>I Didn’t Get Raptured As Much As I Got Sangria’d…

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…which, in my mind, at least, is a much better thing.

Our Second Annual Cinco de Never Again Party was quite the success. The name of the party, Cinco de Never, comes from a few years back, when a group of friends had gathered somewhere and Carlos announced to the group–without my knowledge–that he wanted to have a Cinco de Mayo party and make some traditional Mexican food. Everyone was keen on the idea and then….it never happened. Carlos simply forgot all about it.

Cut to the following year and someone asked me if Carlos was going to come through with his Cinco de Mayo party and I replied, “Make it Cinco de Never cuz it’s never gonna happen.” And a tradition was born.

The first CdN was last year and quite successful, and this year was more of the same. I loaded up on Tequila and beer and wine and Tequila, while Carlos made Tamales, Pollo con Poblanos and Marinated Flank Steak with Grilled Onions. He also made Coffee Flan and Coconut Flan. I made a Pinto Bean and Corn Salad with Cumin-Lime Vinaigrette, Salmon Ceviche with Peaches and Jalapenos, Shrimp Ceviche with Spanish Olives and Capers, and, together Carlos and I made 75 Chalupas with Chorizo and Queso Fresco.

It was crazy, er, loco.

And then I found a recipe for Sangria, which called for Hibiscus Water, which is a traditional Mexican beverage and something Carlos had as a kid. You take dried Hibiscus flowers and boil them into a kind of tart–think really tart lemonade–beverage. You add sugar and drink. Well, I added sugar, six bottles of Chardonnay, a bottle of Brandy a half bottle of Triple Sec and some orange juice and it was nirvana. It made so much and I worried about having too much, but it was the drink of choice on Saturday.

It was, yes, I’m gonna say it, rapturous. All in all, rapturous.

We had nearly thirty people at Chez Smallville, out of the deck and scattered throughout the house. A great blend of good friends who all know one another, and some new friends who fit right in. It was a Sangria-Tamale-Chalupa kinda day. And it was spectacular.

I had such good intentions of taking pictures of the food and the friends and that rapturous Sangria, but then I got Sangria’d and Tamale’d and Chalupa’d and Ceviche’d and forgot all about it. Maybe next year, at Cinco de Never, Numero Tres?

>Light Posting Ahead

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Carlos and i will be having our Second Annual Cinco de Never party this Saturday, so posting will be light, and preplanned, for the next couple of days.

We have Chalupas to fill, and Ceviches to make, and Guacamole and Salsa and Green Chile Salsa, to prep. There are Margaritas to make–and my special Bob-a-rita, too–and Sangria to create, and Flan to bake. There are rooms to clean and dishes to set out and flowers to get and music to ready.

Plus, there’s that whole Rapture thing set up to ruin the day. I friended God on Facebook, and sent him….her[?]…a private message asking that the Rapture be put off for a while since we had planned this day long before the announcement of the End Times was made. I mean, had I known, I would have had the party last weekend.

Anyhoo, I may not get much of a chance to comment over the next couple of days, but I will play catch up after the weekend.

Happy Cinco de Never, y’all!

>Overheard At Work

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Co-worker: Did you see where Oprah interviewed James Frey again today?
Me: No. But didn’t she ream him for lying in his book, and, more importantly, making her look bad, over four years ago?
Co-worker: Yeah, but then she had an epiphany…..
Me: You mean ‘ratings ploy’.
Co-worker: Whatever. She said she was in the shower and she heard a voice telling her to interview him again.
Me: That wasn’t a voice. It was Gayle, scrubbing her back.

And…………………………..scene.

>All The News From Smallville

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Well, Carlos’ birthday festivities have finally wound down. Like any good queen, he doesn’t celebrate just once, but often, for several days, each passing year.

Last Wednesday, the day before his actual birthday, Round-The-Way-Gays, Neal and David, took us out to dinner to celebrate. A fabulous meal, some great cocktails, and the usual rip-roaring conversation. I had made Carlos a birthday card that said, on the front: Happy Birthday……..Now Back  To Me….and gave him grief, when David and Neal presented him with a gift bag, er, bag’o’gifts, saying he wasn’t allowed to open it until his birthday.

