Sometimes You Just Need…

…to paint.

Mary and I bought a Groupon weeks, maybe even months, ago for a dinner, wine, and art night at a local place.  It is the same place actually as Jack and I did our mystery dinner and Joshua and I our 8-course dinner.  This time though it was Mary, me, and two glasses of wine.  The dinner started off with a salad of mixed greens, red onion, feta, and dried cranberries.  It was dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette.

Next was the main course.  I chose the pesto pasta and Mary had the chicken dish.  Both were sub par.  My noodles were clumped together on the bottom side and the pesto wasn’t tossed with all of them. Also, the tomatoes were raw and the other veggies were too crunchy, almost like they hadn’t been cooked properly.

Finally we had the dessert course: strawberry shortcake.  The ice cream was normal vanilla and I had all of seven little strawberry slices (unsauced) on my plate. The biscuit was alright.  Sweet and crumbly.  Mary sent hers back because it was thoroughly singed on the bottom.  I ended up eating all by half the biscuit.  It was a bit dry without any enough ice cream to soften it.

I washed it all down with a glass of an unspecified red blend.  It was nice and a bit acidic which normally I would mind but it kept me from downing the whole thing too quickly.  I nursed it through dinner and into the art portion of the evening.

So we thought this was going to be a Wine & Canvas sort of thing where we copied a particular picture.  Oh were we surprised to figure out that we actually had to be independently creative!  Ahhhhh.  After a moment of shock, we put on big girl panties and doled out our watercolors.

We gathered our cutips and went to town trying out Pointillism for the first time.  I ended up with something resembling a sunset, or so I would like to think.  Mary went for a more abstract concept of various fingers of colors mingling together.  Someone passed by our table and said, to her, that it looked like the Olympic crowd.  Mary and I liked the idea.

Honestly, the real greatness of the evening were the two couples at our table.  They were so full of energy and life and good stories.  We laughed the whole time.  I really enjoyed their company.

All in all, despite the less-than-wonderful food, Mary and I had a terribly nice night.  We’re planning a sleepover next.  Oh yea, it’s going to be awesome.  I know you’re jealous.  Seriously, when was the last time you had a sleepover??

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…to spend a Friday night at a bar with friends instead of at home, on the couch, alone.

I wasn’t planning on going out tonight but around 3:30 my friend David texted to invite me out with his brother for some drinks, dinner, and baseball watching at a local bar.  I had no other plans and I wasn’t about to pass up social time so I said yes.  Shortly after I put report writing into overdrive and I banged out both of my medical reports for the day.  I was really pleased with myself.

Around seven David picked me up and we three (his brother included) headed to the bar.  We managed to snag a parking spot that had already been paid for at the meter.  Woot, bonus!  We walked a few blocks and grabbed a high top table by the bar.  We almost immediately ordered the bar’s famous stuffed breadsticks.

These babies are incredible.  I wish you could know how flaky and light they are despite how heavy they appear.  They’re great.  For dinner I had the patty melt with two cheeses, sauteed onions, and thousand island dressing (which I got on the side).  It was supposed to be a burger on rye bread but I had it made with a portabella cap instead.  Sweet potato fries on the side.

I ate all the fries and probably 2/3ish of the “burger” before I was full.  It was super cheesy and delicious though. The onions were perfection too.  I really wish I had the patience to properly caramelize onions, seriously.

Now I should head to bed.  I can’t believe it’s already so late!  Ahh, I wonder what I’m going to do with myself tomorrow aside from laundry.  I think I have plans to go to a local wine festival but that’s not until much later.  Insanity perhaps in the morning??  Hope your weekend is super!

Questions: Are portabella caps sufficient substitutes for burgers?
What is your fav way to spend a Friday night?