Flugtag means Flying Day; Soapbox Derby means Beer

Soapbox Derby and Flugtag, all in one weekend. This was such a crazy weekend as Strong Draught and I managed to hit the two major events of the day in one fell swoop. We didn’t catch as much as we probably wanted to, but that’s OK. At least we got to see most of it. I think we both ended up preferring Soapbox Derby, but only because Flugtag was insane and we ended up watching from the Hawthorne Bridge.

I finally staggered out of bed around 9:15 on Saturday morning, which wasn’t even that early considering that I’d had an early evening the night before. Of course, Strong Draught was already awake and fed and was seriously contemplating waking me up at that point. Nice. So I made breakfast, ate, and got ready in under 25 minutes. Impressive, of course.

On the way to the Derby, we stopped by Safeway and picked up tall boys of PBR for the sideline viewing. It’s sort of a requirement to show up to the Soapbox with beer and it’s preferred that beer be PBR. Strong Draught informed me that the next girl he dates has to be able to drink beer at 10 in the morning, just like me. I always forget that not all girls can hang. Go me!

After watching almost two hours of Soapbox qualifying (and taking pictures of our favorite cars…mine was the kiddie pool on wheels driven by the guy in the leetle orange life preserver. I also liked the pink dragon covered in CDs), we tried to decide what to do next. Before we could decide, the German wagon came down, the driver took a giant slurp of Smirnoff straight from the bottle while his co-driver jumped off and pushed the kart and in a faux-Russian accent, said “Good. Push car like good woman.” Strong Draught nearly cried, he was laughing so hard. I had to take a picture of him dangling off the metal bars around the reservoir since that was what was keeping him off the ground. It was awesome.

Finally, we stopped laughing long enough to stroll down to the car and head over to the Flugtag. We decided to take in the view from the Hawthorne Bridge as Waterfront Park was insanely packed and there was no way that we were cramming ourselves in there. So we stationed ourselves on the bridge and Strong Draught got to meet a good chunk of my friends, since Gus, YM, Mermaid and Swimfan all showed up to watch the festivities with us. Much hilarity ensued as we watched people flinging themselves off the 30-foot platform into the Willamette—something which makes them far braver (or dumber) than I. It’s not the drop so much as the river. Eccchhhh.

After we watched “Hair Force One” launch their giant mullet into the river, we decided that our buzzes were nearly gone and that we could all use some lunch. In the meantime, Cigarette-Smoking Man and his roommate SOJB joined us, so we all wandered over to the Lucky Lab and got some lunch. I was far hungrier than I thought I was, so we ate quite well. After that, it immediately became naptime, so Strong Draught and I headed home and crashed out on the couches.

I managed to sleep through dinner with Gaia—I knew that would happen if I didn’t set an alarm and now I feel really bad. Oh well. She seems to have forgiven me, so that’s a good thing.

We motivated over to the party at Eeyore’s, which was a little strange, to be sure. There were a ton of people there, they were already drunk, and everyone was getting a little out of control. It was good to see a bunch of people I haven’t seen in a while, like Mountain Man, the Fourth of July crew and Park City. I also made the acquaintance of Hot Friend, who is a lot cuter than I imagined from Marshall’s descriptions. Dang, that boy’s a hottie. I certainly hope that he shows up to the next party. Strong Draught and CSM drank for a little while before getting bored and leaving, so I got a ride home with YM.

Good thing Sunday was dedicated to washing my car, doing my laundry and catching up on three weeks of “Six Feet Under.”

Quote of the Day: “Dry your eyes mate/There’s plenty more fish in the sea/dry your eyes mate/I know you want to make her see how much this pain hurts/but you’re got to walk away now/it’s over.” Dry Your Eyes, The Streets with Chris Martin