The Little Boy Pout that ensued was precious. And annoying.



Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate Icing



I told him that I’d had to order his gift online, and that it hadn’t arrived in time for his birthday, and his little gay heart almost crumbled. But a little calamari, some Brie, a martini, and a chocolate tort, and all was forgotten. Until the next morning–his actual birthday–when I surprised him with some gifts. He squealed like a girl and tore open the packages, and it set the tone for his birthday.

It was all about him!

Pork Loin and Pesto

I had planned on taking him out to dinner on Saturday night, but since we’d had such a lovely meal with The Gays, I chose to go all Martha Stewart and make him a lovely dinner myself. He had to work on Saturday, so while he was gone I baked him a Peanut-Butter cake, with Chocolate Icing, a Roasted Pork Loin rubbed with Gremolata and served with Homemade Roasted Red Pepper and Basil Pesto, Grilled Asparagus with Prosciutto and shaved Asiago, and a Red Potato Salad with Fresh Mozzarella, Vine Ripened Tomatoes, Scallions and Basil in a Pomegranate Vinaigrette.

Potato Salad



Oh, but I did. 

Asparagus with Proscuitto and Asiago

I also found a lovely bottle of Toasted Head Viognier, and the weather was so nice in Smallville that we ate on the back deck in the cool evening breeze. A lovely relaxing day, and a fine end to the Days Long Festivities celebrating the Birth Of Carlos! 

Afterwards, the weather turned ugly and rainy and there was talk of tornadoes and violent thunderstorms. We got hit by hail a couple of times, and worried that the sunroom skylights might break, but it was all said and done by midnight.

Dinner is served!

Sunday we did housework. There was a plan to mow lawns, but with all the rain Saturday night, that was put on hold. When we bought Case de Smallville, the mailbox was one of those ones that looks like a little barn, only it was gray, and old, and ugly. I’ve wanted to replace it, but Carlos decided he wanted to paint the body of the barn red–of course–and the roof of the barn brown. I again told him I’d like a new mailbox.

So, we broke out the red paint, and the brown paint, and painted our little barn mailbox. We also got some very cool silver house numbers, and some Black semi-gloss enamel to paint the post–we’ll do that once the wood dries out from the rain. I was surprised that it didn’t look cheesy. but actually looks very nice.

All in all, Carlos had a lovely birthday festival; three days of good times and gifts, and one day of barn paintintg. And now he’s a happy camper.

Until next year.

>Weekend Tidbits

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What a gorgeous weekend in Smallville.

It was almost eighty degrees yesterday, and with that whole Spring Forward–which sounds like an old Jane Fonda Aerobics move–it was almost like summer.

It was also errand day, with groceries and so on, plus a stop at the Homo Depot, which was just packed with a bunch of other DIY-wannabes cruising the aisles.

We checked out cobblestones for Carlos’ Garden Path Project, as well as paint colors for the living room and the wet bar–yes, don’t hate, we have a wet bar in the living room….it’s like a time capsule to the 1960s–as well as cabinet hardware.

Of course, the hardware I liked was about $30 each and I need about ten or eleven, so, just as I was about to change my mind from cabinet hardware to piece of string, I looked online and found the same pulls for just over $6 each. Seriously. I’m down from $300 bucks or so, to sixty. It’s good.

We also installed filters in the rain gutters along the front of the house. We are literally surround by trees of all sorts and need to clean the gutters quite regularly, but these new sponge-like filters will keep the leaves and pine needles out of the gutters and on the ground where they belong.

Until i have to rake them up.

Leaves-and-Needles: One; Bob: Zero.

And because it was such a nice day, Carlos grilled some salmon on cedar planks while I popped the cork off a nice Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand–well, I didn’t pop the cork so much as I unscrewed it, since so m many wines are becoming screw tops these days–and we ate a long leisurely dinner on the back deck.

Such a lovely Sunday.

Then, to cap it off, we ordered “Love & Other Drugs” off the DVR–it still shocks me that you can click a button on the remote and have a new movie play on your TV. That and microwave popcorn will make a sloth outta me yet.

