A post in which it is Russ's birthday

I was up cursedly early this morning, hungry, but ate something and went back to sleep.  I woke to the phone ringing.  It was Russ.  We had made plans to go to the flea market today (since we missed last week's trip), but I wasn't sure if we were going today or tomorrow.  Today it was.

Russ asked if I would have time to get ready since I had just woken up.  Now that was thoughtful of him, and because it was his birthday, I didn't tell him that I could have prepared to go to the inaugural ball (in drag) in the time it would take them to get here to pick me up.  Sometimes discretion is truly the better part of valor.  I got up, dressed, brushed my teeth, straightened up the bathroom, had a cigarette, and was watching TV when I got the text that they were en route.

We went to the Andersen Jockey Lot today.  We got there a bit late, but that was fine - today was supposed to be a social occasion, after all, but it turned out to be a very auspicious trip for me.  I found a new back-pack almost as soon as we got there.  I have needed one for quite some time now, and have been looking, but couldn't find any at the flea market.  I was too cheap to plunk down retail for one.  My perseverance was rewarded - the one I bought today was at least an $80 back-pack, which doesn't look like it has even been used, and which I purchased for $5.  I freakin LOVE the flea market.   

I also bought: a small glass bowl with a lid (I can never have too many lidded bowls), a vintage "snowflake" cake plate to give away with baked goods for $3, two Family Guy volumes (7 and 8) for $6 each, a copy of  Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for $2, and to top the day off, a Princess sandwich plate for $10.  Pretty sweet. 

Princess sandwich 11 1/2" plate by Anchor Hocking, circa 1931-1935 

By the time we did all that, I was way ready to sit down for a bit, plus we were all hungry.  Russ made an executive decision and we repaired to Korean BBQ for lunch.  I hadn't been there in a very long time.  I love their food, but many of the dishes are just too hot for me to enjoy.  Despite my misgivings, I ordered my old favorite, the kimchi fried rice.  It was spicy-hot, but even more delicious than I remembered.  I ate every grain.  They still have the spicy pickles that I fell in love with, and used as the inspiration for my own "Korean" refrigerator pickle recipe, but I didn't think those were as good as they used to be.  Russ says he likes mine better than theirs, and if today's are a representative sample, I agree with him.

The plan was that I would go home to shower and change, and then have a moment to rest before we went on to the movies, but time got away from us.  By the time I got cleaned up, got my present wrapped (thank goodness I bought it last night) and got ready to roll, I was almost late for the movie. 

I made it into the theater in the nick of time for the movie to start.  We saw Snow White and the Huntsman today.  The reviews of the movie have been mixes, but I thought it was wonderful. Charlize Theron was given full rein to fully form a rounded character - plus she diva'd it up. She looked absolutely amazing. I liked that the Snow White character was empowered also, and no one's fool. The story was told as if they were trying to think how it might have happened in real life. The movie did make an abrupt segue into fantasy at one point, but it was so beautifully done that it didn't harsh me. It is, after all, a fairy tale right? I cried at a movie for the first time in a long time.

Surprisingly, the one person in the group who seemed to have a hard time getting into it was Logan.  He's generally pretty whimsical by nature, so I found that surprising.  I'm usually the cynic of the group.  He didn't want anyone to know because he didn't want to cast a pall on the festivities, so he wouldn't talk to me about his problems with the film, but I told him I want to know at some point.

From the movie, we went on to eat supper.  The plan was to go to Cheddar's, but the wait was an hour long. That's actually much more reasonable than the last time we went, but no one wanted to wait that long.  Honestly, having eaten there, I can't imagine the continuing hullabaloo about that place.  The food was perfectly fine, but there wasn't anything that made me want to put a papier mache tomato on my head and dance around.  I'm just sayin'.  You could get an equally good meal in any number of places here - Greenville is blessed with good food and excellent restaurants.  But for some reason, you just can't get near the place.  It's like they're giving away free money.  I don't get it.  I can only conclude that the owner has made some kind of pact with the dark forces in exchange for fiscal success.  But I digress.

We ended up going to Arizona Steakhouse, where we were seated immediately, despite the fact that our party had grown to seven, since Russ and Billy set up for friends to meet us at the theater.  The food at Arizona is about five times better than anything we could have ordered at Cheddar's (it has been a while since I ate one, but Arizona made one of the best steaks I have ever eaten), so I was really fine.  I haven't been there in forever (steak houses, as you might imagine are not at the top of my list), but Arizona actually serves several of my favorites.  I started off right away with a prickly pear margarita - hands down my favorite cocktail ever.  They used to be big ole queeny pink drinks (I didn't care one whit), but I noticed when she brought the pitcher that they weren't as pink as they used to be.   They still tasted great though.  We proceeded to work our way through two pitchers of them while eating an obscene amount of food.  I ate more than anyone there.  All the other queens bears were apparently too embarrassed to eat their whole meal in front of each other, but I ate every bite of mine.  I had a truly excellent piece of salmon (they'll do fish rare there so it isn't cooked to death), and followed it up with one of their apple cobblers (one of my top 10 favorite desserts, and just as scrumptious as I remembered).

I got to sit next to Brian at supper, which was nice, and Logan was on my other side.  I really enjoyed the meal.  Afterwards we went back to the house to visit for a while, but the boys were pretty much tuckered out, as was I.  It had been a great day, but long one, and we had packed a lot into it.  Plus, I had inadvertently gotten Logan drunk at dinner (I didn't realize he was such a light-weight).  So after Russ opened his present from me (a copy of a movie he loves and doesn't have a copy of - will miracles never cease?), which he seemed very pleased with, I headed on home to let them go to bed, and to turn in myself.