A Tale of Two Bars

Fri, 7 Nov 2025 14:24:00 -0600

This is a long post with two stories that both end up with Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and me sitting at bars. In one case, we see something strange, and in one case, we see something brilliant. And I'm only remembering the story of the brilliant bit because I thought to take a picture.

Last weekend, we took some folks sailing. When we have charter guests, they're almost always very nice. These people were good enough that Poseidon blessed them with just about perfect weather. The wind was good enough to push the boat along at a fun little clip while being weak enough to avoid dumping the sandwich tray into anyone's lap.

While I was prepping the boat, I saw some racers come in from the lake wearing full foul weather gear. It made me worry. The dock was mid-70s and sunny, with a gentle breeze. Could it be that much colder, windier, or wetter out on the lake? I hadn't even told our guests to bring jackets.

We went up to the bar before the guests arrived to check in with college football scores and to lubricate the "social interaction with strangers" circuits of the brain. I saw one of the racers up there, still wearing his life jacket while walking around the bar area. And it wasn't an unintrusive little harness that would inflate if he went overboard; it was a big bulky puffy lifejacket just like the ones you wore as a kid.

Like I mentioned, sunset over the lake was quite nice, so the foul-weather, life-jacket wearing crew might just have been a little bit nutty.

Even though it was a pretty night, I didn't take a single picture that evening. So enjoy this picture of an Irish coffee that I got at Beausoleil.

Beautiful, isn't it? It tasted even better. That top layer started its night as cream, and the bartender put it in a shaker with a little wire mesh thing. After a good shake, it flopped out as a thick whipped cream, slightly sweet, and extremely tasty.

We had gone in to the restaurant on Halloween night, which you might recall was on Friday. Ko was at a party in a nearby neighborhood, so we went to the bar to kill time before having to Puber (parent uber) him home to his next party.

It had to have been the only 9:00PM Friday in their history with no customers at all. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I were the only ones there. It was odd, but the staff was friendly, the World Series was on (I was strangely hooked this year), and as you might have heard, the drinks were good.

I'm craving another Irish coffee now.