Día de los Tamales

monshu and I usually spend a lot of time together on the weekends, but it's usually mostly down time. The last few days have been unusually rich in up time. First there was Friday night, where he met me at work for something like the third time in twelve years. We snarffled some canapés at an event, watched a particularly lovely sunset from one of the best vantage points on the grounds, and headed down to Davis St Fishmarket for cedar plank salmon and scallops.

He spent so much of Saturday in bed I was worried he'd come down with something, but it paid off that evening when we went to Turtle's 40th birthday. Naturally, the woofiest guy there was Turtle's straight married cousin, but I enjoyed my social flitting--particularly chatting up a George Washington on the couch and, solely on the basis of his surname, determining that he was a Yooper of Finno-Swedish descent who'd been educated elsewhere.

Today was our annual pilgrimage to Pilsen, for which we roped in Nuphy. His pick of a restaurant still hadn't recovered from a fire earlier in the year and the GWO was craving tamales, so we strode on past the suckers lining up for Nuevo León and chowed down at Taqueria Casa del Pueblo. Costillas con salsa verde was the special of the day, and I enjoyed every bite even as I foresaw this very TUMS-chewing moment. It helped that the staff was extra sweet to me and supremely patient with my clumsy Spanish.

After the Museum, Nuphy invited us back to his place to break into our pan de muertos (one of the last two for sale at Bombón--the other is going into work with monshu tomorrow) and wash it down with his house-roasted coffee. He then wanted us to enjoy Kaufmann as Werther and Terfel as Scarpia before we cabbed it back north. We were still so full from lunch that we just sat in the living room for over an hour listening to the Trashcan Sinatras and chatting before frying up a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Next weekend we'll head downtown to shop for some gifts for our trip down to St Louis. I guess I'll also be doing my usual pre-Bear cocktails, but to be honest I'm really not feeling it. Last time, almost everyone who said they'd be coming blew me off. I sometimes get concerned that I'm not diversifying my circle of friends enough, but then I recall that bromide about people for whom you are only an option and know that there's really only one bear around who deserves to be my priority.