Baltimore Diary

Last Impressions

Ainsley Hayes: I'll ask again: for what purpose was I brought here today?
Leo McGarry: So I could offer you a job.
Ainsley Hayes: I'm asking because I do not think that it is fair that I be expected to play the role of the mouse to the White House's cat in the game of... you know the game?
Leo McGarry: Cat and mouse?
Ainsley Hayes: Yes.

—The West Wing, "In This White House" (10/25/00)

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All good things must come to an end, and so it was for my brother and my sister in law. The other night I went to the AirTran website and printed out their boarding passes. I also checked to see if their flight was running on time, which it was. So we got them packed into the car and off we went to Baltimore Washingtom International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

And what the hell kind of name is that for an airport? If my brother followed the sign from the beginning he'd be home by the time he got to the end of it. It must take gallons of paint just to touch up that sonofabitch.

ANYway.

We get to the airport and while we're waiting to check their bag, we notice the Departures board. And just like that, their 7:55 flight is delayed to 9:09. Well...at least they don't have to worry if the line slows down. But it's still only about 6:15. We get the bag checked and my brother decides that he's hungry, so we start looking around for a place to eat. This is easier than it used to be at BWITMA because they've FINALLY put in places on this side of the security checkpoint. We decided to stop in at the Bill Bateman's Bistro.

Our initial greeting wasn't the warmest, but I marked that down to the fact that this woman suddenly had three parties to seat at once. For all that, it wasn't especially busy in there.

By now, you probably realize that I don't write stories that begin with "We went to a restaurant" and end with "and it was delicious!" What you're waiting for is the next part, where something goes wrong and I wind up writing to the Customer Service department. So I'll let my email to them tell some of this. I used their "Online Comment Card" so they already have the date, time and location:

While waiting for a delayed flight, I stopped in with my brother and sister-in-law for something to eat. The waiter was friendly and efficient and we have no complaints there.

Shortly after we started eating, we noticed two gentlemen at a table nearby looking at something. It turned out that they were watching a mouse scampering around their immediate area. As we looked around, we realized that there were actually several mice running around the dining area where we were sitting. We counted at least five individual animals. We asked to speak to the manager and she was reportedly nowhere to be found. We told the waiter that we were leaving and would not be paying for our meal, although we did tip him for his efforts. He commented that he didn't really blame us, although his overall attitude appeared to be more as though he was resigned to the situation rather than surprised or upset by it. This, in effect, was my brother's last impression of the Baltimore area: a delayed flight and a rodent-infested restaurant.

It was actually a little worse than this. My brother got really upset and started swearing, telling the waiter that his appetite had been "frigged up" (yeah, I don't know either) and that "I'm not gonna eat this fuckin' shit. I'll give you [the waiter] some money, because you did your job. But I'm not paying for this shit." By "nowhere to be found" I meant that the manager, we soon learned, left the restaurant and nobody knew where she was headed. Back to my note:

I realize that airport restaurants don't necessarily depend on a lot of repeat customers (who, by definition, are transient) and therefore probably don't feel required to care about the people who pass through. However, this is a small, local chain which presumably still has relatively centralized control. Therefore, as someone who lives in the area, I'm inclined to generalize my experience to the other restaurants in the chain, and I'm going to have a very hard time returning, or recommending Bill Bateman's to anyone.

Yeah, I know I was baiting them there, a little bit. (Heh. See what I did there?)

I thank you for your attention and, while I'm not begging for an apology or a refund (as I said, we didn't pay for our partially-eaten meal), I would welcome your comments regarding this situation.

I read once that when you write a customer complaint, you should spell out specifically what you want out of your transaction. I didn't really want much other than acknowledgment by this point, especially since the waiter was so blasé and the manager was apparently on the run.

A couple of days later I got a letter from Lee Glowacki, the Area Manager for Bill Bateman's Bistro Corporate Restaurants, via US Mail. The letter was kind of long, so I'm going to cut a little and paraphrase a little.

They noted that the airport location is a franchise and that while they are not directly responsible for this location, "we will do everything possible to see that your concerns with them are handled appropriately." They stressed that all feedback is invaluable, and that "excellent service, outstanding food and drinks, in a clean comfortable restaurant, is what we strive for."

