645am. Not great to be up and moving and very awake. But, Emily is out the door, Marika asleep, animals fed and resting. Peace in my world. I am sitting, enjoying that and the beautiful view to the east. If you have never been here, I’m on top of a hill at about 1600’ elevation. I have a 100+ mile clear eastern view. Perfect for sunrise, like now. Oh yeah, have my feet up. Drinking coffee. I get ten minutes of this most days. Then it’s back to reality. The stupid phone rings. No peace.
Today is a throwaway for the most part. Usual stuff, workout, ready for work and go.
My friend Bob is coming by the office at noon. We are going to lunch. La Trattoria. I’ve never been there, it’s out in the 40’s on J St, near another clients place.
So Bob arrived, I had only been in the office 10 minutes. We left. Drove down J St to our location. Turns out this is a Czech/Italian restaurant. Seems weird. Very European feel as well. Though they don’t serve euro style. Interesting menu, stuff you don’t see every day. A nice surprise, on the menu, Chicken Paprika. That was a childhood favorite of mine, made by my mother with some frequency. So I ordered that. It was not up to Moms but still quite nice and little trip down memory lane. That was fun.
Back to work after lunch for no more than an hour. Off to Dixon at 230 for a visit downtown for a haircut and things. I look fantastic. Emily popped in from school to say hi, she is having a bad day. Not sure why.
I left for work, slogged thru traffic and got back to the office by 530. I am not heading home because we have a new restaurant, a specialty chicken place, soft opening to attend. Being invited to openings at Midtown eatery’s is a measure of how cool I am. Very cool, at least that’s what others think. I don’t give two shits for it. Of course, I have heard, disinterest in events makes you even more cool. I guess I can’t escape it. And I was able to invite my wife and daughter too. They really enjoy this type of thing and that makes me happy.
Our evening at Bawk (really) wa quite fun. We arrived early and went next door to The Shady Lady, world famous for cocktails, for a cocktail. Ended up being two drinks. Place is fun, lots of people there at the bar. We talked to bartender, other customers, had drinks. A grand pre-party experience. Best of all, our seat mates were quite jealous of our invite to the party next door. That’s fun.
Bawk. Bawk. Dinner. We checked in next door at our appointed hour. They have us chicken money to spend. We ordered the house specialties, chicken, sides like the cornbread (xtra good), buffalo cauliflower, wings, special cocktails (need work). We ate all of it. Even drank the cocktails we only half liked. The owner came by a couple times to see how we liked the food and drink. I am working on his audit now so he gives me attention. We were honest with him, chicken and other food was very good. Drinks, not so much. They were variations on the original famous cocktails. Maybe they should have used original recipes. Restaurants want to be unique. To the heir detriment at times.
Well, end of a long day where I got very little accomplished. But had fun. We went home. Three separate cars. Got home about 10 and hit the hay.