuing efforts to catalog our weekend, I offer you our Friday. Friday was mostly spent rushing about wanting to leave followed by a few hours of driving. We reached the hotel, dropped off our luggage, peed, and set off for downtown.

Most of the league had arrived before we did by a couple of hours. They were already well into supper with a couple of the Naptown girls. We were hungry and knew that crashing that party wasn't doable, and it was nice to have some time to ourselves. Keep in mind that we were completely childless for the weekend, the longest we've ever been apart from the boys.

Downtown Indianapolis, or what we saw of it, probably isn't nearly as confusing as it seemed. We got through 21st Street becoming something else as it bounced off the train tracks. We finally even got downtown to find it lively and crawling with all sorts of people.

I'm not sure what their Friday nights usually look like as this wasn't likely the average. The town was hosting a firefighter convention that raised the population by about 35,000 people. I have no idea how that changed the usual Naptown Friday night, but given the amount of things to do downtown, I'd imagine it's a popular place.

We parked next to the fountain which is next to the World War memorial, a large ancient looking structure that seemed worth a visit had we had the time on this trip. Not sure which direction to walk, we chose to go toward the place from which so many people seemed to be walking.

We hoofed it a couple of blocks and found ourself in a circle area, a fair sized fountain, sitting up on a sort of pedestal made of steps. That's a shitty description for the beautiful area, and it gave me an impression of what I'd expect an old European city to look like, a public space, beautifully built where people were hanging out.

We slipped into Rock Bottom Brewery only to find not a single seat at the bar. We tend to prefer the bar when we're just a couple and didn't want the hassle and time of being dining room customers. We stepped outside to reconsider when Momma spotted the word brewery on another place.

We walked toward that light which turned out to be Alcatraz Brewing. The beer earned a very strong Meh, not good enough to go back, but made by a very well trained corporate brewer. I don't really like chain brew pubs any more than I like most chain restaurants. I'd have been much happier finding the local place with the local brewer.

Alcatraz is where we hung out with the firefighters from New York. I don't quite remember now what got us talking with them. We may have been agreeing about the very noisy gentleman who seemed to think his companions were hearing impaired. Or perhaps he had vision issues that makes one foot seem like twenty. Whatever his problem was, he was one loud and obnoxious son of a bitch, the kind of guy you're glad to see go.

We considered eating at Alcatraz, but our new firefighter friend mentioned another brewpub across the street and a couple doors down. We were willing to walk and check out another place, though we later learned we'd have been happier staying at Alcatraz. I don't even remember the name of the place, but since I'm only going to trash it, that may be for the best.

I don't like corporate sports bars any more than I like corporate brewpubs. I want some soul, some local flavor. I want the bar with employees that love the place they work. I also want my wings to come with the pointy, inedible part removed. I also want my reuben to be a reuben, not some crap laced with what I'm quite certain was horseradish, totally out of place. We couldn't even finish our food, even though we took it to go after eating half. The maid threw it away for us though as we left it sitting cold and ick in the hotel room when we left.

Momma and I were nice enough then to try and fight about where we'd left the car. As it turned out, neither of us was quite right, though once we found the circle again, we were able to retrace our steps back to the car immediately. We apologized to each other for having been buttholes and insisting on our individual rightness. Then we got in the car and did the same thing all over again.

We finally arived back at the hotel. Most of the skaters were asleep, though it was early enough that we suspected someone had to be awake. Someone was, so we went and had a couple of last beers before wandering back to our room.

As an aside, a little message to the people of Indianapolis, it would really help if the people who sold beer knew what the laws were concerning late night beer sales. There's some crazy shit headed law that allows cold beer retail sales only in liquor stores. I don't get it, but I don't live there, so it's no big deal. We did get our beer and a bag of ice, so the law didn't hamper our intent in any way, though the kind lady who sold it to us wasn't quite sure if it was even too late to be selling it.

And so went our day. You can see for yourself how exciting and full of grand fun we are. That's quite fine though as I don't need grand fun. I got two nights in a row to go out childless with Momma, and that's always better than grand fun. Of course we missed the boys, so don't think we were completely heartless, but they got to have grand fun with grand parents, so I'd call it even.