"We are disappointed," Lee wrote, "at our obvious lack of attention to your needs and for the staff giving you the impression we do not care." There was a promise to follow up with the Franchise Owners (capitalization his) concerning my experience. He then assured me that it was their "corporate policy, if there is ever a guest satisfaction issue that the manager on duty should be made aware of the problem, and whenever possible be corrected immediately. Obviously that did not happen with you." He closed the letter with an offer to bring it in to their Glen Burnie location for a $20 credit. 

So there was a pretty quick response to the problem, and while it wasn't something the restaurant could have handled immediately as such, that they made the offer despite my telling them that I didn't really want anything other than a response, goes a long way, for me. I don't know that I'm going to pop back into the BWITMA location just to see whether or not they've gotten rid of the rodents, but it was good to get the response, a promise of actual action AND a coupon that basically asks for another chance.

Next up: My call to 7-Eleven and More Coupons I Didn't Really Want.

Roller Coaster Weekend

Jackson Lucas: [after being revived] I can't see anything! Am I blind?
Ned: Good news is you're not blind. Bad news is you're dead.
Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles: Makes blind seem like a walk in the park, doesn't it?

—Pushing Daisies, "Pigeon" (10/24/07)

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Yow. A few minutes to breathe, finally. So of course I'm burning them up with the likes of you.

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind. Even when I thought it was going to slow down (like it was SUPPOSED to), it didn't.

The Pig Roast was a lot of fun, despite the rain that drove everyone indoors for a little while, but we rallied and had one of my best pigs ever. Unfortunately, dealing with the rain and some of its effects on the party as a whole (notably, getting all the food moved inside) meant that I lost over an hour of mingling and socializing. So if I didn't get to chitchat with you much (or at all), my sincere apologies and I hope you had a good time. Even if I did get to chitchat, I hope you had fun as well, but at least I have a better handle on how your evening went.

Because my brother was in town, he and his wife were using my bedroom. GF was in Wee One's bed (Wee One was with her father), and I was on the sofa. This doesn't bother me specifically, since I tend to fall asleep on the sofa roughly once a week, watching old movies on TCM. It's quite the comfy couch, if you ask me. This season we're using the Idemo Dark Blue slipcover. Anyway.

Sunday morning and the phone is ringing at about 7:15. Amazingly, I'm not hung over, but I did get to bed pretty late and I'm just a bit too groggy to get to it in time. A half-hour later there's a knock on the door. I answer it and it's GF's parents. Her father asks me, "You know why we're here, right?"

It takes a second and then the light goes on. His mother, GF's grandmother, has died.

This wasn't entirely unexpected, but you still don't like to hear it. For that matter, I'm sure they didn't enjoy saying it, either. GF was very close to her grandmother, so this was naturally a huge blow to her. The three of them left right away.

Now, our plans for the day involved going to Washington DC to see some extremely historical objects and some very Federal buildings. This was pretty much up in the air now. GF called a couple of hours later telling us to go to DC anyway, without her.

Our DC tour was rather whirlwind, but we saw a lot of stuff, considering. The Museum of American History is still closed for renovations, so my plan to follow up on Friday's theme was shot to hell, since I couldn't show them the original Star-Spangled Banner. But we spent some time cruising around the Capitol Hill area, then we stopped in the Natural History museum. We had lunch in the Atrium Cafe (I highly recommend the burrito). Then we walked past the Washington Monument to the World War II memorial. I'd never seen that before so it was new to all of us. From there we walked along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial. Up the other side of the Reflecting Pool to the Vietnam Memorial. I felt badly about passing up the Korea memorial but time was getting to be a factor for us. By the time we got back home, darkness had about fallen and GF had made all the necessary plans with her father. She still had some details to hammer out on Monday, so we still wouldn't see much of her then.

Monday was my brother's last day in town, so I set up another quickie tour of the city, starting with breakfast from the Fractured Prune. They were on the South Beach diet when the came up; now I'm not so sure anymore. It may have morped into the South Park Diet.

