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Aug. 16th, 2019 02:14 pm
An older me
So yesterday was about equal proportions super fun and annoying as hell. Fortunately, it worked out so the annoying parts were out of the way by mid-afternoon and the rest of the day was given over to pleasure.
No prizes, of course, for guessing that Handsome Bastard did not come through. He said he'd text me after he finished work on Wednesday so we could finalise plans. He actually started texting while waiting for his last client. It was fun and bantery and it gave me a good feeling. Then he went silent without explanation for sixteen hours.
By the time he back online, I'd long since resigned myself to the situation and reverted to my original plans of just doing a little shopping in Andersonville. He'd gotten called into work again--apparently forgetting that I'd told him I only had half the day free--told me he'd be free at 4. I was like, okay, tag along if you like but I'm not changing my plans. He opted not to. I'm this close to offering to pay his hourly fee (half in jest, full in earnest) for a date he won't break.
I was in a mood anyway since my plans to sleep got scuppered not--as I'd feared--by the tuckpointers but by the annual MilPorn Show (or, as another friend called it, the Aerial Penis Show). Just as he's built up a resistance to lightning and trucks, Kitty was much less freaked out than in the past but by the fourth or fifth pass, he'd had enough screaming jets and left my arms for the comfort of the closet.
The din accompanied me the whole way to Middle Eastern. I'd opted to walk on account of the good weather, but it'd forgotten how little shade there'd be in the middle of the day. So I arrived hot and bothered and didn't make any of the side trips I'd planned. No looking at shoes, no meeting my artist friend at Sbux, just get the masala chai and get out.
The one bright spot was making my neighbours' day by picking them up a couple pies for lunch. As young parents, I think they'd eat my leftovers just to have one less thing to worry about. Then it was a long train trip down to Pilsen, where my spirits finally started to recover.
It was a pleasant stroll down 18th to the restaurant and I took a certain grim satisfaction in seeing some of the more generic intruders east of Ashland had bitten the dust. Nuphy and I timed it so that we arrived practically simultaneously and were the first to be seated on the patio.
Our server was terrific. After all the trouble she took to match us up with selections, I joked that she deserved consultant fees. During the sobremesa, I asked her how she felt about the gentrification pioneered by fancy places like this one and she said, "It means I don't have to leave the neighbourhood to work." She seemed sincerely bullish about her employer, which put us both a bit more at ease.
Nuphy steered me to the Amish chicken, which was flavourful as hell but a bit more meat than I wanted. What I really wanted was to steal more of his cauliflower dish, which was unbelievably tender and tasty. I liked my chicory salad fine, but it was about twice as much endive as I actually want to eat in a sitting.
He also steered me toward the Purple Rain, an infused gin cocktail I was meh about. My first drink, a fancy mix of bourbon and amaro, was much better but too bitter to go well with the endive. He also got some tasty gnocchi and a dish of hamachi and we shared a lamb belly taco which tasted more like beef brisket than I might have expected.
Afterwards, it was back to the train for a rush-hour journey up to Big Red's for a trio of desserts: JB's meringue-topped peach custard tart, the Pixie's cheery pie, and Big Red's rosé sorbet. I'm not really a rosé fan, but the last of these was splendid. The tart, with its crunchy crust and deliciously ripe peaches, was my favourite though.
We didn't talk tensions or the future of the game. We didn't even play any games. (Well, I didn't; I got the feeling some game-playing might have gone on before I got there.) We just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. I bathed in the warmth of the room as I blueskyed about how I might want to spend my 50th.
No prizes, of course, for guessing that Handsome Bastard did not come through. He said he'd text me after he finished work on Wednesday so we could finalise plans. He actually started texting while waiting for his last client. It was fun and bantery and it gave me a good feeling. Then he went silent without explanation for sixteen hours.
By the time he back online, I'd long since resigned myself to the situation and reverted to my original plans of just doing a little shopping in Andersonville. He'd gotten called into work again--apparently forgetting that I'd told him I only had half the day free--told me he'd be free at 4. I was like, okay, tag along if you like but I'm not changing my plans. He opted not to. I'm this close to offering to pay his hourly fee (half in jest, full in earnest) for a date he won't break.
I was in a mood anyway since my plans to sleep got scuppered not--as I'd feared--by the tuckpointers but by the annual MilPorn Show (or, as another friend called it, the Aerial Penis Show). Just as he's built up a resistance to lightning and trucks, Kitty was much less freaked out than in the past but by the fourth or fifth pass, he'd had enough screaming jets and left my arms for the comfort of the closet.
The din accompanied me the whole way to Middle Eastern. I'd opted to walk on account of the good weather, but it'd forgotten how little shade there'd be in the middle of the day. So I arrived hot and bothered and didn't make any of the side trips I'd planned. No looking at shoes, no meeting my artist friend at Sbux, just get the masala chai and get out.
The one bright spot was making my neighbours' day by picking them up a couple pies for lunch. As young parents, I think they'd eat my leftovers just to have one less thing to worry about. Then it was a long train trip down to Pilsen, where my spirits finally started to recover.
It was a pleasant stroll down 18th to the restaurant and I took a certain grim satisfaction in seeing some of the more generic intruders east of Ashland had bitten the dust. Nuphy and I timed it so that we arrived practically simultaneously and were the first to be seated on the patio.
Our server was terrific. After all the trouble she took to match us up with selections, I joked that she deserved consultant fees. During the sobremesa, I asked her how she felt about the gentrification pioneered by fancy places like this one and she said, "It means I don't have to leave the neighbourhood to work." She seemed sincerely bullish about her employer, which put us both a bit more at ease.
Nuphy steered me to the Amish chicken, which was flavourful as hell but a bit more meat than I wanted. What I really wanted was to steal more of his cauliflower dish, which was unbelievably tender and tasty. I liked my chicory salad fine, but it was about twice as much endive as I actually want to eat in a sitting.
He also steered me toward the Purple Rain, an infused gin cocktail I was meh about. My first drink, a fancy mix of bourbon and amaro, was much better but too bitter to go well with the endive. He also got some tasty gnocchi and a dish of hamachi and we shared a lamb belly taco which tasted more like beef brisket than I might have expected.
Afterwards, it was back to the train for a rush-hour journey up to Big Red's for a trio of desserts: JB's meringue-topped peach custard tart, the Pixie's cheery pie, and Big Red's rosé sorbet. I'm not really a rosé fan, but the last of these was splendid. The tart, with its crunchy crust and deliciously ripe peaches, was my favourite though.
We didn't talk tensions or the future of the game. We didn't even play any games. (Well, I didn't; I got the feeling some game-playing might have gone on before I got there.) We just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. I bathed in the warmth of the room as I blueskyed about how I might want to spend my 50th.