Ende gut, alles gut

In the end, of course, everything worked out. The root of Tuppers objection to socialising with Nuphy was just that he didn't want to be reminded of work. When I explained that wouldn't be an issue, he not only agreed to come to dinner but invited us all over to his place for drinks beforehand. We "met the family" (four goldfish, three cats, and a finch) and I had the rare treat of sitting back and listening to monshu carry the conversation.

Dinner was a gamble that paid off. We've been curious about Café Adriatic since before it opened two months ago. Reviews have been mixed, but we figured it couldn't be worse than mediocre. In fact, it was good. Everyone loved the meze plate (particularly the smoked meat) and our entrées were all outrageously meaty. Nuphy tried to sell me on the pork-stuffed pork wrapped in pork, but I objected to the amount of cheese; monshu ordered it instead and could only finish half. I had more success with the Karađorđeva šnicla, a phallic meat tube stuffed with the Balkan answer to clotted cream.

We sent monshu home with the leftovers and went out for ice cream. Nuphy ran off to see his dancing boys, and Tuppers met up with a couple of friends to "watch them eat". For my part, I strolled down to SoFo to meet Coleman for drinks. He listened sympathetically as I impassively filled him in on current events, and then we set off on a pub crawl. Weariness began to catch up with me at Mary's Attic and we set out.

Just before parting, we stopped into 7-11. As I waited for Coleman to buy a muffin, I heard someone address me by name. I stared uncomprehendingly for several seconds at a strange man until I realised it was the same young couple Tuppers had introduced me to two hours before. The young woman asked, "Did you do your undergraduate at Chicago?" She was a year behind me, though I didn't recognise the face. We promised to "play the name game" some other time, and I walked the rest of the way home alone.