Champagne Supernova

New Year, New Blog. It's been awhile, so there's a lot of ground to cover. We're starting with the first real snow fall of winter a few days before Christmas. Nami is enraptured with the snowflakes.

 

Christmas eve dinner. A bunch of Jeff's extended family meets up with a bunch of mine at my folks' place in Minnetonka. Total red wine/porch-cooled High Life bottle binge.

 

In my holiday finest, with Jeff's Uncle Paul shape-shifting into alternate realities behind me.

 

This is my Uncle John, looking dapper in an open-necked shirt/gold chain/chest hair hint kind of style. He challenges Jeff, my brother and my dad to join him in the Polar Bear Club New Year's Day jump. Do you know what this is? You should. It's when a bunch of pasty-white Minnesotans jump into a hole cut into the frozen death trap of Lake Minnetonka in the name of adventure. After some holiday spirits, they all agree to take part. Stay tuned for results.

 

Kumbayah bitches. My grandma and mom convince Jeff to bring his guitar and help facilitate a holiday sing-along after dinner. It skirts the thin line between heartwearming and totally gay.

 

Deuhs-family Christmas!

 

All of the used bows go around the neck of my parents' dog, Scout. He is not happy about it all but goes along with the torture so he can hang out in the living room, which he is not usually allowed to do. All in the name of Jesus and whatnot.

 

Mike gets a crazy winter hat. He is obviously very excited.

 

These are my present from Jeff, authentic original series red Ray Bans! My dad tries them on.

 

The next morning we have some waffles and tangerines. Mike wears his new hat. After that we head over to Jeff's folks place in Roseville for the Allen-family Christmas.

 

Christmas cookie decorations. An annual tradition.

 

Jeff makes this angry snowman, so he writes "Mad" on its stomach. Later we decide that it could also say "Mao" and be a reference to communist China. You be the judge.

 

Jeff's brother Erik and his mom make the patented "Concentrating on Cookies" faces -- sort of sticking one's tounge out and wearing wire-frame glasses.

 

My new glasses totally make me look like Bob Dylan right?

 

Fast forward a few days, look at this kitten! Jeff's parents finally relent and get a little kitty after months of uncertainty. Its name is Franny and it is awesome at playing kitten games.

 

That same night, we head over to Beak and Cam's new house! They just closed on it and there is no furniture yet. But that won't prevent us from drinking beers in it and pretending what it will look like when it has stuff in it.

 

The Cam Clan, fixing drinks in their new kitchen.

 

Confidence and pride from Beak Q. Homeowner over here.

 

Fast forward to the next Friday, Nicole's birthday! We start the night at the E.L.S. (aka East Lake Strong aka Tubs, Jaws and Tall Bikes' place). Tubs shows us this sweet guitar he got for Christmas. Funny guy thinks he can play.

 

With my new glasses, Lucy and I have matching color schemes.

 

We head over to Northeast to Stasiu's for Coles' rageathon. Totally Northeast to the maxxx -- dimly-lit, low hipster quotient, cheap beers, inventive shot selections, a menu consisting of popcorn and frozen pizza.

 

The first of many shots for the birthday girl. This one was a lemon drop, I think.

 

Getting awesome, getting celebrated. FYI those earrings were a gift from Jaws, the danglies on the end are money signs.

 

There is a live band playing rockabilly jams tonight (yech) which leads Coles and her old sorority sister from Mankato to bust some serious moves. I think this move is called "Take A Shit on the Floor."

 

The night gets a little crazy and ends drunken. I crash at Coles. The next morning we all head to the Triple Rock for breakfast and a little bit of the hair of the dog. Side note: we decided recently that this phrase stems back to midevil times when people would get bit by wild dogs and the only way to cure it would be to kill the crazy animal and rub some of its hair into your wound. We are 100% certain that this is true.

 

Ripplechip shows us his new hairstyle -- The Minot Monster.

 

This is a sweet picture of me, 50's and Danny Tanner (aka Meryl Streep) from the night before that I didn't manage to blog with my own camera, but I liked it so much that I took a picture of it. Totally trippy. In Nicole's state of Birthday drunkeness she insists that the three of us pose like a totem pole.

 

Fast forward to New Year's Eve. All of our friends are out raging, but Jeff and decide to have an awesome stay-at-home night with each other. We drink lots of champagne, eat lots of food, and have some good times.

 

The dinner I made. Red pepper pasta with fresh basil, garlic bread, ceasar salad, Budweiser bottles.

 

Window hanging while listening to records. Happy 2007.