Our tour started in Hampden, since my brother wanted to see "something funky". The first thing I thought of was the flamingo in front of the Cafe Hon. We cruised the neighborhood a little bit and I pointed out a few details. (Try explaining the Miracle on 34th Street to someone when it's 80 degrees out.) From there we went down Falls Road to get into the downtown area. This is a great way to go if you're touring people around, since you spend so much time on a road that does NOT allow you to believe that you're so deeply within city limits. We stopped for lunch at Lexington Market, which is only "World Famous" on the signs out front. My brother had a sausage from Polock Johnny's, which he liked enough that I now have to bring a box of them down next time I visit.

From Lexington we headed past the Inner Harbor (since we'd already seen it), cruised through Little Italy and stopped in Fells Point for a bit. We poked though the stores and stopped into Maggie Moo's for some ice cream cones (yeah yeah, I know, Vaccaro's, but my S-I-L was insistent on this one: Waffle cone, butter pecan). MM's has ice cream that's flavored just like Twizzlers, by the way. My curiosity got the better of me and I had a taste. For what it's worth, it does taste just like Twizzlers, which is why I'd never get an entire cone full of the stuff. We also spent some time in Sound Garden, where I bought a T-Shirt, since I'd had a minor ice cream mishap, and at Ten Thousand Villages, where I picked up a couple of baubles. More on those in a near-future post.

Back in the car and we cruised through Highlandtown and grabbed I-95 to get home. On the way I stopped at a supermarket and picked up some fixin's to make crab cakes. May I say I did a fine job, especially for a non-native.

And then it was to the airport, but there's a new story in that and this post has been in draft for far too long.

Sometimes It Is About the Barbecue

Homer: Look kids! I just got my party invitiations back from the printers.
Lisa: [reading the invitation] "Come to Homer's BBBQ. The extra B is for BYOBB."
Bart: What's that extra B for?
Homer: It's a typo.

—The Simpsons, "Lisa the Vegetarian" (10/15/95)

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A couple of nights ago, we were trying to figure out what, if anything, we were going to do for dinner tonight. Now, several weeks ago the neighbors brought home a half a cow they'd purchased from a farm somewhere north of here, possibly in Delaware. In among all that half-cow was a nice-sized brisket. We'd all been pretty hot to put that brisket on the smoker, so we decided that today would be an ideal day. The three of us, plus the four of them (the baby doesn't count when you're calculating supper), means that everyone would be pretty well-fed on this thing.

Well. Somewhere between Friday and today, the event started to balloon into something else again. This, by the way, is through no fault of our own. S & B invited a bunch of friends and family along. I didn't mind it as such, but it was kind of funny to see plans for seven adults turn into 20 in the space of about 36 hours.

I put together a dry rub (my brother's recipe; I fully admit it) and started the brisket on the smoker shortly after noon (counting on a 4:00ish serving time). Around 2:00 I put some pork ribs in the oven. At 3:15 I put some Italian sausage on my Binford 16000 grill, and about four pounds of peppers & onions, along with some olive oil, in a wok on the grill's side burner.

Is there a better smell in the world than peppers and onions just starting to cook? Probably, but not when you're in the moment.

3:30: Ribs come out of the oven. By 3:45 they're on the grill and drenched lovingly basted with barbecue sauce. The sausages are tossed into the wok. The brisket comes out of the smoker and is sliced up. It's amazing. By 4:00 everything on my side of the fence is done. Just for kicks I've also skewered some shrimp I found in the freezer and stuck that on the grill with a little BBQ sauce as well. I didn't really like the way the shrimp came out but everyone liked it, so what do I know.

S, on the other side, put corn on the cob on her grill, along with the requisite burgers & dogs, and a last-minute addition of kielbasa. She also made cole slaw, potato salad and a bowtie pasta/shrimp salad. And baked beans.

This all feels like a warmup for my annual pig roast, does it not?

Getting Into a Bad Food Habit

Dr. Pomatter: I want to talk to you, somewhere outside of here. Maybe we can have a coffee or something?
Jenna: I can't have coffee, it's on the bad food list you gave to me. What kind of doctor are you?

—Waitress (2007)

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It seems as though I write about dining out a lot, lately. It's not really the case (this is my fifth post in 2008 that has anything to do with food), but it just feels that way.

