Hanging out at the Red Light Speakeasy in Tacoma
News ·Thursday July 23, 2009 @ 23:35 EDT (link)
Tonight Honey and I accepted a broadcast invitation from AW on Facebook to attend a welcome party for some French visitors at his periodic "Red Light Speakeasy" at his place in Tacoma. We've never met face to face but he works at Microsoft and we've communicated via the CLAMS list for a while. They are going to be hosting a French girl, and their family were all there: her brother is going on to work in Minnesota for the summer; the parents will be driving on to Chicago shortly.
We didn't know what to expect: but everyone was very friendly; we were introduced to the group. There were perhaps 20 people there: various friends and neighbors. They barbecued chicken and had some cold platters and desserts (we brought an apple pie, which Honey did not make from scratch).
The invitation said "drinks begin at 4:00pm" but AW told me nobody arrives then; and we faced far more traffic than anticipated (I-5S to Tacoma at 5-6pm; we should have known better): leaving Microsoft at 1645 got us there about 1830 (going back took about half the time). When we stepped in we met AW's wife BW and Carly. I did converse with some of the French people in French, primarily Mrs. FF, who is a language teacher. I understood most things—but she was speaking slowly for our benefit—and was able to make myself understood without resorting to Franglais too often.
Their place has a great deck; it makes the house looks much bigger on the inside than the outside, as it were; with the deck, fences, and surrounding trees it appears very spacious.
We'd taken Honey's car from Microsoft, so we picked mine up in the garage: we left their place at about 2145 after saying our goodbyes and talking to AW on the porch for a bit; we got here about 2230, much better than going over (and that's all the way to Duvall). All in all a good time and I'm glad we accepted their kind invitation.
