The Creekers got together last night for a cookout. We had the usual fun, and we got to meet the newest Lil’ Creeker, Connor. (Not to be confused with honorary Creeker Conor the Elder.) Thanks to Dan and Wendy for hosting, and to Owen’s oldest, Ian, for making me feel like Betty Crocker and eating four helpings of my baked beans.
So, not sure how this came up last night, but it is scary and funny all at the same time. Growing up, we had this guy living with his parents down the street from us. He was probably somewhere from 18 to 25 and he was ultra strange. He had an arm that didn’t work, and it would just hang at his side as he walked down the street past our house. I never saw him drive. He would just walk down the street back to his house from where ever he had been, carrying a brown paper bag in the good arm. Never knew what was in the bag.
So, we always thought he was scary, and he rarely talked to us kids. We never talked to him. If anything, we moved away from the street edge of the yard when we saw him coming. Even at ten years old, a kid senses when someone just ain’t right. Turns out we were right on the money.
A little girl was selling girl scout cookies one day. She rang the guy’s doorbell. He came to the door wearing nothing but a towel. He stood there and stared at her, then dropped the towel. Eeewww.
Then, another time, he got caught playing with himself while watching kids play at the pool! Double eww.
My memory is fuzzy, but I want to say that there was another time when he may have asked us kids about the girl that lived next door to us. As in, “who is that blond girl?” Creepy!
All in all, I am surprised that there was no parental outpouring of hatred for this guy. I tell you what, though. Kids are mean as all get out. What did we call him?
Beater.
I don’t know why that makes me laugh now, but Todd thinks it is funny, too. (So, maybe there is something wrong with both of us.) Also not sure why i had to write about this, but it is part of the landscape of my suburban Atlanta childhood and I didn’t want to forget it.
Well, I fell off the wagon a few days this week, but find that when I sit down to write, I am pretty damn fast at cranking this stuff out. I am at 32475, i think. Plenty of time left to meet my goal, and I honestly think this is going to go over 50,000 words.
I am so glad that i started this. It has given me a confidence that I have not had before.
And now I am going to go out and have fun tonight with people from high school – Very strange! And not embarrassing at all that i blogged about wanting to have sex with one of them in the middle of homeroom! Or that his fiance is coming! Or that Natalie might wear some ridiculous ensemble involving a hooker heels, egged on by Carrie, with Camille laughing all the while. I am sure there is little chance of the Roswell Police being called on us.
I am sure i will feel wonderful in the morning, just in time to go to a cookout with more high school people! Go Creekers!
Facebook is weird.
Oh, and i have a date on Sunday. With Edward. He’s very mature.
All joking about reading addictions aside, Evan’s wedding was a blast. Can you say Tiki bar? How about Shrimp and Grits? Not just seeing old friends, but getting to see them, without kids, for two days straight? My belly laughed like it hadn’t laughed in years – I was sore afterwards. (Or maybe that was all the waterlogged Flying Burritos I got in the pool at 1 a.m.)
Best of all? Nightswimming in a calm ocean under a full moon. What hurricane?
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend, along with a link to the whole set on flickr.
Me and the Creeker boys.
Jason and Laura
Me and the ole ball and chain, all spiffied up. 
That Ev. would end up with Judd. . . but we are very happy that it will be Kim.
For information on this photo, and how it came about, please see the comments. Jason B. will have to explain the details of a wager that went horribly wrong for E. and J. All complaints about the posting of this photo should be filed with Jason, as he is the proper owner of said photo and released it to me for online publication.
This is just my very mischievous way of saying I will be off to the beach to see Evan get married this weekend. I am very glad to say that, because he is a gem of a guy, and I’m glad he finally found someone who appreciates his special brand of fun and games. Also, he was the last unmarried Creeker, and frankly, we were all getting a little jealous of his singledom.
If you are reading this and going to the wedding, wait till Jason and I have a few drinks and then come sit by us at the reception for some really good Evan stories. We have them in spades.
Evan, if you are reading this, this is kind of like when you left for college, and J. and I sat up all night, smoking and drinking, and writing the longest list ever of things that cracked us up about growing up with you. What I’m trying to say is that we love you, and are very happy for you and Kim.
Slow day here for me. We are getting ready to go to the beach, and I just don’t have much interesting to say about my little old life. I just want to escape it with a bigass margarita in hand.
I played trivia last night with some of The Creekers. Honorary Creeker, Camille was there, too. We are all heavier, balder, and grayer, but it is so comforting to be with people who have known you since before you quit wetting the bed. We used to play trivia together a lot more than we do now. I think we used to be better, too. We definitely used to drink more.
Anyway, Leelee was the big brain last night, but every decent trivia team knows that not only do you have to have people with vast trivial knowledge, but those people also have to be know-it-alls and push their right answers on the rest of the team. Lisa evidently still thinks that me and Ev are actually smart; I know good and well she has been there for much of my brain-cell-destroying activities, so Leelee, speak up. You were the smartest one there last night! Argue with us. We like it.
The first half of questions were easy peasy. We kinda tanked on the second half. Questions (paraphrased based on my patchy memory,) with answers to come tonight:
Come on, smart people.
You know that show, “My Boys?” No, I didn’t either, until my outing with the Creekers, wherein almost every person there told me I would love the show. These days I actually have girlfriends (see Girls Gone Mild, for example), but growing up, with the exception of a few solid girlfriends like Karen and Camille and little Lisa, I hung out pretty much exclusively with the boys.
I’m happy to say that we still hang out, even if it is just a couple times of year. Most of us have families and responsibilities now, but put us in a basement together and give us a few cases of beer and we will quickly regress to our sixteen-year-old selves. With maybe a little more clothing kept on and a little less smoking and puking. Exact same amount of laughter. I love my boys. (From left: Owen, Dan, Me, Jason, Ev, John, and C.J.)
More pics from the Creeker get-together here on Flickr.
*Apologies for it taking so long to get this post up. I have had nothing but trouble with my internet connection this month. Oh, the troubles I’ve seen. Woe is me. Hope to start blogging regularly again come the new year.
Tonight, I am attending a going-away party for an old friend of mine. He and his family are moving Chicago. One of our group of childhood friends had the amazing idea of having a party in this friend’s parents’ basement. Brilliant. Who wouldn’t want to go back to the scene of the crime for one last blast?
We all grew up together, lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same schools, and played tennis and were on swim team together. These people know things about me that no one else knows. I have spent hours upon hours hanging out with them. We all have adult jobs and some of us have families, and we are ditching all of those this evening. These days, when we get together one or two times a year, we bring the spouses and the kids, and sometimes our parents are there. Not tonight! No spouses. No kids. Just the group of us, a fuckload of beer, and an old-school location. Todd has graciously agreed to take care of the kids tonight and get up with them tomorrow. I am spending the night out. Did I mention how great my husband is, that he will watch the kids while I go have a slumber party with seven grown men? He is awesome beyond belief, trusting and non-jealous. I adore him.
Hopefully, no one will get arrested, steal a mustang convertible and take it for a drunken joyride, go skinny-dipping, drive a grey caddy backwards across a busy highway, pass out in the bushes, have to run back to the house with only half their clothing, swallow a quarter, get to the chopper in the junipers, or put on a vomiting performance from the screen porch balcony with a cheering audience. No way anyone will be in the blue room. Hopefully, we will limit our alcohol intake to beer and liquor, while forgoing Boone’s Farm and Mad Dog 20/20.
Yes, there will be cameras, and I am just glad that there weren’t cameras back in the day. This will undoubtedly be much tamer. We are mature now. Really. I mean it.