The movie was good, if predictable. The old playboy meets girl who has a terminal illness and they hook up, and break up, and then get back together because the playboy learns there is more to the world than just his penis and the girl learns that there are actually people, well, men, who will think of them before they think of their penis….or at least think of them equally.

But, or should I say butt, there was a nice bit of Jake Gyllenhaal nekkidity, which raised the movie up–pun intended–for us. Jakey has a cute little behind, I must say.

Four stars for Jakey nude; two stars for story.

That was our Weekend of Domesticity, Sauvignon Blanc, Gutters and Naked Jake.
How was yours?

>It’s A Paint-A-Thon

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Casa Smallville–Before



Casa Smallville–After

Well, another painting project down, and still a few more on the horizon.

As I’ve said before, when we bought Casa Smallville, we loved the house. We did not, however, love the choice of paint colors used by the former owners. The kitchen was dark blue……sponge paint. I know! And the master bedroom; ah, what a thing of beauty. The bottom six feet of the walls were painted a deep dark, murky blue, while the top two  feet were painted a shade of blue I will call battleship. Bridging the gap between hideous and hideous’er, was a wallpaper border with pineapples and fruit cornucopia on it.


The Hannibal Lecter Dining Room

 I.Know!

The day we moved in the house, I decided to see how much trouble it might be to removed the pineapple border. I saw one edge, near the door, had lifted up, so I gave it a tug. Imagine my surprise, when the border began pulling away from the wall with ease. It pulled away from the wall all the way around the room.

Why. you may ask? 

The former owners had simply stapled the border to the wall.

I.Know!


The Nursery Dining Room


The dining room, well, it was flesh colored, with some sixties, or early seventies, brass-and-glass light fixture in it. And since I am neither Hannibal Lecter or a Time Traveler from the past, I opted to make that my second painting job–after ridding the kitchen of the Navy blue sponge paint. 

And I didn’t want a red dining room because it’s been done. So, I opted for blue. I selected a gray blue, called Oxford Blue, because it looked far different from the kitchen paint I’d just hidden away, and I instantly painted the dining room Oxford Blue.

And it looked plain.

So, I taped off stripes, and purchased some Oxford Blue in a satin finish, and went at the dining room again. I painted the wall below the chair rail the same color as the trim, so it might look better. And it did….until that first family dinner.


Aaaah, Green!

 I sat at the head of the table, looking at my Oxford Blue, matte and satin striped walls, and thought, Hmmm, we need to get a changing table and a crib in here.

Yes, it looked nursery.

Time for a change.

I went from Oxford Blue to a deep dark Forest Green, and when we bought the new dining table and chairs–in a color called Ginger–along with a new lamp, it looked beautiful, except….

Tape It Off.

I missed the stripes.

So, rather than buy a gallon of Forest Green in satin, I did some research and discovered I could use something akin to Polyurethane, called PolyCrylic, which came in satin, to achieve my matte-and-satin stripe-age.

Well, furniture was removed, measurements were taken, pencil lines drawn, tape applied, and then i hit it with the PolyCrylic; two coats. It gave every other strip a slight sheen, and gave some added detail to walls I already loved, because they were no longer flesh colored, or looked like a Little Boy Blue room.

Aaaaah, now on to the living room.

Now, to be fair, Carlos had his own painting project.

Shortly after we moved in, we had pot lights installed in the kitchen, a new fixture over the island, and one over the kitchen table.

With the removal of the old fixtures, the ceiling had to be repaired, and Carlos took that on. It had to be re-textured and then repainted. He did the re-texturing in record time….about six months.

The repainting? Well, that took a bit longer.

Three.Years.

Then, this past Sunday, out of the blue, he got out a ladder, some sponge brushes and paint, and painted the kitchen ceiling.

Three.Years.Later.

I couldn’t figure out why he decided to do the ceiling, until I leaned the next day at Post Apocalyptic Bohemian–thanks Stephen–that Sunday was Michelangelo’s birthday.

Now it all made sense.

>The Weekend Flew By

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Where the eff did the weekend go? it seemed like I jumped from Friday morning to Sunday night in a flash.

