Oh, sit back and relax, this one will be a while! Sanguiness here, to tell you the story of the Saturday night meet in London. 
Nine chat pals gathered for a night out at the Rockwater Brewing Company...a local hot spot which featured live entertainment from Paul Sharpe and the Rockwater Rhythm and Brews Band. Paul is a long time friend of Marshall-tucker, so this evening was a double treat. Those in attendance were, myself, M-t, Sirluvsalot, Dejavous, Dejavous2, Nepping, Brneyestoo, Nadine789 and Janeway34.

First of all, this was on a day that M-t had to work, so I spent the day with Brneyestoo, over in London. She and I had done a bit of mall-crawling, and then headed back to her place to hang around until everyone else, including M-t arrived. After a bit of visiting, and of course chatting online as a group(which blew the minds of several of our other online pals!), around 9:30 we loaded up our respective, if not respectable vehicles and turned the motorcade towards downtown. Finding parking spots easier than at the Detroit Metro Airport, we collectively made our way into Rockwater's to find they didn't have a quiet table reserved for us. Instead they had one dead center in front of the band. This, as you will read later, proved to be very interesting. The only thing between us and the band was .........the dance-floor!

As the band was about to start, Paul made his way over to our table. M-t made the intro's and part-way into the set, Paul called the happy couple, myself and M-t, onto the dance floor.

Now to preceed this just a bit, we have to let you in on the UN-planned entertainment for the evening. Let us introduce you to Patti, a rather un-missable woman in her 60's if she's a day, wearing a spiffy creme colored polyester pantsuit and a paisley scarf around her shoulders. Now Patti, as we dubbed her (as in Polyester Patti), was having the time of not only her life, but of several other people at the same time. She was performing a sort of "hee bee jee bee" dance. Sometimes she would stand in one place and shake all over, not quite a shimmy, but close.. sometimes she would bend at the waist, laying her hands flat on the ground, then stand abruptly and hold her hand over her head and kick it. Much to my chagrin, she seemed particularly apt to perform this act, facing North, with my face at the south end about 8 inches away. M-t made a couple of mimed moves to give her a hot seat with his ever-ready zippo, but we prevailed upon him to hold his flick, explaining that polyester doesn't burn, it melts.. and, well, we just didn't wanna see a Pattimelt before our eyes. Deja gets the badge of honor for the evening as he actually danced with Patti for a bit.

Another of her specialty routines, was to plunk her purse on our table, take out her deep red lipstick, paint her lips and then (as if the aforementioned weren't enough of a spectacle!) smudge two warpaint strips onto her cheekbones and use her hands to smudge them in. Dejavous and I were both quite mesmerized with this routine, and sought ways to emulate it. A lipstick was offered around the table and the first time, Deja made good on the dare and spent a bit of the next set sweating off the makeup. Finally, Nepping offered her lipstick to me, and I joined suit toward the end of the evening.

Now, back to the previously mentioned "spotlight dance"...to the Rhythm and Brews Band's version of "When a Man Loves a Woman". Patti sat this one out, for lack of a partner, I suppose. However, just as Paul got to the high notes at the end of the song, Patti could no longer contain her enjoyment and joined in with the singing...
 

The Patti Wave The Sound of Patti

Editor's note: We claim no responsibility for endangerment of any wildlife by playing this wave. A donation to Greenpeace would be in order.

Then, just as Patti's wave of passion hung in the air, M-t whispers in my ear "Oh, those poor, poor whales in Nova Scotia, beaching themselves trying to get to that sound!" Which brought tremors of laughter from both of us. I clamped my hands, white-knuckle tight, around M-t's neck and held on for dear life, because I KNEW that I'd treat the crowd to an IRL demonstration of ROFLMAO if I didn't!

After surviving the terminal giggles on the dance floor (which are saved on video for posterity thanks to Deja), we made our way back to the table with our group. The manager, Brian, brought us a round of Broken Down Golfcarts. No, we weren't intending to play 18 holes, these are shooters consisting of Anisette, Cranberry liquer and Grand Marnier, and pretty tasty, I might add!

Right around this time, we all noticed that Patti would take a few minutes to make friends with people at a different table. A new table every so often. Now she never really spoke to anyone at our's and it was around this time that we figured out why. There was always someone at our's. Not so the others and.... as these other tables of folks made their own ways to the dance floor, Patti made sure their drinks were ALWAYS fresh, by draining the ones currently on the tables. LMAO!!!! Makes ya wonder if the mgmt didn't have her on a retainer, doesn't it?

Janeway and I were getting a bit nervous about the way Patti kept hanging out at our end of the table. As is known to happen in drinking establishments, it eventually becomes impossible to leave Mother Nature on 'call waiting' so Jane and I carefully plotted a route to the ladies' room. Never mind that it was the long way around, we didn't want Patti following us! Upon our return, there was a claim made that M-t joined the conga-line. Now, having heard him refuse the first conga-line, while I was sitting next to him...well, let's just say I'm skeptical in light of the fact that there are no pictures or video to back up this claim. LOL!!
M-t note time...Now WHY would I lie about making an ass out of myself when I do it soooo often unintentionally? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm???

The evening wore on, with lots of giggles and PLENTY of dancing for Dejavous. We think he'll turn out okay, if he just learns to loosen up a little and have a good time!
 

Dejavous shows you how it's done in London

A round of temporary good-byes were made at the mall exit, but only after a few of our group HAD to try out the kiddie car by the mall's escalators. Now THAT was a sight to see!! Full grown folks trying to cram into a kiddie ride where they wouldn't likely put their own kids! LMAO!!

After leaving the bar, M-t and I stopped off at Sir's hotel where he presented M-t with the first guitar Sir had ever owned. M-t now displays it proudly beside the "Talk to Tucker" realty sign from the Indy meet and 'says' he's trying to practice on it. Funny thing...I don't see any new callouses developing on the chording fingers. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

The next morning, a few of us got together and met in the morning at a local Ho-jo's for breakfast and a round of reminiscing about Patti. Funny, not one Patti-melt was ordered, even tho brekky actually took place around noon!

One thing about a chatmeet. If you always expect the unexpected and you'll STILL be surprised when ya get it!!