Thanks for the ummm...yeah: Memorial Day Weekend Part 1

Happy Tuesday! So I had an excellent long weekend and thought I would share, but a lot happened in the last three days so I will be posting in two different blogs.

My good friend Alyson Angelo came to visit for the weekend, which was very exciting - she's my first friend from home to come stay. Alyson didn't come in to town until Saturday morning and Friday night I went out to a bar called the Montana Club with Amanda, the girl who works for me, her brother and his friends. They asked me what I wanted to drink and I, of course, said chilled Patron. But that is apparently not a Montana drink and what was put in front of me instead was an Irish Car Bomb which, for those of you who don't know, is Guinness, whiskey and Bailey's. I have spent my whole life avoiding this drink but there we were in a very Montana bar and all these men were watching me and judging. Suddenly I hear Paige and Justin in my head telling me I better just smile, take it and pretend that I like it if I ever want to fit in (FYI, this goes for hunting, too. If you're talking to a boy and they're talking about how much they love hunting and killing animals and cooking their flesh DO NOT do what I did, which is make a disgusted face and say something along the lines of "ewwwwwww." They don't appreciate it...). So I took it and smiled and thanked them and before I know it, four (possibly five - it's fuzzy) Car Bombs have been consumed and I'm being asked out on a date by a man I will refer to as The Jockey. I call him this because he is TINY. I'm thinking about 5'5'', 120 pounds. Really cute, but just extremely petite. I told myself when I moved here that I needed to be more open-minded about dating and that if/when someone asks me out, I will give it a shot. Paige and I have since amended this to exclude married men, college fraternity boys and men missing limbs. I still think I'm being extremely open-minded...

So anyway, The Jockey asks me out and it's almost comical. I was sitting on a bar stool so I stand up. You all know I was wearing at least 4-inch heels and looking down at him, I just wanted to pick him up and hug him so his little legs dangled above the floor. But, true to my word, I said yes so everyone should expect a hilarious post about that date at a later time.

So Alyson ends up getting into Missoula around 2:30pm (she had to drive from Spokane) and I show her around the house and the town. It was raining, which was too bad, but we went and got some lunch and did some shopping. For as small a town as this is, there are some really excellent clothing boutiques. At one of those boutiques they were selling what appeared to be a newsboy hat with ear flaps but the top part of it was grey fur:

This seems to be a trend with college kids here, as Paige and I have seen SEVERAL girls out at the bars wearing jean mini skirts, tube tops, Uggs and these hats. The only thing I could imagine that would be any better would be something along these lines:

But unfortunately I have yet to lay eyes on something this awesome. These girls are wearing these hats with such blatant confidence that it's making me feel out of the fashion loop and I'm not 100% sure I won't be wearing one of these all winter. They do look warm...

Soo... that night Amanda came over and the three of us went and had dinner and drinks at a couple different bars. James Bar, the bar that's pretty much straight out of the Pearl in Portland, was packed and we did some good people watching. And in this time, Alyson and I decided that if James Bar was the nicest bar in Missoula, that we needed to buy a bar, gut it, and make it AWESOME. I've had this thought before because there are only a certain number of liquor licences allowed in Missoula, so if you own a bar/restaurant with a liquor licence, there is no way you can't do well. Plus, people here just really like to drink. This idea was cemented when I found out my favorite bar/club EVER, Stockman's is for sale (for $3.5 million). Now to find investors...

We ended the night at Amanda's house in the hottub with a bunch of her friends. The weekend included a lot more that I will share with you all later, but expect a blog about the Cracker Barrel, hiking the M, amateur night at the Fox Club and champagne on Blue Mountain...