On Thursday night I got home from work kind of late and not especially in the mood to make dinner, so I suggested that we just get some kind of takeout. GF's suggestion was that we walk up to Angelina's. I'd been there once before about five years ago, and remembered it as a pretty positive experience: good food, good service; the worst thing you could say was that the place was pretty crowded. But they were accommodating and my dining partner and I had a decent time.

Well, as the saying goes, that was then and this is now.

The restaurant went through a change of ownership in mid-2005, and may have done so again a few months back. I'm not especially clear on this; I remember seeing "Public Auction" signs and such not long ago. At any rate, the only thing that's improved is the décor. Everything else has taken a nosedive.

We walked in and the place was nearly empty. We were greeted by a young lady who asked us "how many?" and then asked us if we had a reservation. You couldn't get a good checker game going on but this chick was worried about reservations. Um, no. We didn't know we needed them. She asked us if a booth was okay, and we were fine with that.

A "booth" turned out to be one of the circular banquettes in the corner of the room. Three of us at a table for six, and they never took away the extra setups. It took forever to get service and the food wasn't especially good, although I'll give them points for the mussels appetizer I got: about two dozen of them in a butter/garlic sauce, and they weren't bad. But the bread looked like a sub roll that had been cut up (and had started to go stale, besides); my penne with meat sauce was too sweet for a meat sauce; GF's chicken, described as having a marsala-based sauce with mozzarella on top and linguine below, was kind of flavorless, and our garlic bread was little more than the same bread that was already on the table, but the slices were toasted and tasted as though perhaps someone had walked past it with a clove of garlic.

The sad fact is, we could have walked in the other direction, to Valentino's, and gotten a better meal for half the price. Angelina's has fallen far, and its only saving grace is that the prior owners sold the crabcake concession to a different company, so it's not these guys who are doing that end of the business. But overall it's kind of a shame. 

That's One Broken Fast

Hyacinth: When people ask you what you have for breakfast, don't tell them cornflakes. You eat an exclusive european high fibre breakfast.
Richard Bucket: Who recommended it to you?
Hyacinth: The Dutch Royal Family.

—Keeping Up Appearances, "A Celebrity for the Barbeque" (9/19/93)

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This past Sunday GF and I, and our next-door neighbors, found ourselves miraculously without children. So we decided to go out for brunch.

Our original destination was an Irish pub down in Fell's Point by the name of Slainte (say SLAWN-tcha, dammit), on Thames Street. I'd been there before for breakfast-y food, and looked forward to returning. About midway down, however, the neighbors (in whose car we were riding) started talking about another place they hadn't been in awhile. So they made a mid-course correction and we found ourselves on North Patterson Park Road, in front of a place called Morning Edition.

I'll say this about Morning Edition: it gets some interesting mixed reviews on both Citysearch and in the City Paper, and they're all exactly right. Bottom line: the food is great but don't count on speedy service.

The restaurant is festooned with assorted rustic-like stuff either placed on shelves or just plain attached to the wall. Nothing--and I mean NOTHING--mounted to the wall is hung with any sense of "level" to it. Even the big round Coca Cola sign at the back has the top of the bottle tipped ever-so-slightly to the right. The floors are hardwood and starting to decay, and the furniture doesn't match. I rather like this last detail but I couldn't tell you why. GF would never have it in the house, though.

The male half of the neighbor couple tried to order his breakfast and found himself rebuked by the waitress:  "Don't you know it's Ladies First? See that, you tried to be fast, now you gonna be last."

Our meals were served with a bunch of fresh fruit to the sides and a Tootsie Pop nestled somewhere in the middle. GF ordered scrapple but I didn't make her move out of the house because, when in Rome etc. But I wasn't having any of that. She also had some French Toast. I did biscuits and gravy. My sausage gravy is better, methinks, but the scrambled eggs were very good. Our female neighbor ordered the seafood omelette, which looked nothing short of amazing. She assured us that this was, indeed, the case, but she wasn't sharing. 

Afterwards we hit a few assorted antique places, looking for something that might catch our eye, but while we struck out in that arena, we found a few places that seem to be worth re-visiting, so they're filed away in our heads for now.

A Family Affair

Jack Gallo: I believe a toast is in order. To the bride, to the groom, and to God's warped sense of humor. First the duck-billed platypus, now this. I'm kidding, of course. Drink up.

