MidSummer through Jenga

Corridor to Midsummer in Battery Park, NYC

After we left the Midsummer fest on Friday, we marched up to El Vez for corn tacos. But we only made it half way there. Someone spotted a half empty patio with twinkling Christmas lights and Casey had us a table in T minus 20.

Personally I couldn’t keep my eyes off the party of six next to us. Two gentlemen took turns slapping each other across the face for about ten minutes. Then a skinny Asian girl fell underneath the table and simply could not escape. The table legs were like the bars of her personal prison, impossible to circumvent when you're flat on the floor. Finally she managed some sort of yogic sunrise and rejoined the world of chairs.

After that, they all did body shots of tequila.

Earlier, at the midsummer fest, Anna Karin told me her American husband got the Swedish Rosetta Stone but he quit because he was learning sentences like “The girl is under the table.” Whoever would need to say “the girl is under the table” in Swedish, she griped. Well, now we know. 

Don’t underestimate Rosetta Stone.

The waitress, it turned out, was moving to Croatia the very next day. Our fellow patrons had come to see her off very emphatically and in a fashion that no one would recall in the morning.

Meanwhile, over at our table, we felt experienced. We’d been out hopping like frogs around the midsummer pole for something like 8 hours and yet were totally able to sit in an upright position and grill the waitress for solutions to everyone’s unique dietary restrictions. Also could she ask the kitchen to make a corn taco.  

We went inside when it started to rain. Someone noticed a ping pong table. Tom and Jo teamed up for a little doubles action versus Casey and Steven. Their moves were daring and terrifically bouncy. Surprisingly, we only found one ball lodged in Petrina’s tote bag after the match.

Jenga seemed like a good idea for a cool down. Our first game was total anarchy. We only figured this out after Jo got back from the bathroom and schooled us on every single Jenga rule. He has a keen eye for compliance. The game ended in a towering ruckus and then we had to leave because they turned the lights on in the bar and started picking up the salt shakers.

Considering that now we were going on pretty much a full day in the field so to speak, including serious solstice action, teaching “Helan Går" to the unwary, getting bitten by children, enjoying svenska punsch with a lot of ants, learning that spiked seltzer exists… it was an achievement. Kind of like a triathlon.  But that's next week.