The rest of Saturday
Jan. 21st, 2003 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanIt was bitterly cold and very windy. I realized just as the bus pulled up that I had forgotten to dress for the outdoors properly. I'd meant to put a pair of leggings on under my jeans and add a pair of socks. I didn't want to dress like that for the collation because I knew the house would be too warm, what with all the extra bodies and the lighting for the photograph and all.
After a brief hiatus when I realized I had failed to remove my knapsack while I was inside, and Eric kindly took it back up the three flights of steps for me, we checked out a nearby restaurant both of us had been curious about for some time. It claimed to be Arabian, I think. It had a menu of the sort that has basically the same dish made with different forms of protein, and the same side dishes for each main dish. They did have a fish steak and a "vege" version, but I suffered a catastrophic failure of vegetarian assertiveness. I didn't want to ask about what kind of broth they used in the sauces and rice dishes. I was excessively unnerved both by the fact that while the guy who politely gave us the menus spoke English well, it wasn't his native language, and by the fact that we were the only white people in the place. This kind of situation is good for me, and it happens so often on the 18 bus that I don't notice. But combined with my extreme dislike of having to interrogate restaurants, it caused me to say I wanted to go somewhere familiar.
We set off for Lotus To Go, but defaulted into Jerusalem's because it was so cold I didn't want to walk the extra four or so blocks.
Jerusalem's had a belly dancer, it being Saturday night, but I like their belly dancers better than the ones at the Java. They're both homier and sexier. This one was very sexy indeed. We both had fun watching her.
I had the Vegetarian Combination Dinner, which is a glorious scattering of fried potatoes, cauliflower, and eggplant over a base of baba ganouj, hummus, tabouli, and house salad. Eric had the leg of lamb with fixings. We didn't have a huge amount of conversation because of the music and the belly dancing, but we exchanged a lot of smiles. We've eaten at Jerusalem's a lot, starting from quite early in the relationship, and I enjoyed thinking about all the other occasions. I did tell him about a couple of interesting things involving what my editor told me about the potential artwork for the reprint of the Secret Country trilogy. She'd told me she'd said there must be a cardinal on each volume. Eric had been the one who originally suggested using cardinals somehow, so that was pleasing. And I told him about a fascinating analysis of the trilogy that I'd recently gotten in email.
The belly dancer came around to all the tables as usual. One of the things I like about the approach Jerusalem's uses is that the belly dancer just comes and talks to you, as opposed to dancing at you. Eric told her it was my birthday, and she said, "Oh, now some of the dancers can sing 'Happy birthday' in Arabic. I can't do that, but here -- I'm kind of hot, so you'll have to excuse that," and she put my hand on her belly and did a little very muscular and localized belly dance for just a moment. I'd love muscles like that, but I don't care much for dancing.
We walked home in the wind, talking about Gibbon. The leg of lamb put Eric to sleep, which discomfited me, since there were a couple of things I wanted to talk to him about. But I talked to his cat and read STEALING THE ELF-KING'S ROSES, and he did wake up later. In the interim he gave me some very silly suggestions for how to wake him up if he fell asleep inadvertently in the future; it took me until the next morning to realize that he was joking.
Toliman stole my pillow for much of the night. But it was a very nice date.
Pamela
After a brief hiatus when I realized I had failed to remove my knapsack while I was inside, and Eric kindly took it back up the three flights of steps for me, we checked out a nearby restaurant both of us had been curious about for some time. It claimed to be Arabian, I think. It had a menu of the sort that has basically the same dish made with different forms of protein, and the same side dishes for each main dish. They did have a fish steak and a "vege" version, but I suffered a catastrophic failure of vegetarian assertiveness. I didn't want to ask about what kind of broth they used in the sauces and rice dishes. I was excessively unnerved both by the fact that while the guy who politely gave us the menus spoke English well, it wasn't his native language, and by the fact that we were the only white people in the place. This kind of situation is good for me, and it happens so often on the 18 bus that I don't notice. But combined with my extreme dislike of having to interrogate restaurants, it caused me to say I wanted to go somewhere familiar.
We set off for Lotus To Go, but defaulted into Jerusalem's because it was so cold I didn't want to walk the extra four or so blocks.
Jerusalem's had a belly dancer, it being Saturday night, but I like their belly dancers better than the ones at the Java. They're both homier and sexier. This one was very sexy indeed. We both had fun watching her.
I had the Vegetarian Combination Dinner, which is a glorious scattering of fried potatoes, cauliflower, and eggplant over a base of baba ganouj, hummus, tabouli, and house salad. Eric had the leg of lamb with fixings. We didn't have a huge amount of conversation because of the music and the belly dancing, but we exchanged a lot of smiles. We've eaten at Jerusalem's a lot, starting from quite early in the relationship, and I enjoyed thinking about all the other occasions. I did tell him about a couple of interesting things involving what my editor told me about the potential artwork for the reprint of the Secret Country trilogy. She'd told me she'd said there must be a cardinal on each volume. Eric had been the one who originally suggested using cardinals somehow, so that was pleasing. And I told him about a fascinating analysis of the trilogy that I'd recently gotten in email.
The belly dancer came around to all the tables as usual. One of the things I like about the approach Jerusalem's uses is that the belly dancer just comes and talks to you, as opposed to dancing at you. Eric told her it was my birthday, and she said, "Oh, now some of the dancers can sing 'Happy birthday' in Arabic. I can't do that, but here -- I'm kind of hot, so you'll have to excuse that," and she put my hand on her belly and did a little very muscular and localized belly dance for just a moment. I'd love muscles like that, but I don't care much for dancing.
We walked home in the wind, talking about Gibbon. The leg of lamb put Eric to sleep, which discomfited me, since there were a couple of things I wanted to talk to him about. But I talked to his cat and read STEALING THE ELF-KING'S ROSES, and he did wake up later. In the interim he gave me some very silly suggestions for how to wake him up if he fell asleep inadvertently in the future; it took me until the next morning to realize that he was joking.
Toliman stole my pillow for much of the night. But it was a very nice date.
Pamela
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Date: 2003-01-21 04:38 pm (UTC)