Dolce far niente

My sweet ever-lovin' is out of town for the long weekend. As my brother Matthew said, those college reunion people in New Haven have a sense of humor.

She had a hard time getting to the Northeast - her plane was essentially 14 hours late (flight cancelled, waitlisted until the next morning, last person loaded before the flight took off) but that is her story, not mine.

My story is more prosaic. I worked on Friday, and then came home and had a relaxing hour or so before I met an old friend for dinner at our local Indian Fusion restaurant (Indika). We had a good dinner, talking smart and enjoying the food. We started at the bar with a martini (Bombay Sapphire, Dry, Up, Olives) and switched to a New Zealand Sauv Blanc. Can't go wrong there.

The food, as usual, was very good, and the waiter was very patient. For some reason, I have friends who like to try the patience of waiters. I always have to tip extra because of that. But they were very good to us. 

We had two appetizers, and the split on order of their tasting menu. Clever! we didn't eat too much, but it did give us a chance to finish two bottle of wine. The food spanned the range from goat brain marsala (I feel smarter already) to beet soup.

After the dinner we walked across the street to the Avant Garden. You really do have to love the name of that bar. I have walked by this bar many, many times. It is an old house with a courtyard in the back. We stumbled into a Pirate Party, where you had to pay something ($10? I don't know) to get into the house. The weather was nice, so we stayed outside.

The courtyard was nice, the beer was cheap (well, Robin paid, so it was really cheap for me) and we were having a nice conversation with the Detering Family Side Show set up. This was a small, probably unrelated, four member busking troop.

And they were really quite entertaining. Were they the best jugglers in the world? No! Were they the best fire eaters in the world? No! Were they the best knife throwers in the world? NO!!!

But when you combine them all together, it was quite entertaining.

It all added up to a late night.

And as fate would have it, an early morning. I was dragged out of bed early by a strange constitution and a dog ready to walk.

Dolce far niente, indeed.