January 9
Tales from the Bedside:
I went to visit my Grandmother this afternoon over my lunch break. As I was getting ready to leave, the phone rang.
"That's going to be your Grandfather.."Dana: Hello?
Angelo: HELLO?! MAY I PLEASE SPEAK TO ELEANOR?
Dana: Hello, it's DANA.
Angelo: HELLO? THIS IS HER HUSBAND, ANGELO!
Dana: It's DANA!
Angelo: DANE?
Dana: Yeah, it's me!
Angelo: WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE?
Dana: I work here, I'm visiting!
Angelo: I CALLED YOUR OFFICE??
Dana: No, I'm visiting!
Angelo: WHO?
Dana: GRAMMA!
Angelo: Oh, OH...How's she doing??
Dana: Do you want to ask her yourself?
Angelo: IS SHE THERE??
Dana: Where else would she be??
Angelo: Oh, I DON'T KNOW!(Note: Earlier phone conversation:
Dana: Hi, this is Dana!
Angelo: DANE??? IT'S YOUR GRANDFATHER!!Heh. Like I mightn't have known..)
It's been that kind of week so far. After work yesterday, I went and gathered him (him being Angelo, of course) from my Grandmother's new and improved room, upstairs on the cardiac step-down floor. We trudged off to get my truck, which I'd moved to the parking garage below the West Pavilion, and drove off to retrieve Nick from work. The plan: dinner! It started snowing with fierceness roughly the identical moment I began driving to the restaurant. Nick and I had gone back and forth all day about where to take him, until we finally settled on a place neither of us had been, Maxwell's. My logic behind choosing Maxwell's was that it claims to be an OYSTER/RAW BAR/GRILLE. If you've been paying attention you'll already know Angelo's philosophy for dining:
If it comes from the sea, it has to be good!
For your future reference: Maxwell's is nothing like TGIFriday's.
Nope. Not at all. I had the feeling, because it's located on Route 1 (note for the Connecticut-unsavvy: Imagine that stretch of road in your city. You know the one, it's all strip malls and Starbucks, Payless Shoes and National Wholesale Liquidators), that it would be another TGI Friday (which, by the way, I consider to be the very armpit of dining. Fucking TGI Friday. MAN. And, to me, Chilis=TGI Friday=Applebees. Same shitty, nasty, tasteless food. Same demented, suspender wearing waitstaff. Same gigantic, overpriced, boozy drinks designed to get you so fucked up you don't notice how very bland the food is. Don't even get me started about the people who go to these places to drink and hang out with their pals. "Come ON guys, the party is in the bar at Friday's! Yeah! It'll be DOPE! It'll be FRESH! It'll be the BOMB!!" Puke.)
Anyhow, I'd used my brilliant powers of location deduction to come up with the idea that this place was going to be like all of the shitty, cheap places around it, and as such, perfect for Angelo. Needless to say, I was ill prepared for the dimly lit, couches for two, Romanceateria we walked into. We were lead to a seat in what I dubbed "First Date Alley". I am fairly sure that Angelo's "I CAN'T READ THE MENU IN THIS LIGHT!! WHY IS IT SO DARK IN HERE!?" helped no one ease into a smoochy, good first date, let's play in eachother's pants mood, but I was pretty amused because he kept sopping his bread in some eggplant food thing they'd served with the bread and asking me if it was calamari. ("This CALAMARI is really good!" "It would be better if it WAS calamari, that's EGGPLANT, Grampa!" "Yeah? Well, it's GOOD!")
Speaking of calamari, once we got the "how the hell do you read the menu in the dark" thing taken care of and got the food ordered and were all sitting around waiting for the appetizer ("What's that? That's SHRIMP? Mm..pretty good. And what's this stuff? That's PINEAPPLE? I'm going to eat the lettuce, too! I need my roughage!") and sipping our soda and chatting about whatever, and then the food finally showed up and the waitress put his meal down in front of him, Angelo looked up and said "I didn't order this!" Yes. He did. ("Oh yeah? Okay, you're right! I must have ordered this!")
Indeed. We finished our meal (excellent food, for your information, best shrimp I've had in some time) and I drove him home in the swirling, slushy, beautiful snow ("Dane! I don't think it's snowing anymore! I think it's just raining!")
And Finally, A Little Work News:
So, I've been telling you how fucked up BS is for more than a year now, right? Today proved it. Seriously. Okay, I guess next month she has to go have some foot surgery. Rather than being like "aw, shit. I have to have surgery, that sucks!" She yammered on and on all day, without fail, about how happy and excited she is that the surgery affords her the opportunity to stay flat on her back for 5 days ("I can't walk AT ALL! Not even a little!" Me: Are they cutting off your other foot?) and how she's going to have three weeks off! ("I'm looking forward to the surgery! Isn't that sick?!") and how great it's going to be! Because she gets to just RELAX! And not work! Because she's so busy!
And, I dodged a bullet. I considered going, only because of how funny it would have been to write about, but she started bringing up crappy hideous, hateful repugnant fucking dinner theater where the people interact with you (I never told the story of the one we went to, en masse, years ago: Tony and Tina's Italian Wedding. I can't deal with talking about the experience now, but let it suffice to say that it was so horrible I shall never, ever, ever do it again, not even for a really funny story, not even for all of you. Nope. Not if I have to pay 40 dollars for some shitty meal I won't eat, a half a glass of nasty flat champagne and hateful company.) and touch you and stay in character, no matter what. Argh, I hate that. SO, when she started mentioning, oh, I don't know, Schlomo and Filomina's Guinea Jew Wedding of Wacky Antics and Hilarious Ethnic Stereotypes or WHATEVER the fuck it was called, I bailed, immediately. I was all "Uh, no. I hated the first one.." and BS was wounded and sad "But it was SO FUN!! There was DANCING and SINGING and all the guys flocked around me.." I replied that there was not enough alcohol in all of The New Haven Annex to make something like that even remotely appealing.
There you have it. I'm off tomorrow, springing Eleanor, keeping Angelo off her back, and picking up my Aunt from the CT Limo place. Then I'm going drinking. Drinking until I can not longer see*
(*I am kidding. I have no time for alcohol.)
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but please don't bring your lips so close to my cheek
don't smile or I'll be lost beyond recall
the kiss in your eyes, the touch of your hand makes me weak
and my heart may go dizzy and fall