1113 Samedi Gras

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Last night I went to a "Mardi Gras celebration" at the B1g Easy Bistro in N3wburgh*, with FirstWoman (this being most decidedly NOT New Orleans, it was held on Samedi). There had been a parade earlier in the day, but it was just too cold for my interest. I was an hour late meeting FW.

[* numbers to foil searches.]

The first problem was the bubble bath. I knew I had to leave the house by 5:25, because the drive would be maybe one hour and 5 or 10 minutes, so at 3:30 I climbed into the tub with a book. Normally, timing isn't a problem, because the water gets cool within an hour, and then I know to look at the clock. I don't know what happened, but when I checked the clock it was 5:10, and I still had to wash my hair. I flew low for the next half hour, and then called FW to tell her I'd be late.

I left the house at 5:50, and then it got worse. I didn't get up to the speed limit almost the whole way. Between Rh1nebeck and Poughk33psie, I got behind a line of cars doing no more than 40 in a 55 zone. Just before Hyd3 Park, we did 30 in the 45 zone. I wondered what would happen when we hit the 30 zone in Hyd3 Park, and yup, we dropped to 20. I passed every time I had a chance (winding roads, not much chance), but I never got to the head of the line. It took me 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to the bistro.

The rest of the evening was nice. We both had crab cakes and salad, and there was a combo of concertina, coronet, trumpet, susaphone, clarinet, and I forget what else, older guys, and they surrounded tables in turn and took requests (FW and I were the first so honored). They were pretty good at impromptu improvisation ("um, hum a few bars...") (as opposed to planned improvisation, of course), and they were fun.

It took me exactly 1 hour to drive home.

I think maybe rather than wait for them to take my Mensa card away, I should just mail it in. I use the EZ-Pass box to cross the river on the toll bridge. N3wburgh is on the other side. The box was in the minivan, and I really did carefully consider whether I should move it to the Aerio, and decided I wouldn't need it, "because I'm going down this side of the river". If I were planning to go down the other side, I'd have taken it. Yeah, except that at the end, N3eburgh is STILL on the other side! Not a major problem. You just have to make sure you have a dollar bill, because if you pay the toll with a ten, and the toll taker is a joker, you'll get $9 change in quarters.

FW is showing a movie this afternoon, open invitation. It's not a genre I'm not familiar with, something I associate more with comic books and children's cartoons, it's a long drive, and the other people who have RSVP'd are not my favorites in the local group, but, on the other hand, perhaps I should gain some familiarity before I reject, the subject of the film is serious and it has won awards, it's not so very cold today, I'm "up", so I think I'll go.

On the third hand, Piper is starting to push me for tax documents, and he wants me to sell more of my odd lots of stock so he can be ready to hit the bond market when it's good, and the Angel will need those sales figures to calculate this year's estimated taxes, so I really do have things I should be doing this afternoon. Piper will call on Tuesday, and I'll be ashamed to say "not yet" again.

Plus, this morning the little TV in the kitchen died. The picture is condensed into a thin bright line across the middle of the screen. That's the set I watch the most, and it has a built-in VCR that I use heavily, so I want to shop around and see what's available to replace it.
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