—Just Shoot Me!, "The Odd Couple: Part 2" (5/25/99)

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As mentioned earlier, my sister's wedding reception took place at the Milleridge Inn, which is one of the better places to do such things. But more on that anon.

My father had arranged for a group rate at the Huntington Hilton, but unfortunately we couldn't get that rate because of when we'd called. GF tried to get through to a reservations supervisor, but when she was put on hold and left there, she hung up and didn't bother calling back. Hey, if they don't need our business, then c'est la vie. Instead we booked a room through Travelocity at the Bethpage Motel. This place had the advantage of being central to nearly every destination we had for the weekend, plus it was a hell of a lot cheaper than the Hilton. In fact, it was about $35 cheaper than the group rate for the Hilton. We got in around midnight and there was a little confusion because somehow they'd gotten under the impression that we were supposed to arrive on Wednesday night (and, in not showing up, had somehow cancelled), but they managed to accommodate us anyway, although we had to wait a few minutes for a room to be made ready.

For us, motel rooms are little more than crashpads. We're not spending a lot of time in them, so as long as they're clean I'm going to be happy. And this place was a little older but still rather nice.

Friday morning, I busted Daughter out of school and took her back to the hotel, where everyone got changed for the wedding. The wedding was at St. Joseph's Church in Babylon, only steps away from Argyle Lake Park. Argyle Lake, incidentally, is a VERY popular place for bridal parties to do their pictures, but my sister went elsewhere.

We got to the church at about 3:15 for a 3:30 service, and it turned out that the clergy were in there still doing the Stations of the Cross. They finished up and we moved almost directly into the ceremony. The wedding was not a full mass, which was okay by me. I hae to woder, however, if the only reason they didn't do a full mass was because they couldn't do one. No kidding: if you believe in transubstantiation, how can you eat the body of Christ on a Friday during Lent?

The bridesmaids, six of them, plus the maid of honor (my other sister), all wore strapless gowns in bright red (think Valentine's Heart red). The guys wore tuxes and, of course, looked like they'd never worn one before. Their part of the procession had a vaguely Mafia feel about it. But my sister looked terrific (natch) and she and her groom clearly had fun during the ceremony itself.

The Milleridge Inn is actually a collection of buildings. Some of them are shops and a couple of them are banquet halls. We were in the Milleridge Cottage, which features a hall and, at one end, a circular atrium that's glassed in. It's like a glass carriage house (if you go to the link, this room is at the bottom center of the photos). But the Carriage House, in fact, is a different structure on the grounds.

GF learned that when you go to these things on Long Island, the Cocktail Hour is where the real eating is at. This is a partial list of what was available (partial because I can't remember everything):

• Carving Station with London Broil and about four different sauces to put on top
• Penne a la vodka, which was just as good as I remember from the last time I was there
• Tortellini Alfredo
• Sliced tomatoes and fresh mozzarella balls (about 1" diameter)
• Chicken Teryaki
• Beef with peppers and onions
• Eggplant parmigiana, shaped like manicotti
• Clams/mussels/shrimp marinara
• Calamari
• Assorted fruits and crudite (hey--who let in all those empty vitamins?)
• About a half-dozen different cheeses

This was all at tables around the room. Then they had the roving waitstaff with:

• Mini egg rolls
• Pigs in blankets
• Mini quiches
• Bacon-wrapped scallops
• Pizza bagels
• Skewered chicken
• Fried Shrimp

All, of course, with the open bar. I had to explain a Vodka Collins to the bartender but otherwise everything went smoothly there.

The main event was pretty typical but still kind of fun. Wee One spent pretty much the whole evening on the dance floor. Daughter did not, since she was a little mopey because she was probably the only 16 year old there. It was a collection of three basic groups: Older folks (Dad's friends), young adults and small children. Having said that, I did make her get up and dance with me. And she didn't even die of embarrassment. Go figure!

One Lives Up to Hype, One Doesn't

Xander Harris: You are looking at the new local distributor for Boost Bars. "The natural food bar that provides a nutritional energy boost for active, health-conscience people." Want one?
Willow Rosenberg: No. Thanks. Those things usually taste... kind of tasteless. And then leave a bad after-tastelessness.

