beware Polish men bearing vodka

We just got back from driving our friends S & J to a hotel in Liverpool. Maybe I should start from the beginning of this story. We received word that our friends S & J were going to be in town this weekend. S called this afternoon to say they'd be staying at J's brother's place, which is just around the corner from our place. They invited us over. We were figuring on an evening of light drinking and hanging out.

J's brother, Little J, has roommates. One of these roommates is a gregarious Polish guy, M. M's little brother, Little M, was there as well. As you might expect for a bunch of young guys living in a house together, they're big drinkers. We were playing card-based drinking games - I think they were sort of expecting us to try to keep up. We, however (being me, my DH, S, & J), are older and know better. We still put away a good quantity of alcohol, tho'. M just kept pouring. He was one of our hosts, what were we supposed to do? My limit is usually 2 drinks - I had at least 3 and a half tonight. I had quite the buzz on.

It was all fun until M passed out and Little J, who was way past hammered, started wanting to have intense discussions (mostly involving him yelling), first with his brother-in-law S (who tolerated him quite well), and then with his sister J. That ended up with him on the porch screaming at her about how he thinks their father has a drinking problem - her saying well, maybe he should talk to their dad about that, not her - and him yelling about how he can't talk to their dad; all the while S was pulling their car out of the driveway and gathering their things, because there was no way they'd spend the night there with LJ in that state. Little M restrained LJ (still yelling at the top of his voice) while S & J got their stuff (including their dog) into their car and followed us back to our place, where they borrowed our phone book and made reservations at a motel in Liverpool. Then we drove them out there. And that was my dose of drama for the month.

I have to work in the morning - the only reason I'm still up is that I have to finish drinking this big glass of water so I'm not too dehydrated when I wake up. We might have dinner with S & J tomorrow, after the wedding they're attending which is their primary motivation for being in town. S & J are both people who used to drink a lot, I think, and they're kind of over the whole drinking-to-excess-as-recreation thing; but a lot of the people close to them seem not to have reached that point yet. So it goes. Anyway, if we do dinner, it'll be nice to just see them and socialize as like, y'know, grown-ups. And now, to bed with me.

Oh, I will say this, tho' - all the guys were really impressed when I pulled out my knitting and started working on it (even in my inebriated state) during a lull in the card game. I only dropped two stitches, and I managed to pick them back up right away, so no harm done in two or three rounds of the Mermaid sock pattern. Drunken knitting, woohoo!