Of course, it doesn’t help much that, so far, 2011 has been The Year of The Sick. After ringing in the New year with the dreaded Shingles, and then feeling the consequences of them–round the clock head pain and then a few days of unbelievable headaches–I suddenly realized that I had gone a week without any nerve pain at all. I still have some blotches, and, well, some gnarly scars, but the pain seems to have gone away.

To be replaced by the flu.

I have been sneezy, stuffy, coughy, achy, and, most of all, b itchy, for the past several days, and I wondered, When the flu goes, what ailment will replace it?

I am cautiously optimistic that it will be a bout of good health for a change.

A couple of weeks ago, Carlos and I went to PetSmart–or is it PetsMart, I can never remember–to get cat and dog food. And, as is my habit, I make a beeline for the cats when we enter the store. There is always one that I want, or maybe two, and I make Carlos come and look at him or her, and murmur how we could save this little cat. And then Common Sense, AKA Carlos takes over, and we leave without a feline kid in tow. 

But, on this particular weekend, it was Carlos who found a cat he liked. When I moved to Miami, Carlos had many cats, one of whom was a Calico named Spunky. Spunky was, to put it nicely, a bit of a bitch, but we loved her nonetheless. Ad she always held a soft spot in his heart. You can read about Spunky if you click “Meet The Kids tab at the top of this page, or just click “HERE and scroll down a bit. 

Spunky

Anyway, when he saw this little Calico, Molly, he wanted her. We talked about it; I told him this was the first time he had found a cat he wanted, so maybe we should get it.
This past Sunday, he decided Yes. We we back at PetSmart, or whatever, and were surprised to find that the woman who had fostered Molly was in the room with the cats. So, she let us in, and we talked our house, and our cats, and dog, and were allowed to hold Molly–sidenote: if we get her, we have already decided that she will come through a version of a Feline Ellis Island and change her name to Consuelo Ortega Jones–and pet her.

The woman wasn’t keen on adopting “Molly” out just yet, because she was still very skittish, so we agreed to come back next week. But, we visited with Spots and Bonnie and Repete while we waited. All of them were lovely, but, well, Carlos wants his Consuelo.

So, stay tuned, our little family may grow!

>Musings

>What a weekend! We looked at toilets. I know! Fun, right?

But we want to redo the guest bathroom so we headed to Lowe’s and looked at Dual Flush Toilets–one button for Number 1, one button for Number 2. Ain’t science grand! We also found a lovely pedestal sink so we can dismantle, and perhaps burn, the hideous vanity that’s taking up too much space in an already small space.

We also checked out tile, and this is where the disagreements start. I saw some lovely muted beige and grey tumbled stone tines, that would look lovely with a band of glass tiles around the edge. Carlos saw some, well, for lack of a better word, horrifying blue tiles. Horrifying. It looked like it used to be in Hef’s Grotto at the Mansion, if you get my meaning. But, I think I was able to dissuade him from that particular choice.

We spotted some new lamps for the exterior of the house, sort of Asian/Frank Lloyd Wright inspired, and very cheap–and by very cheap, I mean one margarita cheap. Which is good since we’ll need four of them. Carlos pointed out a floor lamp he liked, while I wondered why anyone, who isn’t living in a 1950s TV show, would want a floor lamp. i just don’t get floor lamps.

We looked at tubs and showers and mirrors and fixtures and closet organizers, and then made out way to the exit where we remembered that we’d forgotten to pick up some Polycrylic for the dining room.

When we bought Casa Smallville, the dining room was flesh colored, and since I’m not Hannibal Lector, eating in a flesh colored room was not appealing. So, I tackled that room, opting to stay as far away from the traditional red–it seems nearly everyone in Smallville has a red dining room–as I could.

I picked a very beautiful light blue, and purchased it in matte and satin finishes. I painted the entire room in the matte, and then taped off sections and painted vertical stripes all around the room in the satin finish.

It was beautiful.

And then we ate dinner in there and I couldn’t help but think there should have been a  crib and a changing table in it. it was that color blue. So, in a flash, the blue was gone, replaced by forest green, which I love, but I still missed the stripes. Which is where the aforementioned Polycrylic, in a satin finish, comes in. It will add the much needed stripe-age to the room.

