Sunday, July 08, 2012

if you want it done right

Ugh. I did not intend to go out tonight, and I really shouldn't have -- I suppose it's theoretically acceptable to take a Saturday night off, but that doesn't make me feel any better given how tantalizingly close I am to being done with the portion of the book that I'm working on. At least I was happy with what I accomplished during the day -- I woke up, showered, did some editing, and was just making coffee when I saw I'd missed a text from Adit saying to call him because it was urgent. Of course this turned out to be a boldfaced lie, as I expected with 94% certainty when I called him, but I called him anyway like the fool I am -- and was immediately harassed into meeting up with him to get some work done.

This was harassment I gave into easily; I'm in hardcore writing/editing mode, which works well in coffeeshops, and Adit is one of the few people I can go to a coffeeshop and get legitimate work done with. So we spent several hours at Leland Tea, although I was late enough (due to printer issues) that he had to have some tea for one rather than doing tea for two/two for tea like we usually do. I needed to get out of there around 5:00, which dismayed him, so I brought him back to my place to do some more work -- but when I got home I discovered that Terry was back from LA (yay!). So I caught up with her, then we dumped Adit off at his car and picked up some salads for dinner.

After dinner, I started working again, but around 8:30 I gave into temptation and went out. Katrina and Chandlord were having drinks near Chandlord's place (the oh-so-lovely Tendernob area, aka the weird gentrifying-but-still-unappealing area between Tenderloin and Nob Hill, although closer to Union Square than Chandlord is), and I had said I would meet up with them at seven -- which turned out to be a boldfaced lie on my part. Adit feigns urgency where there is none, and I say I will leave the house when I won't -- we all know this. I was going to drive, and had even started my car when I decided to screw it and take a cab there, which turned out great even though I inadvertently went with neither enough cash nor my debit card. Tanks for floating me, friends!

The bar was super fun and the cocktails were excellent, We went to this place called Big, which is of course tiny. The bartenders there are cocktail artists, and so there is no menu and you would probably be kicked out if you tried to order a cosmo. Instead, for the folks back home in Iowa, this means that you tell the bartender some vague definition of what you like, and he makes something on the fly that he thinks you'll enjoy.

I scored big with my first one, in what may have been my favorite cocktail of the night -- I said I like citrus and rum, such as a Hemingway daiquiri, and he came back with some delightful thing that contained rum, lime, gooseberries, and some other tasty magic. My second drink was less delightful, but that was because I didn't say that I'm not particularly fond of whisky -- he gave me the berries that I asked for, but he made what he called a whisky/sherry cobbler, which was more alcohol than I bargained for. Chandlord had the other contender for best drink of the evening (which I'll concede to her, since it was both delicious and wildly different than anything I'd had before) - gin, muddled blueberries, apricot liqueur, walnut liqueur, and some other stuff I forget, all of which was winning.

sssanyway, we hung out there for a couple of hours, and at some point Adit and Priyanka showed up, since I'd mentioned these tentative plans whilst at Leland Tea. When we were done drinking, Katrina biked home, but Adit took Priyanka, me, Chandlord, and Chandlord's friend Kathy back to the Marina (yay home neighborhood) to have a late supper at Delarosa. I haven't been there, even though it's not super far from us -- but the main drag of Chestnut is just far enough away that Terry and I tend not to walk there. It's an Italian place with a fun ambience, and the food was excellent -- I had some meatballs that were fantastic, and a polenta that was good but too filling for what I needed. I also succumbed to gluten temptation and ate a bit of the burrata mozzarella pizza with spicy marinara that they ordered, and it was worth whatever repercussions I suffer. And then Adit dropped me off at home, and now I must sleep so that I can write tomorrow -- I swear I will send this manuscript to my editor if it kills me. Goodnight!

No comments: