Lorely

When I see the name Lorely, I tend to think of the Berkeley vegetarian food co-op, Lothlorien (which was in turn named after the forest where Galadriel and Celeborn ruled the sylvan elves) or else I think of a winsome, teenage girl from a fantasy movie. I do not think of a German beer hall located in the south of Houston in New York City (7 Rivington Street to be precise), but perhaps I should, its a fabulous place. Aviva and I had been there for a going away party a couple of weeks ago, and I loved it, so when Neal came to visit from California we organized some folks and went for the evening ... and it was a blast. I mean seriously, any night when your girlfriend ends up doing this was either really good or really bad ...



I am not sure what the best part of the bar is, the light and easy atmosphere, the attractive servers, the food ... no really it is clearly the liter steins of German beer that can be had there. About a dozen excellent beers, served in liter and half liter sizes ... pounding a liter does wonders for your balance ... they even have little beers, Kolsch, like the serve in Cologne ...

I got there at sixish. I was supposed to meet Neal, who was waiting at Washington Square, but when I got to Washington Square I found out that for Neal waiting at Washington Square meant that we was walking around Wall Street. So I went to the bar, watched as my phone died while I tried to direct Neal back up to where I was, met up with Aviva and her roommate Kate and started drinking around six forty five.Neal arrived five minutes later and described his day, spending a good deal of time describing the bizarre yet fabulous chicken cutlet pizza he had eaten until we told him this was normal (NY pizza, best in the world) and he shut up and then he, kate and I started on our first half liter while Aviva drank wine. At some point soon after this Aviva started to tell a story about what I can only assume to be particular parts of the female anatomy, but I was never really able to understand what she was talking about.



During the story, Adam and Shauna showed up. There was much babbling and gesticulation and laughing as we got through the first half liter and since we could not hold the table in the beer garden, and squeezing six into our four person table space (three on half a side) was rapidly becoming untenable, so we finished our beers and moved inside to a larger table ... and concurrently order larger beers.

The liter steins came for everyone but Shauna, who was two fisting with wine and diet pink stuff and Aviva, who got a baby beer to complement our larger beers. Food was ordered, to keep us stable, and many bratwursts and burgers and fries were consumed. Even Adam and Shauna, both vegetarians and so decidedly out of place looking at a German menu, found good stuff to eat ... although the lighter fare might have allowed them to get goofy, but you can judge that for yourselves ...



Aviva had a truly delicious hamburger that was so juicy that it squirted all over me a she was eating it and the evening progressed/degenerated rapidly from there. Adam, myself, Kate and Neal each fairly rapidly polished off our beers ... at this point I have to give props to Neal and Kate, who were vastly outweighed by Adam and myself and yet managed to keep pace with us very well .

At this point, trying to figure out what to drink next, we became involved in what I will call the lazy susan debate, in which Adam tried to convince us that a lazy susan was a piece of cabinetry, which I then tried to convince Neal was in the house we recently shared in San Diego, while Kate steadfastly held onto the view that a lazy susan was the apparatus that allows the roatation of food around a large table. Like at dim sum. I think we were all ending up in agreement with Kate after a long debate and the discovery that the waitress also did not know, when the next round of beers, which Aviva had ordered for us, arrived. Adam, Neal, Kate and I decided to order a round (or maybe a lazy susan, thus the start of the debate) of little beers

The advantage to these little beers is that you can pound them easily, which we proceded to do. 11 little kolsches disappeared in about 5 minutes, prompting a bathroom break, kleptomania, numerous expresions of affection and another round of little beers. We polished these off with just as much gusto, Kate and Neal finishing the last two with style This took us into very drunk territory, as 2.7 liters of German beer will tend to do, and after a good deal more general goofiness and the unusual problem of have paid out too much money for the bill and needing to redistribute, we all head home.

Now I can only attest to my trip home, although I heard that sober Aviva got herself and Kate onto the wrong train on the way home and without the navigational skills of highly impaired Kate they would not have made it. I cannot say we did much better, but after stumbling 15 blocks, pissing on two dumpsters, dropping Adam at Union Square, changing trains 4 times and walking home another mile Neal and I made it home around 145 am and crashed so that we could get up the next day and go hiking in the shawnagunks ...