The bear Christmas party

I had planned on taking things a bit easy today, since I have been doing a good bit of partying. I had planned on straightening up the house some since Robert is coming tonight. But Justin called this morning and wanted to go to the flea market and my good intentions pretty much vanished. I had planned on going over to White Horse anyway, and reasoned that a trip to Anderson wouldn't take that much longer. I wasn't expecting there to be anyone there anyway. The weather today was drizzly and overcast.

My prediction for the yard sale part proved to be true. Most everyone was leaving. Still, we walked around and looked at what was there, which was precious little. Since we were already down there, we decided to do the inside. There was no glass, but I managed to fill my backpack with a bunch of crap anyway: ribbon on sale after Christmas, mouthwash, some new hand towels (I am low on cleaning rags), stuff like that.

We didn't find much we wanted to buy, but we found lots to make fun of...

Ceramic music box with black and white unicorns that cycle around through that tunnel thing when it is wound up. I want to know who owned this originally??

"Ornamental" painted potty chair. Too small for flowers, too big for a doll house. I can only assume this was meant as some "quaint" bathroom decor thing. Awful.

After we did the whole outside, Justin wanted to go back and do White Horse, but because of the weather I knew there would be no one there. We compromised by going to see the friendly antique man on Exit 39. We did that place, and didn't find anything we really wanted there either. We did find this bizarrely ugly purse though:

Hideous and apparently once expensive clown purse. All those designs are colored leather patches, sewn on. The close flap has a honky horn on it, not a "P" as we initially thought.

By the time we left that store we were both pretty hungry. After brushing aside Justin's soup and sandwich obsession, we went to get Mexican at Corona's, which I love. They made Chilaquiles for me today with no meat, which they won't always do. Fortunately for me they weren't really busy, and the surly waiter was exceptionally nice to us for some reason.

After lunch, Justin said that he still hadn't had his fill of antique stores. By this time it was 2:30, and Robert was due at 4. But I had seen a new antique place over off Poinsett Highway I wanted to go in, and I had actually thought about Justin when I saw it was open. When we got over there it was closed. We ended up going to Taylors. I hadn't been in there in a while. The woman that runs the place is really nice. Justin got a cool little print, and I got a Windsor pointed bowl I had been admiring in the book. According to Gene Florence, the price on this bowl has decreased significantly due to supply greater than demand, but they still had this one priced at the old price. I talked her into cutting the price in half, matching the new book price, and got it for $15. More than I really wanted to pay, especially since it had a small chip, but it is a really cool piece.

Windsor 7" x 11 3/4" "boat-shape" bowl in pink by Jeannette Glass Company, circa 1936-1946

By the time we got out of there, it was after 3:30 and we had to get home. We got to the house just before Robert did. After I tried unsuccessfully to give away some yucky tea I bought to Justin, he took his leave.

Robert came in like Persephone. He brought his own tea and his own bagels for breakfast in the morning. We talked for a bit, and he wrapped the presents for the bear party while the cats tag-teamed to see who could get the most cat hair on him. He was already in his party outfit - a burgundy knit shirt and corduroy pants that just were picking up cat hair from the next state, let alone my living room. We had to get moving though. The party started at 6pm, and Miss Kat had called to ask me to help her move some furniture. They had been painting, and she was having some new stuff delivered. So it was off to Miss Kat's where we moved a TV and a sofa.

By the time we got back to the house it was 6:14. I ran through the shower while Robert ran to the store. We put our food trays together and left. Unbelievably, he had purchased a plastic Wal-Mart tray and brought it to my house. Needless to say, that wasn't going to work, so I pulled out a coordinating Waterford platter to the one I was using.

The Bear Party

Well I can say I've had better times at a bear party. It was me. I was over-partied, over smoked (I found my lungs on the bed the next morning, trying to make a break for it), and just generally over companied. I can be an extrovert, but I re-charge from my time alone.

It was just one of those evenings where nothing seemed to go my way. I was discombobulated by going in late, but found my stride for a bit and went to the patio to wax eloquent for a while. Apparently with limited success. I did the usual opener, a few stories, then announced I was going to tell a tasteless joke. I waited a bit for protests, and since there were none, proceeded. As I started, one of the guys at the table leaned to another and said "Well I guess we don't have any choice, he's just going to tell it any way." Yeah, I was pretty over that.

There was some guy there from the Spartanburg Gay Men's Supper club who was running neck-and-neck with "Buzz Killington" from Family Guy for sheer un-standability. He was camped out on the patio. When I went inside, he went inside. When I came back out, he came back out. I was wearing my kilt, and mistakenly sat down beside him at first. He made some lascivious remark, and started digging around under my kilt. Now I'm pretty open-minded, and don't begrudge someone a flash if they want one, but 10 minutes later, he was still crabbing around under there trying to get it lifted up. It got to the point of ridiculousness. I finally just put a stop to it.

There was a young guy there who basically cut me off at the knees for being flirty with him. He ensconced himself in the garage, where there were people he deemed hot enough to talk to him, being loudly obnoxious.

There was another nerve-eater ensconced in the living room playing a video game on the Wii. It was good that he had something to do besides bug the shit out of everyone, but it left the living room off limits.

After a while, I just stood in the kitchen, with two guys I like, but I got tired of being in exile - not to mention standing up. I eventually collected Robert and we left.

To top things off, a man said something so insulting to me on the way out that I'm not even going to repeat it here. He then told me he was just "making a joke". But in my experience, jokes are funny. Needless to say, I was uber-over it at that point.

We were home in bed by 11:04pm. I don't think I have ever left a bear party that early. As I say though, it was most likely me. Everyone else seemed to be having a fine time. I am just over-frolicked. At least my cheese ball went over well. It was 2.5lbs though, so there was a good bit left.