Big nights out

M and B survived the paraphysical intact, and probably did better than expected. I ended up coming in at a feathery 182. M, as usual, sailed through her tests and by 7am we were out the door. All in all, a positive experience. Hopefully we’ll get the results back soon. Once we got to work, the hits kept on coming. M got a great report card from work and a celebration was due. So what do two swingin cats do to really cut loose in G-town on a Wednesday night? There really was only one option – Applebees followed by Barnes & Noble! It appeared this was the preferred feeding time/place for small children and retirees since we were the only young childless people in our section. Maybe they heard we liked to throw food or something. Anyway, we dug into an ‘ultimate trio’ of mini burgers, honey bbq chicken chunks and spinach-artichoke dip. Now this would have been a good time to stop chowing, since I was already feeling full and somewhat dizzy. The multi-week fruit and veggie binge had apparently worked too well, purging my body of unnatural foods and this was a reaction to the megadose of flavor I was giving it. But then I decided to really tempt the furies and go for the ‘Grilled Shrimp Pesto Alfredo Fettuccine by Tyler Florence’. The menu reads: Tender shrimp is tossed with signature spices and served with basil pesto Alfredo fettuccine, grape tomatoes and Italian cheeses. Top it all off with shaved Parmesan and sun-dried tomato focaccia bread. Translation: Shrimp with spices and butter and cheese, served with pasta and 3 more cheeses. That’s 4 cheeses in one meal. Where are the cheeses you ask? Pesto usually includes parmesan, Alfredo is basically cream and cheese, then the top it with ‘Italian Cheeses’ and more shaved parmesan. It wasn’t white tablecloth, but it fit the bill and I ate the whole thing way too fast. M wisely ate two bites of her entrée and saved the rest for a week’s worth of lunches. Then we tried out a restaurant concept called ‘dessert shooters’, which we had seen on a different occasion. It’s basically a shotglass filled with cake and cream, but for $2, it beats scarfing down a whole new plate of desert pleasure when all you want is a few bites. So we each hit up one of those and headed out for the bookstore for self-presents of the long-term variety. While the shrimp/cheese bomb didn’t kill me, I have been extremely thirsty for the last 2 days. Today I decided to see exactly what I had eaten, but Applebees doesn’t publish that type of information, so I had to assemble a list from other sources. Olive Garden Fettucine Alfredo (lunch portion) 850 cal, Anonymous Sauteed Shrimp (unspecified size) 280 cal, Anonymous Focaccia 110 cal. Apple’s does publish the dessert shooter info, albeit generically, as 300 cal per shot. So that’s, at a minimum, 1540 calories in one sitting. Not the worst thing I have eaten, but that’s at least twice what were the largest meals that I had been eating since Thanksgiving. Then last night I wolfed down a delicious and nutritious helping of chicken fingers, spicy fries, coca-cola, salted peanuts and soft serve ice cream - giddyup. What inspired such a louche menu? That’s right, B and M went to the Red Sox. This was something M had wanted to do since before the Sawx broke the curse, but I had really punted on every chance I had to get tickets. M does a great job on vacation planning , but I tend to not be so good at homeland adventures. This was a chance to redeem myself, and we had a sublime night for a ballgame. Gametime temp was 69 and the seats we had were better than they appeared at first, with ready access to the food items listed above. There was also ready access to the beer taps, which the crowd around us attacked with a vigor. By the 7th inning, I don’t think anyone was running for the windows when they closed. The severe dip in temperatures combined with 7 innings of two fisted imbibing had taken it’s toll and the seats around us were filled with heads nodding off. We did have to leave a little before it finished, given our geographic disadvantage and the fact that I do get up rather early to make it to work on time, but we had an excellent time. While I was waiting for M near the St. Mary’s green line stop, I had the chance to witness one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. A chap got off the green line right in front of me and went to get a cup of coffee. Actually it was a blind (and possibly deaf – he had something in his ears and didn’t acknowledge me when I offered to assist him) guy who negotiated some very steep stairs off the trolley, then walked down the platform, crossed busy subway tracks with no “it’s safe” walk signal or sound to the platform on the other side, walked all the way down that, crossed Beacon street at a crosswalk on the signal with no audible “walk” chirp, took a right down the sidewalk and then went into Dunkin’ Donuts! He got his cane caught up a few times with lightposts, bicycle racks and some grills for sale in front of a hardware store, but this was amazing. He wasn’t just someone with extremely bad eyesight – he wasn’t looking anywhere near the objects he was feeling his way around. There was another woman watching this with me and we were mesmerized. It’s up there with seeing a blind guy with a dog negotiating the south station redline stair maze while they were under construction and there were detours and temporary walkways everywhere. I don’t know how the dog knew where to go. Maybe their training has reached a level where German Shepherds can read spray painted arrows? If my description above doesn’t adequately describe the degree of difficulty of what this guy did, see my high tech and detailed map below. And have a sunny weekend, because it’s going to be raining here, again. Another golfless weekend for B (if you don’t count the toonamint in Augusta)