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some cool-down yoghurt
Saturday, March 1 2014
After a day of fairly successful web work and woodstove stoking, Sarah the Vegan picked me up and drove me down to Ray and Nancy's place, where Nancy and Mark (Mark is that guy who shows up randomly every several weeks) were hanging out after a day of skiing and snowboarding. Mark had just gotten an electric-green snowboard and excited about how well it had performed and also by the electric green color it gave to nearby objects in the blazing sun. As for Ray, he was off at work at the Red Onion.
The plan for the night was for the four of us to go out to the India Garden (the newish Indian restaurant on Albany Avenue in Kingston). First, however, a couple of us would be smoking some marijuana.
It was another Saturday night and India Garden was even more crowded than it had been on Valentine's Day. There was a good racial mix of customers, including a large party of African Americans (it being Kingston, it included a skinny white girl). The tall white guy waiter was nowhere in evidence, and so the Maître d' (who looks like he might be the Thai half of the ostensibly Thai-Indian union that the restaurant claims to be) was acting as the waiter for everyone. He was running around like a madman, and nobody was getting serviced as quickly as they wanted to be. Mark remarked, "If he'd just slow down, he'd get more done." We, of course, were in no special hurry. Part of our lack of urgency stemmed from the fact that everyone at the table who was in a relationship (everyone by Sarah) was the non-assertive beta half of the respective relationship. And Sarah was as indecisive as the rest. In such situations I am willing to sieze the reins of leadership, and so I did on a few occasions: locking down the list of foods to be ordered, divvying up the check, and deciding when to get up and leave the restaurant.
Usually when we're at an Indian restaurant, I'm either with vegans or with people who are happy being vegans in an Indian restaurant. That wasn't the case today; Mark insisted on getting the Aloo Dum, which contains snotty ropes of dairy. It was also Mark's idea to order the food in "medium heat," which was fine for Nancy, Sarah, and me, but a little too spicy for him. His mouth was so aflame that he waved down the overworked Maître d' and and ordered "some cool-down yoghurt," just like you'd imagine a loud American at an Indian restaurant would do. Our dinner lasted over three hours, and there was much conversation and laugher amid bites of delicious spicy food. Mark was the one who finally told the Maître d' that he should bring us our check "unless you have bunk beds." He also tried to get the management to turn up the tunes (it was traditional Indian music) but they misheard him and turned it off entirely. It's astounding how silent a dining room gets when the music is turned off.
Our bill came to only $52, which, even with tip, was only $16 each. Of course, we'd brought our own drinks: a bottle of white wine for the ladies and a variety of beers in a six pack holder for Mark and me.
When we returned to Ray and Nancy's house, we found that the young dog Jack had acted out and destroyed the place. He'd managed to reach up into the center of the dining room to get two different prescription eyeglasses, which he'd then more or less destroyed. He'd also shat and pissed on the floor. Nancy was horrified, mostly because of how pissed off Ray was going to be when he found out. We didn't see Jack much more tonight; Nance put him in isolation for his crimes, presumably far away from any other prescription glasses. Ray's brother's (Kim's) dog Bruce was there too, but of course he hadn't done anything wrong. Indeed, we wondered what Bruce had been thinking as he watched Jack destroy the house.
Initially Sarah had wanted to go directly home after dinner, but for some reason the four of us continued hanging out at the dining room table in Ray and Nancy's place. Mark and I continued drinking Schlitzes (which Mark had bought in great quantity) and the conversation continued to be good, so I was in no hurry to leave, and without me twisting her arm, neither was Sarah.
Once Sarah had dropped me off at my place, I found that leaving Ramona all by herself for that amount of time had also caused her to act out a little like the kind of terror she used to be. She'd taken one of my gloves and chewed off the plastic hardware (a snap and a zipper), which was annoying but not devastating. I don't actually use either of those features.
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