anniversary
Over the weekend, wife Kim and I celebrated out eleventh anniversary. Not sure how I landed a smokin' hot babe with brains and grit and a kind heart, a woman who in full command of her faculties finds me attractive and funny, but it I guess it just goes to show there's someone for everyone.
As if to prove just how much I don't deserve her, Kim gladly accompanied me on our anniversary to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Hot Mess Show, sponsored by Barnes & Noble, at fabulous Cheektowaga High School.
Forty bucks got you two tickets and signed copies of both the latest Wimpy Kid book, Hot Mess, and one of the spinoffs, Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories. How could you say no to that?
Jeff Kinney was self-deprecating and thanked the adults in the audience, who were probably sick of his books, for bringing their kids to his dumb show. I wonder what he would've said if I'd piped up about not even having kids and dragging my wife to his show on our anniversary.
The program was unusual. He talked for perhaps five minutes about his process; the rest of the hour consisted of a strange, interactive skit in which audience members helped Jeff Kinney open a pretend restaurant over the objections of a high-strung health inspector who was booed every time she walked on stage. Kids and parents were called up to participate in culinary minigames such as assembling plastic cheeseburgers and sampling gross flavors of jelly beans.
It was dumb, but it was also funny. I saw a few of my students there. One even got to go on stage! Can't imagine the street cred he's got with his mates now.
After the show, we went to an anniversary-worthy dinner at Griffon Gastropub. How to put this? The food sucked. Well, maybe it didn't suck, but we didn't like it and regretted going. Everything we ordered looked good on the menu but was disappointing and borderline unpalatable in reality. The pretzel bombs with crab meat topping were just soggy and weird. Kim's chicken and waffles tasted like...well, I'm not sure what, but not chicken and not waffles. Still on a weird noodle kick, I ordered the thai ramen. This came in a cauldron-sized vessel, which was unfortunate because it was a revolting agglutination of coconut milk and mushrooms, and the noodles were barely cooked, clumping together in a single, brain-like mass.
At restaurants I am effusively grateful toward the wait staff and often exaggerate my appreciation of the food, fearing they will take it personally if I don't love it. When faced with the off-putting query about the first few bites, I respond emphatically: Excellent! Fantastic! Thumbs-up! I couldn't muster such a performance this time. When the server checked on us a few minutes in, I said that my food was "good," nodding unconvincingly at the murky stew in front of me. She dropped by another twenty minutes later; the broth-level in my bowl had barely changed. I yukked that "my eyes must have been bigger than my stomach" (in fact I was starving) and asked for a takeout container.
Amused with how bad our fancy dinner turned out, we went home to watch a movie on the couch. I ate frozen french fries and tacquitos and washed it down with booze, and that was much better.
As if to prove just how much I don't deserve her, Kim gladly accompanied me on our anniversary to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Hot Mess Show, sponsored by Barnes & Noble, at fabulous Cheektowaga High School.
Forty bucks got you two tickets and signed copies of both the latest Wimpy Kid book, Hot Mess, and one of the spinoffs, Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories. How could you say no to that?
Jeff Kinney was self-deprecating and thanked the adults in the audience, who were probably sick of his books, for bringing their kids to his dumb show. I wonder what he would've said if I'd piped up about not even having kids and dragging my wife to his show on our anniversary.
The program was unusual. He talked for perhaps five minutes about his process; the rest of the hour consisted of a strange, interactive skit in which audience members helped Jeff Kinney open a pretend restaurant over the objections of a high-strung health inspector who was booed every time she walked on stage. Kids and parents were called up to participate in culinary minigames such as assembling plastic cheeseburgers and sampling gross flavors of jelly beans.
It was dumb, but it was also funny. I saw a few of my students there. One even got to go on stage! Can't imagine the street cred he's got with his mates now.
After the show, we went to an anniversary-worthy dinner at Griffon Gastropub. How to put this? The food sucked. Well, maybe it didn't suck, but we didn't like it and regretted going. Everything we ordered looked good on the menu but was disappointing and borderline unpalatable in reality. The pretzel bombs with crab meat topping were just soggy and weird. Kim's chicken and waffles tasted like...well, I'm not sure what, but not chicken and not waffles. Still on a weird noodle kick, I ordered the thai ramen. This came in a cauldron-sized vessel, which was unfortunate because it was a revolting agglutination of coconut milk and mushrooms, and the noodles were barely cooked, clumping together in a single, brain-like mass.
At restaurants I am effusively grateful toward the wait staff and often exaggerate my appreciation of the food, fearing they will take it personally if I don't love it. When faced with the off-putting query about the first few bites, I respond emphatically: Excellent! Fantastic! Thumbs-up! I couldn't muster such a performance this time. When the server checked on us a few minutes in, I said that my food was "good," nodding unconvincingly at the murky stew in front of me. She dropped by another twenty minutes later; the broth-level in my bowl had barely changed. I yukked that "my eyes must have been bigger than my stomach" (in fact I was starving) and asked for a takeout container.
Amused with how bad our fancy dinner turned out, we went home to watch a movie on the couch. I ate frozen french fries and tacquitos and washed it down with booze, and that was much better.