Patrick's Pub
One of the key selling features of our house--besides it's lovely hard wood floors and great windows and light throughout--was the large wrap around wet bar in the basement. "This," I said, "is just the spot for entertaining." It looks like you might have torn it out of a small neighborhood bar and dropped it in this basement. Dark stained pine wall paneling straight outta the 50s with bar facade to match, aqua-blue vinyl counter-top of interlacing gray and blue boomerangs, shelves beneath for all the extras, and plenty of wall space to work with. I was certain that I would make it my own, and then I would have people down here (where did you think I was writing from?) two nights a week at least.
The prospect of having people over was fun and exciting. In part, because it would be fun to have friends over in an actually comfortable space. And for the other part, I'm a bit of a social lazybones when it comes to putting in the effort to contrive additional social outings/meetings besides those that just grow out organically (I'm working on it, okay), and I was hoping that have such a great space would impel me to share it, because what's mine is yours and yours is mine; the more you share, the more the sun will shine! We'd entertained a few times at the apartment, but there was barely room for folks to sit, and our stuff was popping out of every barely shut closet. This would be our fresh start as professional host and hostess.
As it happens, entertaining is work, and Charlie was born a month later.
Entertain twice a week? How about keep the baby alive to the end of the week, while maintaining a net wife sanity score of 60 or better? Not that the baby was ever in any real danger, but that did not ameliorate our concern that she would randomly stop breathing or that we'd do something wrong and scar her developmentally forever. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation? But I think not. I imagine our paranoia was probably not something unknown to all new parents. We'd never had that much responsibility before and it was staggering. Plus, this baby was way cute, and any time she had a sniffle/cough it was absolutely emotionally and mentally all consuming. How was I supposed to think about entertaining? That's an extrovert thing, anyway. It is amazing how going from two people with oodles of un-tethered, filthy, lucre and enormous amounts of free-time to medical bills and a new baby changes them priorities.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, bar.
Nonetheless, even before the baby came I lovingly stocked my new premises, placed icons around appropriately, and gazed in pride at the cozy establishment that I was building out. There is something romanticized, I think, in the bartender/proprietor to patron relationship as depicted in literature, film, and TV. The bartender is the open ear, guru, and sage. His bar is a place for people to come and lay down their troubles and hopefully share the load with friendly strangers...or maybe just strange friends.
Proprietor is right. I feel a sense of ownership about my bar. I also think it is a perfect counterpoint to the man-cave. It is not a place that one goes to exclude or hide from others, but a place where it is intentionally open and part of the family recreation space. It is a surface for games, for making sim plum-bobs for Halloween, for writing blog posts, and for putting things out of charlie's reach...as well as for marvelous chemistry and working alchemy with potent potables.
And at long last, this bar began to fulfill the purpose I had originally intended for it. It was in the later part of the long cold dark of winter, I want to say, that we had the first meeting of the Friday Night Club--not that I could not say with certainty, of course, but the details of the charter are passed down by oral tradition...entirely unchanged, naturally.
The Friday Night Club is dedicated to the commission of bold deeds, the proclamation of great boasts, and a noble dedication to the mutual consolation and companionship of the brethren. Our lesser activities include the poting of potables (it's a word now!), conversation, darts, TV, going walkabout, and whatever else we feel like.
For me, this routine has become a mainstay of sanity in sometimes stressful and busy weeks. the FNC is a "safe space" where we do not need to be safe at all. We are with brothers--occasionally sisters--and may be forthright; speak our minds about whatever troubles us or is on our minds or that we have just been musing on recently. We do this, not in a judgement free zone, but where we will 100% be judged and engaged with. It ranges from who are our favorite comedians and what is their best stuff, to reconciling scientific inquiry and theology, to really serious stuff like "why didn't they give us a more fleshed out/satisfying background on why Luke gave up?"
