Wednesday, Dec. 04, 2002
Boston Betty's Birthday, posted at 5:10 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I had given up on Boston Betty last night, and decided to go shopping. I brought Holden to Petsmart, since my car still has hair in it from the weekend trip and I didn't take him for a walk yesterday (too cold). There, we got him a new chain, one that he hopefully won't be able to get off of too easily. It was now 7:30, and I was looking for a nice night of going to Trader Joe's, getting a little workout in, and sitting down for 24 adn an early night to bed.While on the way to Trader Joe's, though, Boston Betty called to cash in on her birthday dinner date. I was expecting her to be cancelling, and even said, "Well, it's probably too late now, eh?", but she said, "Not for me, but if it for you, that's okay!". I, of course, had promised to take her out for her birthday, and didn't want to disappoint her, so I did it still.
We went to this new place called The Red Maple, which was a swanky tapa bar in the Mt. Vernon area. It was smoke-free, which is nice, and I felt so hip there. It was straight out of NYC and Sex and the City. Mt. Vernon is the young, artsy, fairly gay area of the city, the this bar fit in. The crowd was interestingly eclectic, the food was excellent (we ordered four different tapas - a szechuan tuna, a citrus tuna, an eggplant/goat cheese bread, and a shrimp thingy), and Boston Betty's drinks (a Japanese cosmopolitan, it was called) looked and tasted so good. It's definitely a place that I look forward to hanging out again at - a bit pricey, but not horrible.
Boston Betty and I dished about work for a couple of hours, relating stories about how much we liked the new supervisor, about the dumb thing a co-worker is doing about a conflict with the principal, and about which teachers we would hire from our own department if we were to start our own school. She talked to me again about teaching overseas after my 3rd year of teaching, saying it's a job where you're basically paid to travel, and I am thinking seriously about it.
I'm glad I didn't bail on taking her out. She's a great friend, an impeccable character of a woman who is one of the most funny and caring people I've ever met. It's been about a year since she and another co-worker brought me out for a tour of the city, which was certainly a turning point in my life here in Baltimore. It made me feel a part of my school, my staff, and this city - something that had eluded me until that point. On that chilly December afternoon, these two co-workers took me under their collective wings and showed me Baltimore. I probably wouldn't still be here without them. Taking Boston Betty out on her birthday was the least I could do. I hadn't been hanging out with her as much this semester since she got a car and doesn't need rides as often anymore. Plus I had fun. She gave me a big hug upon dropping her off at her door at 10:08.
The bad news is, of course, that I missed 24. The only show that I make it a point to watch, my only "appointment television," and I've missed it two freaking weeks in a row. I wish they still reran the episodes on FX. Missing two episodes in a row is a like a lifetime with that show. I hope I can get back into it.
Gotta get to the gym.