—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The I in Team" (2/8/00)

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A couple of nights ago, GF and I went with another couple for an evening of Dinner and a Movie. Dinner was at Pazo, down in the Fells Point area. Pazo took the City Paper's Best of Baltimore award in 2005 for Best New Restaurant, but frankly I think the writers were taken in by the décor, the overall trendiness of the place (where to be SEEN, baby!), and the Truly Hot Shit reputation of the owners.

Make no mistake; there's a lot to like about this place. I'm relatively new to the Tapas thing, but I definitely enjoyed everything we had, which included a kind of smoked ham with pears; veal & pork empanadas with salsa verde on the side; shrimp with garlic; a fried calamari dish; sautéed broccoli; and some potato croquettes.

We also ordered entrées. One thing that's cool about this place is that you can order half-portions of the entrées, if you've been picking at the tapas all evening, and we took this option. GF and the woman from the other couple (I'll call her S) both ordered something listed on the menu as Saffon "Gnocchi": one with the eggplant and the other with the lamb sauce. Unfortunately nobody really noticed the scare quotes around the word "Gnocchi" until it hit the table. S's "gnocchi" was underdone. Not so much that it was crunchy but enough that it still had that doughy taste. Between that and the fact that it wasn't actually gnocchi, she decided to send it back and order something else. Her alternate selection was a Bistek Catalonia, which is a "hanger" steak (skirt? I'm not familiar with that term) with a romescu sauce and tiny red potatoes. Medium rare, please.

Meanwhile, S's husband had ordered a Marcona Almond Crusted Merluza and I had a pork confit cannelloni. The Merluza (a white fish) wasn't bad but it was rather sparse-looking on the plate. Also, by the time it got to the table we wondered what the straw-colored food to one side was. We really couldn't identify it as either the wilted Swiss chard or the parsnip purée, so we're still at a loss.

GF, who is trying to cut her carb intake a little, started fishing the vegetables out of her "gnocchi" (which was completely cooked). This started a little bit of worry in our waitress because of the other problem. The single cannelloni was a bit sparse, and the hanger steak?

The hanger steak was--I swear to god--absolutely flavorless. The only thing you tasted when you took a bite was the bit of char on the outside. Otherwise there was no flavor at all to that meat. In addition, they'd put the Tiny Red Potatoes directly into the grill, so they wound up way overdone. But at this point she figured that sending back a second meal would be tacky. 

At the end of the meal, S ordered a slice of Chocolate Espresso Cake. I had a pear gelato. Our dates shared with us. The manager sent over some dessert wines gratis because of the gnocchi thing. I have to say this: the red wine they chose had an absolutely synergistic effect on the espresso cake. It was amazing how good they tasted together.

So as far as Pazo, stick to the tapas and you'll be OK. And for crying out loud, don't order one of their specialty drinks and then freak when you get the check. They're pricey.

For the movie, we trundled on over to the Charles Theater to join in their Alfred Hitchcock retrospective. This particular night they were showing Rebecca, one of his earlier films and, I think, his first produced in the USA. It's definitely his first with David O. Selznick. It's a great film with Lawrence Olivier, Judith Anderson (before she became a Dame), and Joan Fontaine. This film is done now, but there are still plenty of others left. If you're a Hitchcock fan, you should get down there soon! Don't forget to put lots of butter-flavored grease on your popcorn.

Disastrous Fun

Bleedin' Gums Murphy: Then there was the time I guest-starred on "The Cosby Show".
[Flashback to a Cosby Show episode]
Cliff Huxtable: Kids, this is your Grandpa Murphy.
Rudy Huxtable: But we've got three grandpas already.
Cliff Huxtable: This one's the famous jazz musician.
Rudy Huxtable: Ah, they all are.
Cliff Huxtable: Oh,oh-oh! You see, the kids these days, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage. With the hippin' and the hoppin' and the bippin' and the boppin', they don't know what the jazz is all about. Y'see, jazz is like Jello pudding... no, that's not it. Jazz is like Kodak film... no, that's not right neither. I've got it, jazz is like the new Coke - it'll be around forever.
[Back in the present]
Bleedin' Gums Murphy: Sigh.

