{"id":26291,"date":"2022-12-26T12:59:55","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T18:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/?p=26291"},"modified":"2022-12-26T13:01:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T19:01:41","slug":"the-happiest-place-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/26\/the-happiest-place-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The happiest place in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Note: Dammit. There were supposed to be pics with this post &#8211; really good pics &#8211; but WordPress is giving me a JSON error when I upload them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I shouldn&#8217;t even be typing this post right now. I should be at Bardog on what is an effective holiday. But they had a ceiling issue. That leaves me no place to hang out until Blind Bear opens at 3. <img src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/classic-smilies\/img\/icon_sad.gif?w=840\" alt=\":(\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bardog hopes, last I heard, to reopen tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saturday afternoon I met my friends Randy and Theresa and Butt Slut #1 at Blind Bear. We had a few drinks then R and T and I headed out to Eads where I spent Christmas Eve night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wish I could upload a pic of their upstairs bar. It is fabulous. I call it the happiest place in the world. Plenty of spirits and a refrigerator and a big TV and a kick-ass sound system. There&#8217;s an adjoining bedroom and bathroom so it&#8217;s like I have my own little apartment out there. They have two adorable papillons, Zorro and Bella. Zorro sticks his tongue out more than anyone I&#8217;ve ever met (except Butt Slut #1) and looks like Gene Simmons. Bella hates me. Zorro can&#8217;t get up the stairs. Then again, I barely can myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I slept until about 8 (which for me is late) then started doing the favor of relieving Randy and Theresa&#8217;s bar of excess alcohol. I had some Cathead vodka and Monaco cocktails (the blue cans taste like Mountain Dew) and a couple of PBRs. About noon R and T put apps out &#8211; shrimp and sausage and 3 kinds of cheese. We hung out at the upstairs bar and watched TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then Randy got a text. &#8220;The girls are bringing someone,&#8221; he told me. &#8220;They say it&#8217;s a boy but not an ex.&#8221; Oh Lord. I was preparing for a &#8220;look what the cat dragged in&#8221; situation. You never know with those two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 1:40 we heard female voices downstairs. It was Dani and Butt Slut #1 and&#8230; Mark who just started bartending at Ben-Yay&#8217;s and Blind Bear. One of the gentlest and kindest people I have ever met. I was THRILLED that I&#8217;d get to hang out with him for Christmas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The girls started devouring the apps. It&#8217;s the most I&#8217;ve ever seen Butt Slut #1 eat, which is not much. I&#8217;d guess her at maybe 5&#8217;6 1\/2&#8243; and 116. Later in the day she made me re-take a pic because she thought she looked fat. Women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Randy and I were going to put on my disco mix, but we couldn&#8217;t find the tracks we wanted, so we let the girls choose. OMG Nineties babies have such horrible taste in music. Love you guys but it&#8217;s true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 2:30 dinner was served. Delicious beef tenderloin was the main course. For sides we had rolls, green bean casserole (my favorite!), corn casserole, sweet potatoes, and stuffing (R and T are Northerners so we had stuffing, not dressing). Butt Slut #1 requested scalloped potatoes with Boursin cheese. She&#8217;s a pain in the ass and a Cowboys fan (sorry to be redundant) but she did used to date a chef so she has pretty fabulous taste in food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Randy and Theresa had presents for me: A book and a pullover shirt and, most importantly, a Bardog gift card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, for years I have been Downtown&#8217;s champion chair dancer. What&#8217;s that you ask? Someone who dances on a bar seat (or any seat) without their feet touching the floor. After dinner I was sitting in R and T&#8217;s living room and I looked over and saw Butt Slut #1 shimmying to some of that horrible crap music she and Dani put on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I realized I&#8217;d lost my title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I told her we&#8217;d do a dance-off sometime but realistically, it won&#8217;t even be close. I have passed the torch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the conundrum: I tell people Butt Slut #1 is one of the goofiest people I know. But the more I hang out with her, the more I realize how similar our personalities are. So what does that say about me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had an Ole Smoky moonshine sampling: white chocolate strawberry, blackberry &amp; apple (known as blapple at the Blind Bear), butter pecan, and Shine Nog. Damn the butter pecan was really good. Jeannette can we get that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also had some <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jamesonwhiskey.com\/en\/our-whiskey\/jameson-triple-triple\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jameson Triple Triple<\/a>. Really good. I bet that&#8217;d pair really well with a Triple Triple cheeseburger from Dyer&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The girls drove me back Downtown to the Bear, where Butt Slut #1 said<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>Fuck this Bear life.<br \/>I&#8217;m living my butt life.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Gotta give her credit. She owns her persona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a movie called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt7405458\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Man Called Otto<\/a> out. A lot of us Downtowners have been watching that movie for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wrestling fans: Peacock has a new documentary: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch-online\/movies\/woooooo-becoming-ric-flair\/94a45ebc-5e83-3f3b-b405-398be721a8d3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Becoming Ric Flair.<\/a> Can&#8217;t wait to tune in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hey Adam, I finally took your suggestion of opening links in a new tab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ja Morant unveiled <a href=\"https:\/\/wreg.com\/sports\/ja-morant-unveils-new-nike-shoe-ja-1s\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">his new Nike shoe<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MLGW has issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnews5.com\/2022\/12\/25\/mlgw-issues-boil-water-notice-all-customers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">boil water notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/orpheum-memphis.com\/event\/mannheim-steamroller\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mannheim Steamroller<\/a> rolls into the Orpheum Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13memphis.com\/news\/local\/winter-weather-advisory-issued-across-mid-south\/DKCQRWZGCZHQHIRIMZLXMGSW5Q\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Winter Weather Advisory<\/a> is in effect for Memphis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All right. That&#8217;s it for now. I&#8217;ll try to do better about posting this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note: Dammit. There were supposed to be pics with this post &#8211; really good pics &#8211; but WordPress is giving me a JSON error when I upload them. I shouldn&#8217;t even be typing this post right now. I should be at Bardog on what is an effective holiday. But they had a ceiling issue. That &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/26\/the-happiest-place-in-the-world\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The happiest place in the world&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26291"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26294,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26291\/revisions\/26294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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