Then we returned home, where Carlos used his Christmas gift, a molcajete–mortar and pestle–of lava rock, to make a delicious ancho chile, tomato and garlic salsa for some grilled pork. I didn’t know how much more inventive he’d be on his nights to cook with a molcajete because, had I known, I would have gifted him a molcajete ten years ago!

Plus, I do so love saying molcajete! 

After dinner, we watched The Social Network On-Demand, and I was pleasantly surprised how much more I liked it than I thought I would. When it came out, I thought, A movie about Facebook? No. But it was really good, with really good performances, and a dual performance by my new man crush six-foot-five-inch hunk Armie Hammer. He played twins, so it was double My Pleasure, Double My Fun.

Then something called the Superbowl was on, and I flicked back-and-forth between a Law & Order: SVU marathon and the game, hoping to just hit the commercials. I wasn’t so successful.

I missed Christina Aguilera’s rendition of the National Anthem, so I missed her bungling of the words. i always thought they sang to a track, so things like this wouldn’t happen? I mean, how embarrassing. I also missed Cameron Diaz feeding A-Rod. I mean, how embarrassing.

I also missed Bill O’Reilly’s “interview” with the President. Who set that up? And why do an interview with an illiterate raging ape instead of an actual news anchor? If that’s the case, the White House could have sent Obama down to Smallville to talk with one of the guys who lives under the bridge. It would have been just as interesting. And where does O’Reilly get off asking Obama what he thinks of the “people that hate” him? When Obama said something about the people that “don’t like me,” O’Reilly piped up,. “No, they hate you.” How fucking unprofessional. He really needs his own room in Douchebag Hell.

Thanks to John abuzz for the photo

And, so, finally, speaking of Douchebags…..Ronald Reagan, the GOP’s Great White Hope. The one they all aspire to emulate. He turned 100. Whoop-de-freaking-do. The problems of today, with debt, and the rich getting richer, are directly tied to Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan who never said a word about AIDS until it was fiver years too late, and then did little about it.

St Ronald? Gimme a break.

I think he’d be a Number Two flush.

And, so, how was your weekend?

>Losing My Religion

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As I said in my Weekend Update I went to church this weekend. Now, those of you who frequent ISBL know that i am not a church-goer, and hardly a fan of organized religion, which, to me, appears divisive and condemning when it should be about love and acceptance and tolerance and compassion.

These are my views on organized religion, and I’ve held them for a long time. When we first came to Smallville, with a Baptist Church, gas station, and funeral home on nearly ever corner, I discovered that one of the first questions people asked upon meeting me was, Where do you worship?

And, well, me being me, I said, I don’t belong to any organized religion.

:::::crickets:::::

But then how do you talk to God?

I explained that my belief in god [little g] was quite different. I was more into spirituality than organized religion, and I didn’t believe in the god of Baptist, Catholic, Methodist … insert religion here. I believed that god is love, and if I needed to talk to her–and I usually say her because people get freaked out that god, might be, could be, should be, a woman–that I could simply speak and she would listen. If I needed evidence of god, I could just look around, and there is evidence all over. In one of mt favorite books, I Know This Much Is True, author Wally Lamb says that “evidence of god exists in the roundness of things” and that line serves me well; it is Karma, and doing the right thing, so the right things will come to you.

Carlos and I have had great discussions of faith. He was born and raised Catholic, though he no longer practices. Practices? Anyway, he is quite against any type of organized religion, and churches and church services, and anything church. And while I agree with him on that, I do believe that everyone has the right to practice, or, perhaps a better word, pursue the religion of their choice. Just as I have the right to pursue my own beliefs. And I am open to discussing my beliefs, and your beliefs, as long as it doesn’t become a sermon, and there is no trying to convert me, or hoping to convert me. Tell me I’m wrong, and that you’re right, even though, as I have discovered, some people change their spots completely regarding religion, using it when it suits them, and discarding the beliefs when they don’t.

I had some very good friends for a very long time. Sisters. They also were born and raised Catholic; Mass every Sunday. Catholic schools, They were inundated with the teachings of Catholicism, and we often had great discussions about their views and my views. But, their views changed radically when they each got married. Suddenly, with the birth of their children, the teachings of the Catholic Church were of the utmost importance and the only way to live your life. 

