Last night we lived out the slogan on a T-shirt I once bought Rudder in New
Zealand:
"Up a mountain. Down a beer."
It was a small
mountain, so I stuck to a small beer.
Actually, it all started when
Mechaieh and the BYM rode into town,
and I mean that literally -- over 1000 miles on a motorcycle. And people think
we're nuts. They appear to have enjoyed it, and were in good shape when we
saw them.
We met by Gordon Biersch on Mill Ave, that being our local
cool-shops-and-restaurant street (though the cool shops are morphing into Gaps and
Borders these days). In deference to the BYM's dislike of chain restaurants, we
skipped Biersch (I'm not crazy about their beer anyway, though the food is good)
and went to a nearby Thai place Rudder had heard recommended.
The
food wasn't bad, but the most memorable part of the meal was when they served my
soup in a miniature volcano, something like a cross between a soup tureen and a
Bundt pan with a not-too-small fire burning out of the center hole. Our server
brought it out very gingerly, commenting that he was afraid the fire would melt
his polyester shirt. Unfortunately, the presentation was more picturesque than
functional, as they didn't seem to have a ladle. They did offer a large spoon, but
my Asian-style ceramic spoon had a larger capacity. Still, filling a bowl was a
tedious process.
After eating, we asked the restaurant to hold the
leftovers and went off to climb up 'A' Mountain. I would just like to state that
this was entirely Rudder's idea, even though he had to get up early today to row.
It was cool enough in the dark not to be unpleasant to hike up, and it's a little
mountain, only about a 15 minute hike to the top. (It's called 'A' Mountain
because there's a big A on top, for ASU, and the stadium is built into it -- you
may get a glimpse when ASU or Cardinals games are broadcast.) The valley here is
flat, except for mountains sticking up here and there, so the view from the top at
night is very good.
After that we went over to Bandersnatch for
beers -- their beer is worth chortling over and Mechaieh was charmed with the
name. After being told they wer out of milk stout, I had the chocolate stout,
Mechaieh had the barley wine, and the menfolk had IPAs. The adorable waitress had
the sort of gamine look going that keeps making me doubt my decision to grow my
hair out, not to mention considerably more functioning brain cells than our dinner
waitress. We'd only met the BYM once before, but he'd had another friend visiting
then, so we got to talk to him much more this time, which was nice -- about
everything from bikes to planes to automobile companies to software to marketing
to music. After more comfortable conversation, they left for a concert, while we
picked up the leftovers and headed home to bed, an hour or so late. Rudder is not
a happy rower today.
He made an odd comment as we were settling down
to sleep. I had commented that it seem odd how well Mechaieh and I get along
considering how unlike we are. We have quite a few interests but very few
personality traits in common. He said something like, " I don't know about that.
You have very different views on life, but you apply your views similarly." I'm
still not sure what that means, but told him I'd ask more later when we weren't
short on sleep.