Friday

I feel like I should say something nice about Thursday. All I did was complain about it yesterday. Last night we went to a really nice little Lebanese restaurant called Layalina* six blocks down Wilson Rd. in Arlington. The food was really good and a little cheaper than the place we usually go. Also, the decor is really cool: homey, with walls cluttered over with family photos and middle eastern decorations. The tables and chairs are the type of wooden furniture I imagine gracing the wraparound porch of some stately Victorian manor. I ordered something called a white coffee,* which we'd assumed was the standard café-au-lait translation; but the waiter returned with a clear liquid the hue of white grape juice that tasted a little bit like laundry. I drank it, but I'll probably never order another one. I spent today getting everything ready for the Miss USA Drinking Game party tonight. This involved very little cleaning since housekeeping was here only yesterday. All I had to do was neaten, hide dirty clothes in the closet, shop for popular liquors, and squeeze in dinner at the same Thai place we ate last week. Did I mention that we discovered a liquor store in the first floor of the building where Sunshine used to live two years ago? That's right around the corner from the Thai Terrace. Eventually it was time for the party, which turned out to be effortless and fun. We had eight guests which was comfortably crowded in our little unit. Miss Tennessee* won the pageant, ending a several-year tradition of completely awful victors. None of us started out with her as our special pick to win, but by the end of the contest we were all satisfied that she had. And we were also drunk. [Cavin]