~Atlanta~

This past weekend a small group of my Knoxville posse headed down to Atlanta to celebrate Ashley's birthday. So Friday afternoon 4 girls and enough luggage to last about a month, piled into Ashley's SUV and hit the road. The next 2.5 hours were filled with laughing, singing, talking, and sleeping!

Ashley's dad owns a condo in north Atlanta and offered it to us for the weekend while he was out of town. Gotta love a free stay! Upon our arrival we found a refrigerator stocked full of goodies and money for a fabulous meal.

~fridge full of adult goodies~

After consuming a beverage or two, we got ready to head out! We had plans to go to dinner at one of Ashley's favorite mexican food restaurants and then go see Jimmy Shubert, a comedian that was doing a show at a local comedy club.

~Day 1~
Ready to go out.

We enjoyed delicious margaritas and had a fabulous dinner at La Parilla, before heading to the comedy club, The Punchline.

Once we finally found The Punchline we pulled into the parking lot and started having second thoughts. It was a pretty sketchy place. There was no parking in the front of the club, so we pulled around back, drove down this dark eerie alley-way, passed a questionable looking man carrying a door...thats right people, he was carrying a door with the door knob and everything. We finally found a parking spot...under a light. We all huddled close together, Ashley and Emily with thier mace drawn, and me with my keys between my fingers ready to slice someone's face off. We kept close together and made it to the box office of the club. We showed our tickets to the guy behind the glass and he kindly informed us that the doors didn't open for another 45 minutes. He also informed us that there was a jazz bar and a sports bar across the parking lot. We all had that deer in the headlights look. Our choices are to dare set foot into one of the scary bars or trek back down the dark alley, mace drawn to sit in the car. Great!

Well we decided we would be brave and grab a drink at the sports bar, Cafe 290. Really, how bad could it be? We opened the door and stale cigarette smoke hits us in the face. There are about 10 people in this little hole-in-the-wall place. We are the only females. We are the only ones under the age of 50. We are the only ones without holy jeans and ratted t-shirts on. Aghhh!!! We take a seat at the bar and a really friendly bartender...he seriously had to be on drugs, going about 100 miles an hour asks us what we would like to drink and what our names are. We order and tell him our names. He makes our drinks, and again asks what are name are. Again, we tell him. He now has our names in memory and remembers them for the rest of the night. Now in this "sports bar", on every tv they have...all 4 of them...you might expect to find sports, right? Not here...they like to watch the National Spelling Bee. haha So as the bartender comes back to make small talk he asks if we were out celebrating anything. We were all trying to keep a low profile, but Emily decides that she wants to share that we are celebrating Ashley's birthday. My eyes about came out of my eye sockets! Oh Lord. The bartender...his name was Tommy...lights up! He looks at Ashley and says, "I have just the thing for you and your party!" He spins around to his wall of liquor. We are thinking he is going to make us a drink of some kind. WRONG! He turns back around and hands Ashley an aluminum trash can lid that had a arrow that spins around on it. He says "give it a spin!" Ashley gives it a good spin and Tommy snatches it from her before she can see what she has landed on and reads it to himself. We have no idea what is coming. He spins back around to his wall of liquor and grabs a plexiglass box and puts it on his head. We are all looking at each other thinking, what in God's name is going on?

He then swings the door of this box open and starts reciting a limerick? a peom? a riddle? something about paperclips, glue, staples, and who knows what else. He was talking about a hundred miles an hour.


When he was done reciting, he slammed the door shut and walked away. haha It was the oddest and funniest thing we had ever seen. We were laughing so hard, we were crying. Before we left the bar, we all took a turn spinning the dial, and Tommy recited a limerick to each of us. All of them were different. All of them were equally as strange. Mine was about a one night stand. What in the world? haha

I am not sure if you can hear him well, but I managed to record a video of Tommy in action.

As we were leaving he made sure we all got one of his tickets. He didn't want us to forget him. Tommy-I don't think that would ever happen!!!

We finally made it to the comedy club and found our seats. The show was hysterical. There were 3 different comdeians, all were so funny. We laughed until we couldn't breathe. So for as scary as the place was, the night was a huge success. We have stories that'll last a lifetime!

~Emily and I in front of the stage~

~Day 2~

A girly day out.

The next morning we took our time getting going. We slept in...something we never get to do...ate some breakfast, did a play by play of the night before, and laughed a lot. Once we finally got ready we headed out for pedicures. Yay! I love me a pedicure!

~getting pampered~

We enjoyed having our legs, feet, and toes pampered, and sitting in those wonderful massage chairs. Mmmmm...heaven.

Now that our toes were all pretty, we were ready for a day of shopping! We went to several different stores, and stocked up on what else but purses, jewelry, and shoes. After a great afternoon of shopping we headed back to the condo to watch It's Complicated. Funny movie! What a great day!

~a sign we passed...the audiologists that we are, thought it was pretty cool!~

~Day 3~
Last day there.

The last day we were in Atlanta was spent the morning tidying up the condo, making sure we left it just like we found it...minus all the food and drinks we consumed. After all of that was done, we headed out to Ikea. Love, love, love that store. I ended up with a peice of art for my bedroom. After a couple hours there we headed to Cheesecake Factory for some lunch before we hit the road.

We finally got on the road at about 5:00 and it was a pretty quiet ride. Most of us slept for a good portion of it. It was a wonderful weekend. We have to go back because we get $5 off our next pedicure! Great excuse for another little get-away!

So Happy Birthday Ashley! Can't wait to do it again!