Last night, I met Toby for a deceivingly healthy looking meal at Zen Palate on Union Square. I haven’t had bread in nearly three weeks. Nor have I had anything fried or battered in any way. I’ve been, quite possibly, the most annoying creature to eat out with. I check everything. I ask questions from “what’s in the sauce” to “is it made here? On a grill or in the oven?” I turn things down. I ask to have things removed, added, turned, circled, and poked. I’m my own worst nightmare. I’m one of those people I HATED while working as a waitress. I’m having trouble living with myself.
But last night, I ordered something that was actually on the menu and my only request was, “Go light on the sweet and sour.” The waitress was totally cool with that. In fact, she finished the sentence for me. So that was a good sign. When my meal arrived, it was predominately orange. It sat on top of a bed of broccoli. The green and orange reminded me of pumpkins and the pie they make, (another item not meant to be eaten during phase 1 and 2 of the South Beach Diet.) I ate it slowly. The batter was foreign but I ate it. And afterwards I was giddy with a faint sugar buzz.
After dinner, we headed to Barnes and Noble to do some much needed book shopping. Now that cable television has mostly turned to reruns, we’re forced to use our minds at night again. We spent 143.00. We picked up all of the following books:
The new book by Anne Beattie called Follies. (I love Anne Beattie.)
A light toilet-time read called SELinux: NSA’s IOpen Source Security Enhanced Linux. by some Huge Nerd.
A book that likes to make me cry and laugh on every page called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer a fellow Brooklyner.
Another light read called Editor Pocket Reference by Arnold Robbins and Gigi Geektastic.
A book that would put me to sleep called Cryptography: A Very Short Introduction by Fred C. Piper and Sean Murphy.
And a book by the hottest, sexiest geek in the world, PHP5: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Open Source, Server-Side Content. by none other than TOBY JOE BOUDREAUX!!!!!
YAY TOBY!!! And if you’re bored, read this review by some fella over at Amazon.
How cool is it Toby’s name is on Barnes and Noble AND Amazon? Man, I love my beaner. What a smart beaner he is even if he does use examples in the book that read:
There are monkeys in the toaster.
Cute.
After we spent a small fortune at B&N, we headed over to the theater to watch Thom Pain, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I laughed. A lot. And I have questions I simply MUST ask my favorite gal pal, Missy. (I need to know stuff about planted people, etc. We must compare notes.) James Urbaniak did a wonderful job, in my opinion. He did, however, make me super nervous (that’s the point) as we were in the front row and there was a lot of one-on-one audience/cast member confrontation. It was a bit disconcerting. It’s meant to be. If you’re in the NYC area, I highly recommend checking it out.
Mihow 
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