I woke up fairly early to a quiet house (Peter was at work, Annie was on frontcountry time) and made my way to the back porch. A still-drunk Steve followed a few minutes later and became increasingly distraught by his inability to locate our toothbrushes. Rather than wake Annie up unnecessarily, we walked into town to get breakfast and make an addition to our dental hygiene collection courtesy of the nearest corner store.
We spent the next few hours enjoying the breeze on the back porch while Steve made up for a month of being guitar-less and I caught up on my journal entries. It turns out he’s an even better musician when he’s NOT hammered, and I had to make a distinct effort not to grin like an idiot at him as he worked his way through all my favorite John Prine songs. (He knew it, too. The bastard.)
When Annie emerged, we decided to drive to the nearest mall to pick up a few replacement gear items. Steve drove Annie’s car, we all spent most of the trip yelling at the GPS because all our destinations were on the left hand side of the road and apparently in New Jersey you can ONLY TURN RIGHT WTF, and our blood pressures had risen about ten points by the time we managed to pick up a french press for the jetboil and a lightweight button-down shirt to cover my horrific sunburn. (Note to self: Steve does a crap job when it comes to even sunscreen application.) We had lunch at a burger place outside the mall; Annie and I had perfectly reasonable hamburgers, and Steve ate a chicken sandwich. Make a note of that fact, it’ll be important later.
The afternoon was spent at Annie’s grandmother’s pool, which was a stunningly beautiful in-ground affair surrounded by rhododendrons and a number of flowering vines climbing up a portico. We shared a bottle of wine on the adjacent chaise lounges, and I chatted with Annie’s grandmother Barbara about interior design. (She described how she got loaded on white wine and spraypainted the walls of her half bath with gold glitter while wearing nothing but her skivvies, and I decided that she was my new favorite person.) Peter came to meet us when he got out of work, and overall it was a mind-blowingly relaxing afternoon.
The plan for the evening was a quick dinner at Peter and Annie’s followed by open mic night down the street from their house. Steve admitted he didn’t feel very well on the ride home, but we chalked it up to the heat and the time in a small car on the turnpike. Unfortunately he took a turn for the worse during dinner, decided he might skip open mic night and go to bed… and then made it about four steps into the house before projectile vomiting across the kitchen floor. And then into the sink. (Twice.)
FOOD POISONING, HO!
I cleaned up the floor while Steve gamely drained the sink (on the bright side we left the kitchen absolutely sparkling), and then I sent him to bed. I told him if he was still puking after midnight, we wouldn’t be paddling the next day; he was too exhausted to argue, which is when I knew he was well and truly sick.