Now, mind you, these girls broke many of then tenets of Catholicism: premarital sex, use of birth control, living in sin, and dating, and having sex with a married man. And they paid no never mind to their breaking of these rules, although now they appear to act and live a holier than thou type of existence. After moving to the East Coast, our conversations turned to email since they live in California, and as I love politics and societal issues, and have very strong opinions, the email chats often turned to these topics.

One of the ‘friends,’ upon a long back and forth about gay marriage and the rights and privileges denied gay men and women, suggested that if Carlos and I wanted some rights and benefits, perhaps one of us should adopt the other.

Oh, yes she did.

See, in her mind, being a Catholic, and living a life of breaking nearly every rule of Catholicism, and then doing a complete one-eighty, she had decided that I, as a gay man, shouldn’t marry the man I love, he should become my child. Needless to say, that was the last time we spoke. i don’t need that type of ignorance in my inbox.

But then her sister sent me an email about Obama–in addition to being raging Catholic, they are also extreme Republicans–and how he didn’t place his hand over his heart during the  Pledge of Allegiance. Well, after a ten second internet search, I discovered it wasn’t the Pledge, but the National Anthem, and wrote back to tell her to get her facts straight before sending out these ridiculous chain emails.

This got us talking politics, and, of course, gay marriage, and this was just about the time, that marriage equality was happening in California for a few, brief months. She, of course, is completely against it, because the Church says so, though she had no qualms about dating and screwing a not-yet-divorced man. When I said something along the lines of We’re here! We’re queer! We’re getting married in California! she took it to mean that Carlos and I were coming west to get married, and she replied with, Good luck with your fake marriage.

I was stunned. This was, supposed to be, a friend. I wrote back and reminded her that I’d been an invited guest at her wedding and was shocked she couldn’t feel the same sense of joy for me.

Her reply? Whatever.

And I cut off that ignorant email.

Their actions, pre-marriage, and their actions post-marriage, only confirmed by belief that religion is something many people only use when it suits their ideals; they don’t follow the teachings if, say, lots of sex is at stake, and you’re a horny Connecticut college girl, but the rules become all-powerful when you want to raise your children–who will no doubt discard them for sex as they get older, too.

But anyway, now, back to my story. As I said, I went to church, and I have problems with organized religion, but I went. And while waiting in a hallway, I looked at several fliers they had on tables and stapled to the walls. This one caught my eye because it was the largest and given a place of prominence in the hallway.

I read through it, and it seemed innocuous enough until I got to that last paragraph. It said, and it says this exactly, in case the picture is hard to read:

How many of us have run into Mormons, or Jehovah Witnesses, or other cults or faiths wanting to talk about their beliefs? Probably, most of us. What is God’s view of those involved in false belief systems and how would God want us to respond to them? Are there some common things to be aware of when listening to someone from a questionable belief system? What are some practical tips to help us communicate truth in a way that they will listen? join us as we discuss these and other important issues surrounding false beliefs.

Wow. Black-and-white. If you don’t believe as we do, your beliefs are false, or questionable. And this wasn’t some radical church, it was a financially well endowed Presbyterian Church, that offered classes and discussion groups on how to “handle” people with false beliefs.

How is this accepting, and loving, and all-inclusive? How can anyone read this sign and not wonder, if we think everyone else has a false belief system, they must think ours is questionable, too.

And it is, and they are, and it makes me glad i avoid such narrow-mined places like the plague. they aren’t god, or god-like, or Christ-like. They teach intolerance, not love.

God is love, organized religion is something entirely different.

>Weekend Update

>

So, Saturday Carlos had made dinner plans to celebrate my birthday, and he was pretty mum on the whole idea, which I [a] rather enjoyed because usually I’m the one who makes the plans, or [b] rather terrified me because usually I’m the one who makes the plans.

When I asked where we were going to dinner, he’d say, “The Restaurant.”

When I asked where was The Restaurant, he’d say, “Restaurant place.”

I was [a] amused, or [b] annoyed, or [c] an odd combination of both.

