So my wife, Renee, is on a girls weekend….in South Beach, Miami…flying first class..staying at Fontainebleau. I’ve given her (ahem…we agreed that she would have) carte blanche to spend as freely as she wanted so she could live the life of a 1 percenter, if for only a few fleeting days with some really cool gals.
Me…I’m listening to my two sons play Minecraft – which equates to a mix of primitive, digital renditions of aggressive “mining” and “building” sounds, layered on top of new age, sparse piano driven music, gently pulsing in the background, and punctuated by collaborative and sometimes emotional human outcries from them both. And I have a glass of Sauvignon blanc next to me, a gift from my good friends Liz and Doug for a dinner party I threw last weekend.
This is the first single getaway that either of us has taken. Sure I travel plenty for work, but it dawned on me as she left this morning – why haven’t I taken an honest to goodness boys weekend myself? Cigars, steaks, golf, walking together in slow motion wearing suits… Then I remembered I don’t really play golf, and whenever I smoke cigars I inhale them and get sick. Steaks I’ll eat.
So what kind of a boys weekend would I really be into at this stage of my life? Where and with whom would I go? I’ve seen a good bit of the world on work trips already, and having to be social is pretty much in my job description when I travel. And while I know how to have “fun” on these trips, I’m not quite sure if I know the difference anymore between work fun and personal fun. Certainly eating well tops the list, but after that, I am at a bit of a loss.
What I really like to do is see live music in dirty rock clubs. It’s the one thing I’ve spent more time doing for grown up recreation than anything else thus far. I also like to play music – so a getaway in a country house surrounded by instruments and recording gear sounds like heaven too. Then there’s my deep love of combat sports. I could get exicted by a high level boxing or mixed martial arts weekend bookended by great dinners and after parties. But I could also be swayed by a series of late nights in a major city, looking for the best pulsing beats and deep grooves of techno, trip hop and electronica being spun by DJs both famous and up and coming. As I finish a dram of Ardbeg writing this, I only now realize that I am currently ON a boys weekend – Me and my two sons, Bruno (B-dog) and Henry (Henzo)!
Shoot, we are gonna kick it all weekend long! Tomorrow, I think we’ll get a couple of cheese steak hoagies for dinner and watch some Pixar movies. Saturday we can hit the batting cages, maybe do some mini golf and eat Pho. That evening I think I’ll throw a small party for another one of my homies coming into town. While we wait for guest to arrive, the boys can binge on Minecraft and we’ll snack on Franzone’s, with that ghettolicious, sweet sauce of theirs – locals you know what I’m talking about. For later I’ll break out some homemade hot corned beef sandwiches for the guests (I made it when they were playing Minecraft) and wash it town with cold, hoppy beers. Sunday we can hit Honey’s Sit-n-Eat and stuff ourselves with those crazy, wedge latkas. After we’ll take a nice long hike in Valley Green, Fairmount Park. We’ll have a lunchtime snack of cheese, salami, grapes and apples, nuts, and popchips – my boys call it a “smorgasbord.” I’ll then proceed to kick their assess multiple times in Connect Four, and then shame them again by crushing them in Chess. I’ll make it up to them by making popcorn and watching Teen Titans with them, which isn’t all that bad since it’s one of the best cartoons on TV…for real. I’ll likely have fallen asleep for 5 – 10 minutes (which I always do), and before you know it…it will be time to pick up Renee from the airport. We’ll come straight home and I’ll make spaghetti and meatballs while we reunite and hear all about mom’s tales.
Wouldn’t it be great if all that really happened?
bee henzo 