Michael comes to Bloomington! (Part II)
We had reservations at Grazie! on the square in B-town. Melinda, Jane, Jennifer and her hubby all came. It was a great group. Jennifer and her hubby, Tim, make a great pair, and Jane and Melinda counteracted each other just enough. I think M may have been a tad overwhelmed at first, but he warmed up a bit and we had great conversation over a good meal, with horrible service. The poor woman brought the wrong glass of wine to us several times, but she was ok about it, albeit slow as a snail... (Funny note - on the drink menu, the description for the Cosmo began, "Just like Bloomington..." Heehee!!!)
Anyhow, we took 3 hours at dinner, then decided to go get a drink somewhere. Someone suggested Scholar's Inn, the place from the lunch incident earlier in the day. They were all closed except for the main dining room, but we took over a back room for an hour and had a drink. I had such a good time, and M was even a good sport about driving home so I could drink. (Well, truthfully I had planned to just drink and stick him with it, knowing he would acquiesce...)
M said he really liked my friends, and they like him as well. I was very pleased in general!
Saturday we took it easy. I wanted to show him the school, so we parked by the law school, and I walked him through the building, then all the way across campus to Kelley. It was a beautiful day, although it was a bit cold, and it was nice to just take a walk and talk. Over at Kelley we looked for Accenture's name on a plaque somewhere, but all we could find was E&Y and D&T... I imagine Accenture's around somewhere, or will be sooner or later. Anyhow, the interesting thing is that every single room in that building has a sponsor, even the tiny "breakout" group study rooms! Crazy...
We made it back over to the car, a bit tired, so I drove him around to the E side of town to see the civilization of Bloomington. We drove by the movie theater, but didn't see anything particularly interesting, so we started on our way home until I remembered I had wanted to buy "Walk The Line." We found it at Best Buy (UGH!) and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing together on the couch.
After the movie I made dinner (chicken marsala, mashed baby reds and green beans). It was pretty tasty, although the alcohol in the marsala didn't simmer out quite enough... M liked it anyhow. After dinner we met Summer (MBA student friend) and her fiance at Tutto Bene for dessert and some wine. She and Paul are a bit more reserved than most of my friends, so I think the conversation wasn't as nice as it was the night before, but it was great to see them. As you may recall, Summer and Paul saw us when we were in Indy at St. Elmo's, so it was nice for them to get to actually meet each other properly!
Sunday I was going to make brunch (apple french toast with chicken apple sausage and mimosas), but M mentioned an omelet, so I didn't flinch and suggested we go to Uptown. It's a nice cafe with a classy bistro attitude and cajun flair. He had a great cajun omelet and I had an awesome Eggs Hussard (Eggs Benedict glorified with Marchand de Vin and marinated tomatoes), of course complete with crappy service. Oh well.
While we were eating, a table of a nice middle-aged couple and about 5 college-aged boys were seated near us. We figured out it was the morning after a 21st birthday. A few minutes later, one of the boys mentioned that the boy who was in the restroom had just text messaged him. Apparently bathroom boy said to go ahead and order because he was just going to have something light. Birthday boy chuckled and told his parents something about Jaeger and bathroom boy being over the toilet... M and I laughed a bit about that one.
I did manage to get a bit mopey as the afternoon wore on. We left the apartment at about 3 to get him to IND by 4 for his 5pm flight. Luckily he had been upgraded to first so he could drink for free, because the poor man ended up stuck on the plane for 4 hours, sitting on the runway in IND waiting for ORD to clear up so they could take off. He did make it out and back to SEA just fine, leaving me alone to pout the evening away.
Anyhow, the moral of the story is that the weekend was good. It felt nice to get him together with my friends and see it work out ok.