rockstar lifestyle

last thursday was crazy. thursday is typically our half day, but we are coming into the lube oil flush now which usually means, no days off, 12 hour days, but before i go there, i need to back up a few hours before getting to work. i normally get out of bed around 5:30AM to leave at 6:00AM. i got a call around 4:00AM from TheElectrical, who'd been sick off and on. he called asking if we had anything to break a fever, and if i could walk it down to his apartment about 4-5 blocks away. being the nice guy that i am, i stumbled out of bed, found some generic aspirin, and dragged myself down the street towards his apartment. he'd left his apartment door open, so i knocked and walked in and found him in his bed. i gave him the medicine, wished him well, told him to call if he needed anything, and went back to my bed for another hour or so.

we went to work for the "half day", but things looked like they were going to run long. we compromised (you don't need two TAs for a lube oil flush) that he would leave at noon, and i'd stay until 7PM at the latest, and he would come in on friday, and i'd have that off. by around 4:30PM, we found out there was an electrical issue (and our guy was sick), so i made my way home and let TheMech know that he had friday off as well. i got home and showered, then jules and i went the TheMech's house to go to dinner. we'd invited him and his fiancee to the "buddha bar" in downtown cairo at the sofitel gezira. his fiancee was getting her hair done and was running late so we went ahead to make the 9:00PM reservation, and he was going to follow once she arrived. when we walked up to the restaurant, they wouldn't let me in because i was wearing shorts, despite having reservations. they said we could eat in the restaurant but not the lounge. sadly, this, combined with a lingering exhaustion, put me in an irritable mood for most of the night. TheMech and his fiancee arrived shortly after, and we had a very nice meal.

after dinner, we made our way to the nile hilton's rooftop bar, "el mojito", where we went after jules' birthday dinner. TheMech and i were both stopped at the door... they don't allow shorts after 7PM. FUKK!!! this didn't help my mood even further. i got into several non-productive debates-turned-arguments over the stupidity of not allowing people who wear shorts into your establishment. we ended up going to the "tavern" bar downstairs for a few drinks. TheMechsFiancee wanted to go her regular haunt, "far east", back in maadi, so we hopped a cab for the 30 minute drive back toward our part of town. far east was fun. same ol', same ol'. a few beers, some people playing pool, lots of sudanese women of the night lurking about. far east closed at 3AM, and TheMechsFiancee was jonesin' for a disco, so we tagged along.

we found a more-than-happy-to-oblige-us taxi driver who would take us the, again, 30 minute drive back to downtown cairo to coma disco. coma was decent. my mood started to pick up at far east and was getting better by the minute. we danced and danced and danced a fool at coma until they turned on the lights and opened the door at 7AM. again, we taxi'd (yup, 30 minutes) in the blazing morning sunlight back to TheMech's place in maadi. after not too much convincing, jules and i found ourselves in borrowed bathing suits enjoying a beautifully refreshing swim at TheMech's 7th floor rooftop pool. after clearing our bleary eyes a bit, relaxing, and finally having our 4th or 5th wind catch up to us, we dried off, quickly changed, and walked down to road 9 to a nice breakfast place called lucille's. we had eggs and hash browns and (beef) sausage. it was a nice way to end my, by the time i went to bed around 10AM, 31 hours awake.

ah, how i miss college.