Now, earlier in the week, on Thursday night, my Tia Gloria, Tia by ‘marriage’ as she is Carlos’ aunt who lives in Mexico City, called to wish me a Happy Birthday, and then she asked to speak to him–or as she calls him, The Other One. I could hear her on the phone asking him what he was doing to celebrate my birthday, and then he said it, “He’s getting a party.”

A party? I was [a] terrified or [b] horrified. A party? Carlos doesn’t do parties, or at least not in the last almost-eleven years that I’ve known him has he done parties. So, I began to think. Dinner? Okay. Restaurant? Yes, that would happen. Party? He probably meant that he invited Round-the-Way Gays, Neal and David, to join us.

Of course, I kept this to myself.

On Saturday night, as we were leaving for The Restaurant at Restaurant Place, I kept asking, Who and Where and Where and Who, and he was playing sly dog. But that didn’t last long, as I soon realized we were leaving Smallville–which has just three restaurants, so i erased those from my list of choices.

And then rather than get on the highway, he opts to take US 1. The highway heads into Columbia and since we weren’t taking that route, I wiped Columbia from my mental list of possibilities.

I suddenly knew. We were headed to Sandhill, a mega-shopping area just northeast of Columbia where there are all sorts of shops and restaurants. Restaurant Place!

Restaurant Place. Now, I also knew which The Restaurant, and as we neared Sandhill, I began telling Carlos where to go. Turn here, I said, and he gave me a look that said [a] You think you’re so smart, or [b] You’re so smart.

We ended up at a Mediterranean restaurant called al-Amir that we have been dying to try. and it was just the place I wanted to go. And, of course, upon entering the restaurant, I saw Neal and David, who, well, let’s just say that, if they were actors, they’d be the kind of actors who never win awards for acting; they said, “What are y’all doing here?”

Anyway, we had a lovely dinner, with good friends, and a happy birthday. There were Stuffed Grape Leaves, and Feta Salad, and Lamb and Chicken Kabobs, Almond Torte and Arabic Coffee. I ordered Chicken Curry, with the option of mild or spicy; every time I go to a place with that option, the spicy is really mild and the mild is, well, just sad. But al-Amir came through with the spicy. It was verging on too spicy, but so so good.

David and Neal presented me with a bottle of fine Chilean Carmenere, one of my favorite reds, and a pair of gorgeous wine glasses, along with these chocolate-y bath fizzer things. It was all I could do not to speed home, pop the cork, fizz my bath, and jump in the tub with Carlos!

That was Saturday. Sunday, I went to church. I know!

But I went with Carlos, who was giving a presentation for the health care company with whom he works, to the Hispanic congregation at a local Presbyterian Church. And I was very impressed seeing Carlos in this work element, speaking before the group, and then talking with people individually. So may of the Hispanic population in South Carolina–and it’s quite a sizable group–don’t have health care, and, with the language barrier, don’t have a way to get affordable health care. Carlos has opened up this new client base to his company, because he’s bilingual, and is helping the Hispanic community at the same time.
I was quite impressed.

I also, however, impressed myself, with myself, because an older Spanish gentleman came up and asked if I spoke Spanish–and I don’t, really. I mean, I could curse you in Spanish; I can taunt you in Cuban Spanish. But I get a little tongue tied trying to speak it perfectly. I told the gentlemen No, but then I asked him, in perfect Spanish, if he had a question for Carlos. He looked stunned, and then he smiled and said, ‘Si!’

As I said, impressed myself. But then I hoped no one else would ask me anything, because all I could say was, Tienes una pregunta para Carlos?

Or, El burro sabe mas que tu. Which isn’t very nice.

After, ahem, church, where we also ate some really good tamales, we drove up to Winnsboro to hear our friend Jeanie play in a band. The band calls themselves The Halfway There Band, and mostly, as they say, play in each other’s living rooms. But they went onstage at the 145 Club–a funky little bar–and really entertained the crowd. it was a little folk, and a little country, and really quite fun. They played songs I’d never heard of, some they’d written themselves, and some I knew and just loved.

All in all, a fun day, even with church.
All in all, a fun birthday weekend.

How was yours?