Kicked the party off good and proper by being forcefully ejected from The Frying Pan, which, as my NYC readership knows, was really more an honor than anything else.

Then Newley got into town and we took the Bataan Death March down to Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade, also known as the Everyone I Went to College with Parade. (Watch as the Missed Connections roll in, folks.) Ladies, we're 30 now, some of you've been breastfeeding--desist with the clamshells taped to the boobies.

Only for you, Newley. N spent most of the parade clutching his head in hungover agony (are you starting to sense an enabling trend here?). I clutched my bladder--even the pay toilets had mile-long lines.

Somehow we made it out of there and away from the unwashed masses to the tony enclave of Carroll Gardens. We ate average "Mexican" food and drank overpriced margaritas at Pacifico, during which Reeves refused to eat the leftover half of my burrito because it had "too much cheese." That's like saying a stripper is "too naked." I'm re-evaluating our friendship.

Anyhow, we ended up at the Zombie Hut with predictable results. Scorpion Bowls and Goldfish crackers were consumed into the wee hours.

That night, I went to bed and woke up feeling fresh as a daisy. Newley, relegated to the leather couch, woke up feeling less than stellar. "I'm just so glad we didn't have a third Scorpion Bowl," he told me and N.

"But Newley," we replied, "We did have three Scorpion Bowls."

[Exeunt]