Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Night Off

Yesterday night the FP Gal's folks babysat for us and gave us a much needed night off. We treated it as a date night of course. I have distant memories of my parents taking those some 100 years ago or so and it felt weird to be in that position myself.
We had discussed going to Friday's which has some personal history for us and instead went to Olive Garden. I've often been tempted by their 'endless' pasta bowl. Endless is something that really only describes stellar distances and movies by long celebrated directors. How does that work with pasta? Is it so deep that you can't really reach the noodles? Well, inquiring minds want to know and all that. Plus, the FP Gal likes to have pasta with seafood.
So off we went. We dropped Relia off about 5p and then went to the restaurant. I know, going out to eat before 6p on a Saturday night, how elderly were we? As it turned out, the place was packed and the other patrons were mostly young themselves. It really was crowded and that provided the best news on the economy than I'd had all week.
It turns out that the pasta bowl is 'endless' in the sense that they will give you endless refills. That made me happier and satisfied my physics fears. I made my way through a bowl of fettuccine alfredo and started eyeing a bowl of marinara with spaghetti noodles. And then decided against it.
When was the last time you ordered a dessert at a restaurant? They always offer it to you but when do you actually have room for it? Ok, maybe something special for a birthday but anything other than that? Me either. Well, this night I was going to break out. It wasn't a special occasion other than in the sense that we were getting a night off. So I plunged and got something rich and chocalatey.
After that was Ikea and then home. We talked about a movie but when I turned on the TV the end of the White Sox game was on. They scored a quick four runs to cut the deficit to two. Then they gave those runs back up and the game was done. By the time this was done, the FP Gal had fallen asleep on the couch. Nine o'clock and our date was done.
In spite of that, a pretty good night.

4 comments:

Kate said...

I'm a dinner at 5 and asleep on the couch by 9 myself on a Friday night. And I don't have kids! Ahem.

Meigan said...

How funny - we went to Olive Garden last night, too! My FIL wanted the endless pasta bowl, so we all met there. Roseville. Where were you?

Peder said...

We were in Bloomington. Didn't think of going to Roseville but it would have been about the same distance.

Anonymous said...

We also had a "parents watch the kids so we can remember what it's like to be an adult for a couple hours" night on Saturday.

If you think restaurants around here are packed at 5:30 on a Saturday, you should see what it's like down in Rochester! We actually had to wait in the lounge for about a half hour. Which, given the circumstances, suited us just fine.