—The Simpsons, "'Round Springfield" (4/30/95)

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This evening, GF and I were at our neighbors' house for dinner. The husband, B, seemed to be a little out of sorts, so his wife suggested that he and I go out for a little while to have a few drinks. Hey! You don't have to ask me twice. Him, either. So he changed his shirt, I changed my shoes, and we met back at my house to head out somewhere.

Except...I couldn't find my wallet. Which was odd, because I got home relatively late, so I hadn't been all over the house. There were only a few places it could have been, and it didn't appear to be in any of them. I went out to the car and looked through my bookbag, the trunk, under the front seat...nothing.

GF suggested I take her ATM card and just get cash from the joint account and be done with it. So I got her card and got in his car.

"Maybe I left it on my desk?" I mused. "Do you mind if we see if maybe a custodian is still floating around Lake Clifton?" He didn't mind, so we headed down Harford Road toward the Lake Clifton campus, where my office is located.

Before we got there, he spotted a drive-through ATM for the bank where he keeps his account, so he pulled in and got some money, then we were on our way. B likes to test the limits of his cars, so we were doing some fun maneuvers at interesting rates of speed. "I don't usually get to do this, because usually I've got the kids," he explained.

We got to the school and, it being very close to 9:00 and looking more or less deserted, it didn't look good. Just before we were about to give up on getting into the building, I spotted the silhouette of a custodian. Better still, it was one of the building's custodians whom I know. (This is a BIG school, so I don't know all of the maintenance people.) I explained the situation to her and she agreed to let me in and walked me up to the office. No dice.

There's a certain peace in knowing that it's not there, specifically. At least you've eliminated it. Especially with a three-day weekend ahead; you don't want that "maybe" hanging over your head. I threw in the towel at that point and we headed for another ATM to get money for me.

B stopped his car at a gas station on Greenmount and 33rd Street. I told him that I was going to just walk up to the ATM at the Bank of Americawhile he filled up. "Be careful," he told me. Hey, it's Baltimore: what can happen? As it turned out, I could forget the PIN for GF's card, but a quick phone call solved that one. I got in the car and off we went.

We didn't have a destination in mind, and since I'm not really familiar with the drinking establishments at the north end of town, I wasn't much help. However, I did remember seeing a place called Holiday House which I'd heard positive things about. So we headed up there and went inside. The sign out front promised a band called "Rain Dogs". 

Holiday House, it turns out, is almost nice enough to be called a "dive bar". We each got a beer and we sat at a table, sipping beer and listening to the Rain Dogs. This band is a bunch of guys who have about ten years or so on me, and it wasn't clear to me why they were playing here, or anywhere. It's not as though they were bad—in fact they weren't bad at all—but their demeanor was such that they expected to be treated as just so much background noise. So they'd play, for instance, the old Delbert McClinton song, "Givin' it Up For Your Love" and barely react to the smattering of applause they received. Then they'd just launch into the next mid-1970s number. We finished our drinks and got out.

B then suggested that we go to a place called The Haven, which he described as a Jazz club. I agreed, and off we went. When we got there, I felt kind of dumb. The Haven (actually, it's called the New Haven Lounge but the sign out front just reads "The Haven") is located in the Northwood Shopping Center. Between the McDonald's and the pharmacy in there, I've been in that plaza a hundred times, and I never knew this place was there. Before we went in, though, B started checking himself: he couldn't find the money he'd gotten from the ATM earlier. Mentally he retraced his steps and deduced that it must have fallen out of his jacket pocket at the Holiday House. He took this with a gentle good humor, though: "Oh well. Let me just go to the ATM over there."

The first ATM wasn't working right; the touch screen wasn't reacting correctly. The one next to it took his card but then never gave him the "enter your PIN" screen. After an interminable period, it finally spit his card back out. "Never mind," I said. "I've got fifty bucks, and we both have credit cards on us. We'll be OK."

We went in and of course there's a cover charge tonight (they don't do one every night, as I understand it). We order drinks and hit a table.

It's clear that this place is way different from the last one. People are here specifically to enjoy the live music. They're watching the band, which is a combo of guitar, drums, sax and organ. And I'm not talking cheesy little Yamaha electronic keyboard; this is a full-size, wooden-case, no-fooling-around jobbie. There was very little chatter going on in the audience; they were all paying attention to the music. They applauded after each solo and when the songs were over. And where the other band, once upon a time, would have been desperate for attention and is now grateful for it, this band (whose name I didn't catch, dammit) couldn't give a goddamn if anyone else was in the room. They sounded, and looked, as though they'd been freed by the music. They were fun to watch and fun to listen to.

