i'll be all you need and more

I'm v. tired but I had a v. lovely day (or at least a v. lovely end to it). I woke up this morning in time to have some fairly leisurely coffee before getting started with work, and work itself was not too onerous - I got through most of my inbox backlog (which was a miracle in and of itself) and got some actual work done, and also had some good meetings, so that was all great.

Then I sloughed off slightly early to get ready for my evening plans - Katie and I hadn't been out to dinner in fourteen months (although we've seen each other all the time in quarantine), so we decided to break the seal tonight. We had six p.m. reservations, but we were both not feeling it in terms of work (Katie because she had taken the afternoon off, me because I was tired), so I went over to her place a little before five and we grabbed a drink before dinner. Our first stop was Lady Jane, which we used to go to often in the beforetimes - I had a tiki style drink with an umbrella and everything, which felt like a v. warm welcome back into the fold of people who sometimes go to bars.

Then we went to our dinner reservation - I had booked us an outside table at The Fifth String, and the weather was perfect for it. If anything, it was a little too perfect - it turns out their outdoor tables are still in little greenhouses, which would have been great in winter but was roasting for the first bit of our dinner. However, it cooled off soon enough, and the food and cocktails were so amazing that the temperature didn't matter. Fifth String is where Old Major used to be, and while we always liked to go to Old Major for the ambience and the location, Fifth String has way outdone Old Major in terms of food. My cocktail was perfect, and Katie and I went all in on food - we started with oysters (and omg I've missed oysters), which were delightful. Then we split two prix fixe menus (i.e. ordered things and then shared them) - the appetizers were a wagyu carpaccio and a hamachi crudo (the carpaccio was almost too decadent, since the raw beef was covered in some incredible bites of other things; but the hamachi was just right). The mains were a Japanese pork dish and a halibut on top of the most perfect buttery mashed potatoes. For dessert, we had a strawberry pie and a v. nice sorbet. All in all, the food was to die for, especially after a year of eating takeout or #quarantinechef endeavors.

Of course, it's allergy season and so now I have a sore throat and am convinced I have covid, but other than that it was an incredible night. Katie and I discussed many and varied tings over the course of approximately four hours together, which was way overdue since I've been in Iowa. We ended the night sitting in my car and talking like we often do, and I could have kept talking forever...

...but I'm also old, and clearly that's true because we both paced ourselves and didn't get drunk despite the temptation of those killer cocktails. So we said our farewells and I came home, and now I'm considering bedtime. Goodnight!