At the beginning of 2008, this blog would have been called "Just another shitty day..." a lot can change in a short period of time and I'm so thankful for it!
Last night was one of those nights that made me happy. Jay and I went out to dinner just because.
I had a margarita with dinner...so good. I was celebrating long distance with Aunt Crazy and Mrs Mom. They had birthdays this week and so I thought it would only be fair to raise a drink in their names. I'm such a good friend that way.
After dinner, Jay suggested we go for gelato. Basically, without even thinking about it, we recreated our first date ;)
I ordered my usual wildberry and raspberry gelato and Jay ordered some bizarre combination - pumpkin and blueberry. There's no accounting for taste sometimes, chef or not.
Jay's guy dished up his gelato in no time, but I was getting impatient because my guy was taking forfreakingever. So not kidding. I mean, how the hell hard is it to slap the gelato into the bowl? Half on one side, half on the other, stick the biscuit in and hand that bitch across. Not difficult at all.
I might have muttered something along those lines to Jay and then I took a look at what my guy was doing.
He was making me a rose. I shit you not. A gelato rose!
The picture didn't do it justice.
In fact, the pictures make it look like girl parts.
I kind of felt bad for being so snarky, even if it was under my breath, because that silly gelato rose had me smiling all night.
Last night was the 3rd Annual Saucy Affair, a fundraiser for my beloved 9HealthFair. I've wanted to take RCC since they began doing this as their primary fundraiser. This year, they offered a raffle for volunteers - if your name was drawn you got a free ticket when you purchased a regular ticket. I threw my name in the raffle and got lucky enough to be one of the winners. At $65.00 a person, it was pretty much the only way I'd get to take RCC.
Fifteen or so of Denver's restaurants competed for the "People's Choice" title; each restaurant served small plates for the participants to choose from, each plate had to have a sauce (it was, after all, a "saucy" challenge). I knew that there would be a huge chance that most of the restaurants would serve seafood, which is disgusting as far as I'm concerned. But I also knew that whatever I didn't eat, RCC would.
I did something I rarely do - I got all girled up: hair, makeup, jewelry, dress and heels. I drew the line at hose; the etiquette people will just have to get over my bare legs. It felt good to slip into my black dress and not feel like I was going to bust out the seams. And, don't anyone repeat this, it was kinda fun to be a girly-girl for a little bit. Approximately 20 minutes, anyway. That's all it took for my feet to start hurting and my knees to rebel.
In the meantime, RCC and I drank "free" wine and ate ourselves sick. The restaurant that got my "People's Choice" vote was Texas de Brazil - they served garlic mashed potatoes and flank steak with chimichurri. They actually won my vote with the garlic mashed, but then I tasted the flank steak and about fell out it was so good. RCC voted for Avenue Grill, which served a shrimp with a soy-ginger sauce. Texas de Brazil won, pretty much hands-down. It was truly the garlic mashed that won it for them - everyone was talking about it.
I was excited to see a handful of people that I work with during the planning stages of the 9HealthFair. In fact, I told RCC that I felt a little like a celebrity there for a bit. My phlebotomy classes for the medical assisting and nursing students in the Northern Council are garnering a fair bit of attention at the corporate level. Seeing people who were genuinely happy to see RCC and me was a bonus. I went not expecting to run into anyone we know.
The evening was topped off with cupcakes on the way out the door from one of Denver's favorite cupcake vendors, the Denver Cupcake Truck.
As much fun as I had, I couldn't wait to get my dang heels off and get ice on my knees, which swelled more and more by the minute. I don't know how other women can wear heels to work, as part of their grown up clothes. I think I'll stick with wearing scrubs and tennis shoes.
The Denver Zoo welcomed quadruplet tiger cubs earlier this year and released them from the nursery on August 31. As soon as RCC saw that he decided we needed to go see the babies at the zoo. We made a date to go.
I got off of work early Thursday evening (meaning I'd only worked 9.5 hours) and we decided to go out to dinner and then a movie at the three dollar theater (boy do we know how to live large!). Lucky me, our date started a whole twelve hours early.
I cancelled my standing shooting date with Tara for Friday and off we went to the zoo to see the babies. We were pretty much lazy bums and didn't get to the zoo until early afternoon where we got a pleasant surprise - because the zoo had a fundraiser that evening and would be closing early, we got in for half price!
We saw Lions....
...and tigers...
...and bears...
...and the cutest darn ocelots on the planet...
...and the coolest upside-down reflection ever...
...and then we went back and saw more tigers...
I could have stood and watched those cubs all day. Only six weeks old and already larger than some dogs. Finally, being jostled by all the little kids who wanted to see the babies got old and we decided to continue our date at Casa Bonita.
Now before y'all get excited about us going to some romantic place, go check out the link for Casa Bonita.
It's okay, I'll wait.
You get the gist? It's as romantic as you can make it with all the kids running around (blessedly few since we were there so early), but it is perhaps the most fun restaurant anyone can go to and is a Denver landmark (even though it's technically in Lakewood).
Of course, our date wouldn't have been complete without a cheesy picture at the fountain in front of Casa Bonita.
Just for you South Park fans, here's a little video of Casa Bonita for you (no, it's not us in the video).
What do you think HCRers - should we build a trip to Casa Bonita into our schedule?
Well, he may not be perfect perfect, but he's perfect for me. He called me from work this morning, out of the blue, and asked if I wanted to go out to dinner. Like a date, without the kids and everything. I was surprised that he'd want to go out after working six days in a row; his job's not like mine, he actually does real work, while I more and more shuffle papers.
I looked forward to our date all day. We'd planned on going to Chimney Park Bistro, but after looking at their menu online, we decided on Jay's Bistro in Old Town. We were a little concerned about parking since New West Fest is going on downtown, but we needn't have worried.
I had the most amazing dinner that I couldn't pronounce - thank God RCC knows how to pronounce all those high-flalutin' words - some five pepper crusted filet in a green peppercorn sauce over garlic mashed. It was absolutely delicious - I ate every bite and would have eaten more except the plate was empty.
Dessert was even better. A few years ago my friend Glenna had introduced me to Godiva's Dark Chocolate with Raspberry filling, which is my all time favorite candy bar. Dessert was like my favorite candy bar, but supersized! It was a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache with raspberry sauce. Heaven in my mouth!
What a great idea RCC had and I love him for it even more!
