I was at the last slumber party on Friday night, as it was hosted by my boyfriend's house, Sleeptight, which he shares with four roommates in the Lincoln/La Alma Park neighborhood.
On Saturday morning, Mejia rose early and left them a note using Scrabble letters on the game board seen here. If you look closely, you can see that it reads, "Thanks, Sleeptight. Sarah, Nice Fig Bars."The homemade fig bars were indeed delicious -- as were the enchiladas, lasagna and salad that awaited Mejia when he arrived just past 7 p.m. Sleeptight had invited about a dozen guests, and Mejia, dressed in a suit and a campaign button, made his way around the room, shaking hands. But the residents he really wanted to meet weren't human. "Can I see the chickens?" he asked, which led to a photo op with Sleeptight's backyard birds.
After hobnobbing with the fowl, Mejia sat down on the couch that would serve as his bed later that night and was introduced to everyone in attendance, around-the-circle style. He introduced himself -- Denver native, ninth of thirteen children, former CEO of the Denver Preschool Program, project manager of the Denver Justice Center -- and then took questions about homelessness in Denver, how best to care for seniors and the possibility of turning some of Denver's unused open space into food-producing gardens.
As guests started to leave, Mejia migrated to the kitchen, where he chatted for nearly an hour with some of the folks who live in the house about all sorts of stuff: speculation about the latest Denver Post poll, issues within the police department, his non-stop campaign schedule and how, at one of his previous sleepovers, he slept in a princess bed. To Sleeptight, he brought his own sleeping bag, which he rolled out on the couch.
The next morning, before Mejia left to run a 5K race, he found Scrabble on a shelf in the dining room and constructed that goodbye message for Sarah, who'd been working during his visit. Game on.
More from our Politics archives: "James Mejia coached by Adam Cayton-Holland: Hot Pockets of Money for Everybody! (VIDEO)"