So in the end, B lost his money and I lost my wallet, but we both had us some fun and got out for awhile.

And, of course, despite the (at least) ten-minute search before we left, I found my wallet in the house no more than thirty seconds after I arrived back home, I kid you not.

Blue Sea, I'm Ho-oome

Casey McCall: So, the name of this restaurant is Tony Anthony's... Anthony Anthony. In Cuba, Ricky Ricardo would've been Ricardo Ricardo.

--Sports Night, "Small Town" (1/12/99)

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My boss has been wanting to take me out to dinner for awhile. This is something he does a couple of times a year, and we usually have a very pleasant time, even if he does tend to deviate into shop talk. He brought it up a few weeks ago, prefacing it with something we could do when GF was past the surgery.

She's been having some complications, but we decided to take a shot at going last night. So early this week he sent me an email that said we had reservations and that dress was casual. And that was all I knew. Later in the week he told me that we were originally going to Chameleon Cafe, but he didn't like the time that we got for our reservation, so he arranged for a new reservation at a different place. Thus it was that at 7:00 we found ourselves leaving the car with the valets at the Blue Sea Grill on Water (heh) Street.

This restaurant is blue. I mean, it's BLUE, everywhere. Blue carpeting, blue paint, blue lighting...the wall closest to our table was a mosaic of varied shades of blue tiles. This, I think, is what it's like to be taking Viagra. The intent, as I understand it, is to give you that whole "undersea" feeling. They did that at the Finding Nemo ride in Epcot, too.

Actually, the Blue Sea Grill, while indeed blue, is also quite a nice place. It's one of those restaurants where the waitstaff rides that very-helpful-without-being-obsequious line with great ability. We had fried calamari and an oyster cerviche for appetizers, and then we all shared green beans and a lobster macaroni & cheese as side dishes. Frankly I couldn't tell you whether the oysters, or the bed of very thinly sliced vegetables, which had been tossed in a light vinegary sauce, were tastier. For the entree I had the halibut, GF had some shrimp ravioli which was very good. My boss had crabcakes and his date had a seafood paella which looked great. (We didn't share anything between couples.) The waitress caught part of our conversation, which included the fact that GF's birthday was this week, so they gave her a dessert of pineapple upside-down cake, topped with coconut ice cream. We all had some of that as we sipped coffee and tea.

On the way out, we all took a peek into the lobster tank. We'd been told that there was a six-pound lobster in there. At this restaurant, that's a lobster that they'd sell for over $150. Let me tell you, six pounds is a pretty impressive lobster. I think I'd have to broil it because steaming would take too long. And I'd have to share it with everyone else at the table, because otherwise you're talking about eating an entire stick of melted butter along with it, right?

At any rate, we had a very nice time and a great meal, and it was a nice change of pace to just get out of the house for social reasons. 

What's the Collective Term for Internet Nerds?

Dan Rydell: Come out with me.
Casey McCall: Where?
Dan: El Perro Fumando.
Casey: "The Smoking Dog"?
Dan: Yes.
Casey: Why?
Dan: If you wear something blue, you get $2 off a giant blue margarita.
Casey: You know, I make a pretty good living. I can actually afford to wear what I want and pay full price.
Dan: I'm not promoting the economic upside as much as I am the opportunity to drink something giant and blue.

—Sports Night, "Dear Louise" (11/10/98)

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I'm still not positive that I'm going to be there (dammit), but don't let that stop you from enjoying...

What: The October/November AKA Octovember Blogger Happy Hour.

With: Your hosts! Danielle and Charissa.

Who: Baltimore Bloggers. Any Bloggers. Blog Readers. People Known By Acronyms on Other People's Blogs. Me and You and Everyone We Know.

Where: Holy Frijoles, 908 W. 36th St., Hampden

When: Friday, November 2nd, 6pm.

Why: Beers. Bloggers. More beers. More Bloggers. Margaritas. What’s not to love?

Non-members of the ruling class welcome.

It's STILL a dumb argument. Go and have fun.