I had hoped to be able to go to Seattle this weekend to see my brand new niece, but apparently everyone else in the area had the same idea. I could have gotten there on Friday, but there was negative room on the way back on Sunday. Berck was working all weekend, so there was no sense trying to join him on any of his overnights. I faced a three-day weekend all alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

I forgot to turn my alarm off, so it switched on at 6:50 am on Friday morning as usual. Then I rushed to my phone in its recharging cradle to find a text message from a friend of my dad’s congratulating him, and apparently everyone else CCed on the message yesterday about my new niece’s birth. In rushing to the phone, the box fan propped up by the dresser fell painfully on my foot. I obviously wasn’t going to go back to sleep, so I got up, wishing I hadn’t stayed up so late the night before.

Later that morning my next door neighbor rang my doorbell and asked if I’d like to get coffee with her that evening. She’s been asking me since we first moved in nearly three years ago, and this was the first time it worked out. We went to Barnes & Nobel, because her first choice Borders was closed for the holiday. They kicked us out early at eight, and she took me over to Cracker Barrel to get some food. She’s a vegan for health, not moral, reasons, so she has no problem ordering the vegetable plate and picking the ham hock out of her turnip greens. I got the dinner of sides too, which is what I used to get back when I was a pescatarian, and thoroughly enjoyed it, along with the fireworks at the Air Force Academy through the window, where our nine-month pregnant waitress stood and gazed when she wasn’t helping anyone in the nearly empty dining room.

My neighbor is a middle-aged black woman from Mississippi who calls everyone sweetie. I thought she had wanted to take me out to be nice to me, but it turns out she really wanted a friend. It was a lot better than sitting at home alone.

I got home late that night to find an e-mail my cousins, the Jim Brenners, saying they were in Denver attending the annual American Mensa gathering, and would I like to join them? They’d attempted to drive up Pikes Peak that day, but Jim’s brand “new” Buick LeSabre, that he’d bought off E-bay to save on gas, was showing signs that it might not make it up all the way. Then they’d eaten supper in Cripple Creek to celebrate their 25th anniversary and Nancy’s birthday. They’d only realized that night after getting my new niece’s birth announcement that I was in the neighborhood. I wrote back saying I’d love to see them, then turned off both my alarm and phone and went to bed.

After sleeping in, I got up and left a message for Jim. I heard back from him later, and we made arrangements for me to drive up to Denver and meet them. I got there in time to catch the last of a lecture by a linguist who told a bunch of puns (puns being the child of metaphor, and metaphor being the child of genius). Jim would introduce me to people as being the smart one in the family. I got a lot of comments on my Heifer International hat, it apparently being popular in Mensa circles. Or maybe they just know what it is. I met a guy that the Jim Brenners catch up with every year who goes on outreach trips to Central America to build water filters. You make a tub out of cinder blocks and concrete, fill it with sand and gravel, run your local water source through it every day for 15 days until the bacteria grow in it enough to treat whatever water you put in, and then it will produce clean water at the rate of one liter an hour.

Next we arranged for a college friend of Rebecca’s, who is interning at the Gazette, to come up and join us for supper. We went to the Buckhorn Exchange. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place. It’s the oldest restaurant in Colorado, holding liquor license #1, founded in 1893 by the youngest of Buffalo Bill Cody’s scouts. Walking in is like entering a natural history museum; every spare inch of wall is covered in trophy heads of animals from all over the world. There’s even a narwhal spear jutting out high above the tables. Between the animals are glass cases of all sorts of guns. While we waited for our table, we went upstairs to the Victorian lounge and listened to Bill and Roz sing cowboy songs and tell jokes.

As appetizers we had fried alligator and rattlesnake in a tasty cream cheese and picante dip. Next was buffalo and vegetable soup (very tasty) and then our entrees. Rebecca’s friend had a huge slab of salmon. Nancy had elk and quail. Jim had buffalo and yak. And Rebecca and I had elk and yak. Yes, I said yak! The yak wasn’t gamey, and instead of having that flavor that makes beef taste like beef, it had a deep, oaky taste to it. After tasting all around, we decided the buffalo was the best of the lot. The Buckhorn Exchange is not cheap. Our entrees cost about $40 each (thanks, Jim and Nancy!). Rebecca told our waiter it was her parents’ 25th anniversary, and he brought a plate of a chocolate ganache cake with “Happy 25th Anniversary” written around the edge in caramel. There was also a hefty slice of apple pie smothered in an amazing vanilla rum sauce. Yum!

Jim asked a busboy what time the dining room closed, and the guy answered, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English.” Jim immediately answered, “Que hora obierto?” The fellow answered, “Ah, the…. kitchen… closes ten o’clock.” Jim cut him off, “No, no. No habla ingles.”

Afterward, we headed back up to catch the end of Bill and Roz’s performance. Jim asked them between songs which CD he should get and bought one of each of theirs. They caught his North Carolinian accent and sang Dixie for us and continued to make jokes about the Carolinians for the rest of the evening.

We said goodbye to Rebecca’s friend and headed back to the Sheraton. Jim showed me the hospitality room, where Mensa attendees can enjoy buffet meals, snacks, sodas, beer, and wine. A guy challenged us to see our badges, and Jim pulled his insert out of his pocket saying that registration had refused to give him a badge to wear. The guy called whoever was in charge of registration and found that his story checked out and said that we could stay. What Jim didn’t tell him was that they’d picked up some badge holders later that day, and that I didn’t have one at all. “One of these days I’m gonna get in trouble for telling stories,” he said. But all he wanted was a diet Mountain Dew. I didn’t ANYTHING with my tummy still full of yak. We spent the next several hours in a corner of the hotel singing along to four guys with guitars, one of whom led us in Irish folk songs, another in classic rock classics, and another in protest songs from the 60’s.

I can tell you this about Mensa folks: they’re a weird bunch.

At three am, Nancy took pity on me and took me back to the hotel room, where I passed out in Rebecca’s bed. Even later, Jim and Rebecca returned, and I barely woke up, despite Jim’s amazingly loud snoring. I woke up with a migraine around seven, so I snuck out and headed to my car, where my drugs were. Since I was up, I headed on home on a beautiful Sunday morning with the top down. Then I took some more drugs when I got home and slept for four hours in my own bed.

So much for a quiet three-day weekend at home all alone.