Hats Off to Me

I bought two hats today. Two fancy hats. I've been threatening to buy a hat for months, and today I finally pulled the trigger. I had a couple of styles in mind, and I had tried on a bunch of hats at different places- but not at a bona fide hat store. Until today, when I visited a fantastic hat store in nearby small city. A wonderful little man helped me out- I would put a hat on, look at it, and think, looks all right, and then he would make a slight adjustment to the brim, and it made a huge difference. So I bought an Italian Walking Hat, which is a brown tweed, and a grey felt dress hat. It was a delightful experience. I'm not really doing justice to the great old man who helped me, but he made the experience.





Also visited two museums, and then stopped at a TGIF for a couple of beers, some pot stickers and chicken fajitas. The museums were great- one a blend of old art and new, the other a natural history museum, where we saw the controversial Machu Picchu exhibit, where Peru is demanding many of the artifacts back.

All in all, just one of those very leisurely enjoyable day.

Saw "Walk the Line" this week, and "Capote." The former was okay, a nice love story, but not very explorational. The latter was terrific.

Tomorrow I'm off to Philly to celebrate the birth of a boy to very close friends.

Where You At?

Some of you may recognize this as a tagline for some cell phone advertising campaign involving Fat Joe. I also overheard someone say it into their cell phone. Pretty normal. Except that this was while I was eating lunch in a restaurant whose menu explicitly said "No Cell Phones in the Dining Room Please." This is an era of entitlement that we live in, no question. Several other people at this table also very freely used their cell phones as well, with blatant disregard for restaurant policy. I was reminded of the time I saw "Spiderman" in the movie theater, and a crying baby would not stop crying. Finally, I said "Would you please take that baby outside," only to be met with, "I'll take you outside, motherfucker." You can ask Marielle.

This cell phone experience was the only blemish on an otherwise delightful few days in a major midwest city that I visited for business and turned into a long weekend. We know some friends in said town, and had a great time just walking around, eating well, shopping (I spent a small fortune on many new wardrobe pieces) and ice skating. Also fit in a great workout both days at a very fancy health club (Michael Jordan and Oprah both work out there, but were not sighted on this particular weekend). Took Marielle to one of my favorite restaurants, where we enjoyed chilled lobster salad, scallops, humboldt fog goat cheese (dynamite!) and a spectacular grilled veal chop. We also had some lovely pomme frites accompanied by some "not very good mayonnaise" according to Marielle. Now, being Belgian and visiting there every summer during her childhood, Marielle is well-qualified to judge the quality of mayonnaise, especially when it accompanies pomme frites. The only problem is that it wasn't mayonnaise. It was truffle cream, which was delicious, for truffle cream. Our evening ended with not one, but two spectacular desserts. Lest you accuse us of gluttony, we couldn't decide on the one dessert we wanted to share. I bet you think you know where this is going but you don't. So we asked the waiter which he would choose out of the two we were considering, and we went with his recommendation. However, he brought the other dessert, on the house. The one that we ordered was a buttercream chocolate cake with a malted vanillla milkshake (oh yeah). The other was a flourless chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream. Delish.

Other notable events of the past few weeks include the birth of a baby boy to a long-time friend of my family and her husband. Maazel Tov right? Well, I get to go to Philly on Super Bowl Sunday to attend the infamous ceremony performed on Jewish boys on the eighth day after their birth.

We also attended a very enjoyable, and adult, dinner party, with two other couples. There was great food, great wine, an impromptu wine tasting, and pleasant conversation covering a wide range of topics.

A closing note. One of my favorite words is "paradigm."

P.S. The hyperlink button has disappeared from my blogspot tool bar. Help.