~Friday, New Year’s Eve~ I slept in today.
In the afternoon, I went to the gym, where I did some stretching exercises, 300 ab crunches, and 30 minutes on the elliptical machine. Some soap opera, I think it might have been General Hospital, had a very, very, very dramatic (one could almost say melodramatic) episode on the TV above my machine.
I had two dated t-shirt sightings in the gym today, one at going on six years old that said, “Scotland High 2005,” and another that rivaled my 1996 education symposium event that said, “France ’98,” referring to the World Cup in France in 1998.
I stopped by the Avent Ferry Food Lion on the way home from the gym, where I bought ingredients needed to make an olive cheese ball, including a jar of pimento-stuffed Spanish olives, a jar of garlic-stuffed Spanish olives, cream cheese, fresh chives, and some chopped pecans.
Although I bought enough to make double the recipe, once home I made up only one to take to Robert’s tonight to snack on close to midnight when we open the champagne.
I arrived at Robert’s at about 7:10, and after quickly putting the cheese ball, soda, and champagne in the fridge, we zipped off to Taverna Nikos in Brightleaf Square for our 7:30 dinner reservations. As it turned out, the place wasn’t even a quarter full, so the reservations really weren’t critical.
We got seated in the section of a server that Robert knows, but is not particularly fond of, not the only reason of which is that he’s not a great server. In my opinion, he talked too much and he didn’t come back to the table nearly enough. I waited way too long for my first refill of water.
For an appetizer, we had their:
| Yogurt Garlic Dip − “Tzatziki/TZATZIKI” 6.00 |
And for dinner we shared these two entrees, although Robert ate most of the seafood pasta dish and I ate most of the stuffed shrimp dish.
| Fisherman’s Pasta − “Too Psara/TOY ΨAPA” 18.00 Sautéed shrimp, scallops and mussels in a white wine herbed tomato sauce over linguine. |
| Stuffed Shrimp − “Garides Bacon/ΓAPIΔEΣ MΠAIKON” 24.00 Shrimp stuffed with crabmeat, wrapped with grilled bacon, and served with roasted lemon potatoes and sautéed vegetables. |
It was all good, but that place is way over-priced—I mean I had exactly three shrimp in that $24 stuffed shrimp plate, and I might call them large (if I were feeling generous), but certainly not extra-large sized shrimp—so we were happy to pay $2.00 for the entire meal plus an $8.00 tip, since my parents had given Robert a Groupon for Christmas for $50.00 worth of food there.
Back at Robert’s, we made a couple of Scrabble moves in our game, but it got a little tedious with the way Facebook handles (or doesn’t handle) multiple logins on one computer, so we stopped after a few moves in a new game.
I read a little bit of The Help, and we watched a little bit of TV before the countdown shows started, and we chose the one on CNN just to see how far Kathy Griffin was going to take things with Anderson Cooper. I found it a little too “edgy” for my taste, as I’m not a fan of tension and saying things that are pretty much non sequiturs, and mostly just for shock value.
Even though neither of us wanted to, it was like being drawn to a train wreck, and we had to spend an excruciating minute or so on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve, watching poor Ryan Seacrest trying to best accommodate the situation, with that pathetic Dick Clark being unable to recognize retirement time. Tragic.
Robert popped the champagne cork to keep me from poking my eye out, and ate some crackers and cheese ball waiting for midnight, at which time we had a champagne toast and a kiss at midnight. Awwww.
I was so focused on bringing everything out to Robert’s including a Christmas bag from my sister, the champagne, soda, bourbon, the part of the dip that was made (the cream cheese and olives), the part of the dip that wasn’t made (the chives and the pecans), and the crackers, that I didn’t even think about packing an overnight bag. So, at a little after 1:00, I drove back to Raleigh, much to Robert’s protestation in concern for my safety. Sorry, my sweet.
Fortunately the ride home was without incident, and it was nice to get into my freshly cleaned sheets.
So ends 2010. I’ve completed another calendar of year of blogging every day, as evidenced by all the “1s” on this page. January 12th is my official blogging anniversary, when in a couple of weeks it will be 7 years straight that I’ve blogged without missing an entry for every day of the year.
