Monday, October 17, 2005

Ray's Mind-Menses

I was roasting some beef bones for stock this afternoon when Ray called me up on my cell phone and started rambling. It went something like this.

ME: Hello?

RAY: The Cure!

ME: Ray?

RAY: The Cure, that's who!

ME: Ray?

RAY: If The Cure is traveling at 76 miles per hour, and the main Cure guy leans out the window, and the wind pulls a teardrop off of his cheek, how long until it hits the ground, assuming that a cubic tear weighs one gram?

ME: Less than a minute.

RAY: YOU HAVE SOLVED THE PUZZLE.

ME: Great, what do I win.

RAY: YOU DO NOT WIN A THING AT ALL.

ME: Not even a little can of Dr. Pepper?

RAY: Oh, alright. You win a little can of Dr. Pepper.

ME: Now?

RAY: Heh. Yeah, comin' your way. Hold on, alright? [hangs up]

About twenty minutes later he was at the front door with a fifth of Glenfiddich and the Braveheart DVD. Our home theatre is pretty humble, but that didn't slow his enthusiasm. True to form, he sat forward and pushed my shoulder repeatedly during the Robert the Bruce scenes, and had to leave the room during the part where William Wallace is drawn and quartered.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Ray is such a moron.

So he came over for lunch today, Friday, because he wanted to "shoot the shattle" about what to do for his big regular Friday night party. We always have beer when he comes over, because he likes that I get tall 160z cans of Oranjeboom at Trader Joe's. (He says they make him feel like "that guy from Oasis.") It's kind of a thing. Anyhow, I made Galaxy Nachos (a clever recipe of Roast Beef's, can be found in the Achewood cookbook) to go with the crisp lager. While they were baking and we were talking he actually got a plate and a fork and stood by the oven. I'm not even sure he knew he was doing this, because when I pointed out that the table was already set he looked around for a second, real concerned, and then slapped his forehead and laughed. I guess he'd smoked a little before he came over, and when I offered to freshen his buzz he took me up in a heartbeat.

We went into my room and I packed one for him. It's funny - even though the door was shut, Lyle sensed the unsmoked marijuana and let himself in. I let myself out before they lit up because I'm going out to dinner with my Aunt Brezna and she has a dead-on sense for when someone's the slightest bit altered. Before long they were taking turns filling up the chamber and getting rowdy. I swear, whenever those two get near a bottle or a bong it turns into a contest to see who can max the other guy out. While I finished up the food I could hear macho exhortations coming down the hall, like Ray shouting "Can you pull it, sucker? Can you pull it off?!" or Lyle coughing really hard and then victoriously shouting "LYYYYYYYLLLLLLLE!" at the top of his lungs.

Needless to say, they crept out of the room like a couple of secret geniuses and inhaled the entire cookie-sheet's worth of nachos in about a minute and a half. Then Lyle grabbed the six-pack of Oranjeboom off the counter, handed three of them to Ray, and in unison they both yelled "BRADY BUUUNCH!" before shotgunning the whole set. Lyle then said something about "wanting to break most of the rocks in the backyard to see if any were geodes" and Ray thought that was incredible, so they found an old mallet in the garage and spent the next ten minutes hitting rocks.

After I had cleaned up the dishes I noticed it was kind of quiet, so I looked outside, only to find them both passed out on the grass in the shade under the lemon tree. They had taped this little cardboard sign that said "COWBOY OFFICE" to the trunk, and Ray was wearing a pair of red cowboy boots that he hadn't been wearing when he showed up.

As of 3:15 they were still asleep, so I called Dimitri from the beverage distributorship and just had him put a couple kegs and a case of Ketel One handles on Ray's tab for tonight, and hired Buffalo Wing-a-Ding to come cater with their slaws and biscuits and things. It took all of six minutes, but I was kind of annoyed at having to do it.