 

The next morning, hungover from champagne, we drag ourselves out of bed and head to Excelsior for the Polar Bear jump. Interestingly, both my dad and my brother have pussed out and elected not to do the jump. Jeff is loyal to my Uncle's cause and still agrees to jump. Wisely, I am bundled up in my jacket, taking pictures of the whole crazy scene.

 

Before the jump, Jeff and John are scoping out the scene. There are seriously like 600 people here, including my high school photography teacher and Jeff's youth pastor from when he was little.

 

The two warriors are getting closer to the front. My Uncle John shows us what he's working with. It is seriously cold outside and these assholes are going to jump in a lake.

 

Here they go. Crazy jerks.

 

The warriors, post jump. Cold but elated. Notice the "G" on Jeff's arms. That means that he is a Guppy, the rookie. He has ten jumps to go before he can graduate to Shark. He and John decide that they'll come back every year until they are Sharks. Check back to this blog in 2016 to see the footage.

 

After the momumental jump, we head over to my parents for spaghetti and more champagne.

 

My parent's neighbor Ken comes over. He is a handyman by trade, hilarious asshole by nature. Check out his awesome new Christmas socks.

 

Fast forward a week -- Record Club! We meet at Blestos house for record listening, brew crushing and meandering conversation. I bring one of my two new Dylan boxsets.

 

I also bring Nirvana's "Bleach," another Christmas present. Yes.

 

Jeff brings Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" which features his karoke standard "Livin' on a Prayer."

 

Speaking of Nirvana, Blestos has a copy of Insesticide -- original pressing, blue marble vinyl! He bought it in Fargo for like $10 even though it easily nets $60 on Ebay.

 

Tall Bikes brings some crazy 60's records. 13th Floor Elevators, bros.

 

Blestos also brings in a record featuring a blind guy who whistles really awesome. We are curious where he got this record. His response: "Oh well I just wanted to bring some new kinds of music. So I went into Hymie's and said 'hey I'd like to get a whistling record,' and the lady behind the counter directed me to this one." Huh. Really?

We can't decide what's more interesting: that the lady new exactly where to send him for high-quality whistling records or that Blestos new with confidence that what he was missing in his life was a whistling record.

 

Jules brings over this sweet record from the bargin bin in Sioux City, IA. Terry Gibbs. Trivia: is this a dude or a chick? The anwser may surprise you.

 

Fast forward to Friday night. We can't do backyard movies in the winter, so we project them on our window blinds in St. Paul. The movies: Rocky III and Rocky IV -- the best in the series by far.

 

Premovie libations.

 

Training montages make up easily 60% of both movies.

 

In Rocky III, Rocky gets trained to beat Mr. T by Apollo Creed -- his former nemesis. At the end of this training montage they tape part in an awkwardly homoerotic embrace on the beach.

 

Coles and Jaws are celebrating their simultaneous last days at MCAD with champagne and crazy faces.

 

Chug in the name of occupational freedom, ladies.

 

After a brief intermission, we start in on Rocky IV. Rocky is now totally rich and has a robot servant that brings him cakes.

 

We are spellbound by the cold war paranoia and visceral camerawork.

 

The movie climaxes with Rocky's triump over Drago, the superhuman (read: 'roid-abusing) communist Russian boxer. The Russian crowd at the fight is so moved by his underdog spirit that they begin rooting for him! Rocky, beaten and bruised, surveys the communist crowd and says "If I can change, and you can change, maybe we can ALL change!" The crowd erupts. Tubs and Jeff are so amped that they begin leaping up and down, screaming and pointing in celebration.

 

Coles sleeps over. This is us the next morning, hungover, tired, learning about the new iPhone in bed. Simply amazing BTW.

 

That night is the Green Mill manager apppreciation dinner! My first ever. We eat expensive food, drink expensive drinks and learn about each other -- all on the Green Mill tab.

 

Fancy pasta.

 

After the dinner, already feeling pretty awesome if you know what I'm saying, we head over to Beak and Cam's place. Now it has furniture in it. We are sleeping over and raging all night to prepare for tomorrow's Bears game. Cam and J.C. (pictured here) are from Chicago and excited beyond recognition for the impending playoff run from the Monsters of the Midway.

 

No doubt, no doubt.

 

Jeff gets outfitted in a retro edition, celebrates by playing air guitar.

 

Fuck yes.

 

We are so ready for tomorrow's game.

 

Things get real, things get late, things get interesting, things get a little gay.

 

The best way to prepare for an important game is to party so hard the night before the game that you can't function the next day. Go Bears.