Passing on

monshu thought today should be marked with a special restaurant trip. My suggestion had been to get brunch downtown, but after a fitful night of listening to the cat retch, all I wanted to do was come back home and crash. He had originally been thinking dinner anyway, and though I wasn't opposed to the idea, I was worried about the timing given that Game 2 of the NLCS was scheduled for 3 p.m. EDT and Game 1 had lasted over five hours.

Mercifully, however, there were no extra innings today. The game was as low-scoring as it's possible to be (the Cards took it 1-0) and both pitchers were fast workers, so it was clear by about 4 p.m. that we could make dinner at 7. The Old Man put himself in my hands, and I bundled us into the Broadway bus, thinking we'd revisit a favoured haunt in the old neighbourhood. But La Fonda was closed for a private event, and we decided to hit another: the reopened Pasteur.

Reviews had been mixed since they reappeared in the old space last spring and we figured they might be taking some time to find their footing again. The interior looked much the same, only better: They'd ditched the pink and some of the potted plants for two large planters and a cool pale green. Two things struck me about the menu: That it was bigger and that it included a lot of ordinary Vietnamese standards. (The appeal of the earlier incarnation--and, frankly, the justification for charging thrice what you'd pay on Argyle--was their elegant twist on that cuisine.)

The cocktail menu looked vile. When your lead-off offering includes both 43 and Apple Pucker, you know you're in cack hands before you even run up again names like "Me So Mango". There was a liberal use of flavoured syrups in cocktails which already contained liqueur; that was one of the problems with my "Ginger Collins". The other was that it was weak and watery. (Another bad sign: monshu's cocktail was made with green Chartreuse and the server had to tell us which was which, because it wasn't obvious at a glance.) Incidentally, it's a real shame that our server had studied at the Chatty and Casual School of No Charm because everyone else who came to the table was so consummately professional.

Our starters were dull. I singled out those which were different than what you could find a few blocks south and ordered a salmon chả giò and the battered shrimp. The rolls were fine, but cried out for more seasoning; all you could really taste was dill. The shrimp were so bland we forgot why we'd ordered them; it was only when rethinking that decision that I remembered they were supposed to be stuffed with mushroom and...something else?

Our entrées were tastier but not without their problems. The monkfish curry was very generous on the fish, which was good and firm. monshu also liked the eggplant in it; I, predictably, did not, but we could both agree that the squash had been cooked to hell. It was hard to say what had changed about the seasoning on the bò lúc lắc except that it seemed a little sweeter. They also used a cheaper cut of beef (filet mignon my ass).

Then something happened to tip our assessment out of the "meh" column and into "never again": I found a piece of plastic in the beef dish. It was a strip about half a centimeter wide and as long as a finger joint with black scorch marks. Both of us tried to bite through it and couldn't. I set in on a plate and informed our waitress, who took it to the kitchen. When she came back, she tried to convince me it was a piece "from the outer part of the onion".

Let me ask you: Have any of you in your lives ever come across a piece of onion--raw or cooked--you could not bite through? I politely made this point to our server, who just repeated what she'd said before, so I waited until after the meal (to make it clear I wasn't just angling for comps) to bring it up with the blasé manager. He kept saying, "I didn't see it". Well, I not only saw it, I bit on it, and if I'd swallowed it, I would've choked.

When you revisit an old favourite, you always need to be braced for disappointment. I was prepared for some of that, but nothing on this scale. If I'd let it, the experience could easily have ruined the evening. But the Old Man was so philosophical about it all that I took it completely in stride. "Now you've got a story for your blog!" he said brightly as we strolled out into the mild moonlit night. "And we still have La Fonda to look forward to!" I added.

Hitched

Probably the most amusing thing about our trip to marriage court today was the mismatch between our blasé pragmatism and the perky enthusiasm of the judge performing the honours. She sounded honestly disappointed that we weren't exchanging rings. (I told the GWO we'd missed a real opportunity by not sliding on some cockrings before we left so we could answer, "We're already wearing them.") When she asked why were taking this step, we exchanged a wry glance that said We're not really going to tell her what precipitated this, are we? "We were going to hold out for marriage," I said, "but our hand was forced."

"It's coming! Hopefully we'll see you back here soon!"

"Actually, I was hoping we could just upgrade online."

"Oh no! It's going to be a different thing. You'll get a chance to do this again. It'll be fun!"

And with that, she dashed my hopes of a stealth wedding. That was, I thought, the one clear advantage to a civil union: It's not something anyone will make much of a fuss over. But legally, the requirements are virtually identical: $60 for a licence, 24-hour "cooling off" period, no blood relation, etc. Under Illinois law, we are recognised as being "spouses". The only real difference is the name and, as a result of that, Federal recognition. Surely the legislature could add a provision allowing for the painless conversion of existing unions? But of course that's too much to expect from a bureaucracy as ponderous and saurian as ours.

I suppose I can't complain too much given that the total time between realising what we needed to do and getting it done was about 64 hours. On Wednesday night, my open enrollment package arrived and I noticed that "domestic partner" was missing from the list of definitions. We immediately went online, saw that applying for a civil union required us both to apply in person, and scheduled that for first thing Friday morning. That visit to the county clerk's office was a model of efficient behaviour: we were in and out in something like twenty minutes. It was also a kick. Our clerk was a beefy little guy with arm tattoos and perfect pompadour, easy on the eyes (for me at least) and unflappably polite, even as I stumbled in answering his questions. I hadn't expected he'd need to know my phone number, let alone my parents' names and birthplaces.

When I asked how we went about lining up a judge, he handed me a flyer for the marriage court and pointed out that they had Saturday morning hours. So today we once more went through the whole routine of taking the 147 Express downtown and standing in line in a windowless basement room with a bunch of strangers. But here the assortment was much more colourful. I knew we'd found the right building when I saw people standing out front with bouquets and cameras. And I thought we'd be in line much longer than we were because I didn't realise that there were at least as many hangers-on ahead of us as actual couples. (monshu, who'd done his research, said that each couple was allowed up to ten other people in the room with them.)

But the most charming aspect of the whole experience has been how badly our joking and shrugging masks how much it means to us on some level. All the smart remarks about pre-nups and backing out only serve the purpose of reinforcing how remote those considerations are. The legal arrangements may be all about practicalities, but the commitment underlying them is something else again.