2023.01.21 Sarang's 32nd Birthday at The Tavern

 Everyday whether it's dementia, or bad memory, or the negligence of actively using my brain, I feel like it has become harder and harder to retain short to medium-term memories. At this time, I'm not diagnosed with anything that would explain it, but annecdotally, this trend probably starrted around 3-5 years ago. In college, I have also had times where I'd forget first names within 5 minutes of hearing it, but perhaps that's different issue though (alcohol brain?), because I know a lot of others who had that same issue, too.

Anyways, today was a slow morning. It was the second day after a period of around 2-3 weeks that we had blue skies following the "atmospheric river" that caused havoc around California and caused floods in different areas. For me in San Mateo, it rained heavily and had some strong wind, but we didn't have any catastrophic issues. The worst we had was large puddles in our driveway (825 N Delaware) and in front of the Safeway we do our shopping at.

My day started at around 12:30PM... I woke up 4 hours earlier, but went to bed to make sure I had a full night's rest to take full advantage of the weekend because I played video games until about 2:30AM the night prior due to boredom (ironically). For about 30 minutes or so after waking, I wasted time on TikTok and then got up to pour myself Cold Brew that I created from ground-up beans from Whole Foods that I purchased maybe a month prior (don't @ me, coffee snobs - it still tasted good...despite steeping it for about a week). After I finished my coffee at around 1:15pm, I hopped into the shower since the main event for the day was going to a location called "The Tavern" in Belmont that I hadn't been to before for our friend Sarang's birthday. At around 1:45PM we left for The Tavern and I hitched a ride with my housemate, Jaysen.

Our group arrived early, but the location was beautiful. The plaza where this place was located seemed old, but was up the hill in a quiet-seeming neighborhood of Belmont about a mile west of the Belmont Caltrain Station. The property had outdoor area where we sat. It was a large area that included a fountain / stream. Jaysen and I arrived first, followed by our other housemate and friend, Brendon, then Vidhan, Freddie, and Risa (among others). 

Following everyone's arrival, Sarang, his girlfriend Pranita, and their dog-child Bunty arrived and folks ate appetizers and enjoyed beers for the next few hours.

Amongst the people who came, I met a new friend of Pranita named Manu who recently moved to Redwood City from Michigan, which was cool and we talked about the generalizations of Californians and how they complain constantly about the midwestern cold.

Of the friends I knew, It was good to see Risa who I only see once in a blue moon since we two aren't too close. However, she told us that she recently moved to Burlingame about 6 month ago with her boyfriend and found that we are about a 10 minutes walk from each other!

We had a quick face-time from another friend, Mica, who was also enjoying food and drinks in the early afternoon, but in San Diego where she was hosting another mutual friend, Jon, who was visiting with his girlfriend Jen.

A few hours passed and we decided to call it - I downed my 3rd Pliny the Elder (and 4th drink total) so I was properly buzzed. I rode home with Jaysen, and he stopped by Wholefoods to let me return a new Bike Helmet from Amazon that was too small for my head. We stopped by Trader Joes after that where we both purchased groceries/snacks, and I bought a new Monstera plant (drunk purchase?) that I'll try to keep a live...

About an hour later, here we are -- it's Saturday night now and I'm itching to go out. I had a decent work week this past week, but the week prior was crazy. I hadn't gone out in a while so I'm looking to continue having a few drinks, having fun, and ending my night at Berkeley at my dads house - The group from the party is pretty spread, but we'll see if anything happens.

Raven?