Saturday, January 22, 2005.
Biscuits. Darryl's Deli. In Good Company.
I opened my eyes to two offers to dine with me. Mary Leigh wanted me to take her to breakfast at the Abita Cafe. Mary Ann thought it would be nice to have lunch, just the two of us, since last night's dinner a deux turned into a threesome.
We procrastinated long enough that the first one became untenable. Instead, I made a batch of buttermilk biscuits and fried some bacon, a menu Mary Leigh found acceptable. Whoops! No shortening. I used butter instead, which changes the color of the biscuits (makes them a noticeable yellow) and also makes them tender to an almost cake-like consistency. But ML said they were the best she'd had in a long time, so that worked.
I ate just one of the biscuits, but it filled me up more than I wanted to be given lunch was less than two hours away. I like that I get stuffed faster, but I also know there is such a thing as stretching one's appetite back to where it was.
Mary Ann wanted to go to Darryl's Deli for lunch. We split a roast beef poor boy there; she thought it was too dry, but that's because Darryl knows to make mine with less than his usual amount of gravy. Which is too much, if you ask me. But I should have asked her. For reasons I can't explain, we also had a half-dozen hot tamales.
We have reached a point in our marriage where business and logistical considerations are so overwhelming that it's what we instinctively talk about. We intended to get away from that and discuss pleasanter things, but as usual it all got back to money. She wants to start investing in real estate. I want to pay the tuition bill, and then see.
Mary Ann was actually thinking dinner later, but instead we went to the movies. More than half the reason for that was to taxi Jude to the gathering point for the nights socializing with the gang, but Mary Ann wanted to see the movie "In Good Company." Dennis Quaid (who is looking old but still great) plays a first-class ad sales guy who gets bumped from his position by a know-nothing upstart who came in when the company got bought. Then the upstart takes up with his daughter, played by the very hot Scarlett Johannssen (who I have been admiring in Esquire this month). A lot of the themes resonated with me--Quaid's character is about my age--but ultimately I though the movie ended on a flat note.
I ate way too much popcorn.