And the great thing is that the FNC is effortless and completely comfortable. There is no question about belonging or being welcome; it is family. We can share interests and troubles and reset after sometimes difficult weeks. So maybe this is not the kind of entertaining that I originally envisioned, but it is better. It is a place for the intellectually curious, somewhat nerdy--okay, hella nerdy--musically interested, and theologically and culturally literate to get very mildly lit and beat me at darts: a fine tradition, and one that I hope will last for many years.
The prospect of having people over was fun and exciting. In part, because it would be fun to have friends over in an actually comfortable space. And for the other part, I'm a bit of a social lazybones when it comes to putting in the effort to contrive additional social outings/meetings besides those that just grow out organically (I'm working on it, okay), and I was hoping that have such a great space would impel me to share it, because what's mine is yours and yours is mine; the more you share, the more the sun will shine! We'd entertained a few times at the apartment, but there was barely room for folks to sit, and our stuff was popping out of every barely shut closet. This would be our fresh start as professional host and hostess.
As it happens, entertaining is work, and Charlie was born a month later.
Entertain twice a week? How about keep the baby alive to the end of the week, while maintaining a net wife sanity score of 60 or better? Not that the baby was ever in any real danger, but that did not ameliorate our concern that she would randomly stop breathing or that we'd do something wrong and scar her developmentally forever. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation? But I think not. I imagine our paranoia was probably not something unknown to all new parents. We'd never had that much responsibility before and it was staggering. Plus, this baby was way cute, and any time she had a sniffle/cough it was absolutely emotionally and mentally all consuming. How was I supposed to think about entertaining? That's an extrovert thing, anyway. It is amazing how going from two people with oodles of un-tethered, filthy, lucre and enormous amounts of free-time to medical bills and a new baby changes them priorities.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, bar.
Nonetheless, even before the baby came I lovingly stocked my new premises, placed icons around appropriately, and gazed in pride at the cozy establishment that I was building out. There is something romanticized, I think, in the bartender/proprietor to patron relationship as depicted in literature, film, and TV. The bartender is the open ear, guru, and sage. His bar is a place for people to come and lay down their troubles and hopefully share the load with friendly strangers...or maybe just strange friends.
Proprietor is right. I feel a sense of ownership about my bar. I also think it is a perfect counterpoint to the man-cave. It is not a place that one goes to exclude or hide from others, but a place where it is intentionally open and part of the family recreation space. It is a surface for games, for making sim plum-bobs for Halloween, for writing blog posts, and for putting things out of charlie's reach...as well as for marvelous chemistry and working alchemy with potent potables.
And at long last, this bar began to fulfill the purpose I had originally intended for it. It was in the later part of the long cold dark of winter, I want to say, that we had the first meeting of the Friday Night Club--not that I could not say with certainty, of course, but the details of the charter are passed down by oral tradition...entirely unchanged, naturally.
The Friday Night Club is dedicated to the commission of bold deeds, the proclamation of great boasts, and a noble dedication to the mutual consolation and companionship of the brethren. Our lesser activities include the poting of potables (it's a word now!), conversation, darts, TV, going walkabout, and whatever else we feel like.
For me, this routine has become a mainstay of sanity in sometimes stressful and busy weeks. the FNC is a "safe space" where we do not need to be safe at all. We are with brothers--occasionally sisters--and may be forthright; speak our minds about whatever troubles us or is on our minds or that we have just been musing on recently. We do this, not in a judgement free zone, but where we will 100% be judged and engaged with. It ranges from who are our favorite comedians and what is their best stuff, to reconciling scientific inquiry and theology, to really serious stuff like "why didn't they give us a more fleshed out/satisfying background on why Luke gave up?"
And the great thing is that the FNC is effortless and completely comfortable. There is no question about belonging or being welcome; it is family. We can share interests and troubles and reset after sometimes difficult weeks. So maybe this is not the kind of entertaining that I originally envisioned, but it is better. It is a place for the intellectually curious, somewhat nerdy--okay, hella nerdy--musically interested, and theologically and culturally literate to get very mildly lit and beat me at darts: a fine tradition, and one that I hope will last for many years.
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