Last night was oodles and oodles of fun! You can tell by my giddy delirious diction. But that very possibly is also caused by lack of sleep.

After work I drove to Vicky’s new house in the newly burnt Chino Hills. Altho Mr. W and I had considered buying a house there when we were looking, I now know that I could not have handled living there. Although it is 10 miles closer to work than our house is, the drive took twice as long as it wound through scenic single-laned roads with motorists who had to brake down to 15 mph at each turn. I was awed by the charred land and could still smell the smoky carbon aftermath. Vicky’s house itself was great. It was so spacious that when I called Dwaine upon my arrival there, he could hear my voice echoing through our cell phones. It is evident that she and her handy boyfriend worked hard on endless renovations there, and although they say a lot of detailed work remain, I think the house is ready for furniture. The textured dark wood floors were especially breathtaking, even without the excited dog charging full speed toward me as I entered and instead skidding sideways past me as his frenzied feet pedaled Looney Tunes style in a fruitless attempt for some traction to turn around. Vicky’s house has the exact opposite problem as ours — they have 3 spacious common areas for entertaining, not including the formal dining room, kitchen and breakfast nook, and were trying to figure out what to do with all that room. Mr. W and I had trouble fitting 8 teenagers into any single room in our house for Daughter’s birthday party a couple weekends ago.

I left Vicky and her boyfriend an hour later to join Dwaine at a nearby new Yard House Bar & Grill. The menu looks different from other Yard Houses, but I almost recklessly and randomly decided on the Porcini Crusted Halibut, which is described on the menu thusly:

Porcini cream sauce and white truffle oil, asparagus and bok choy over parmesan mashed potatoes.

I pushed the plate toward Dwaine, who had ordered a chicken and mushroom pasta. His eyes widened as he tasted the perfectly seasoned flakey halibut. I then took my first bite, which was of the mashed potatoes dipped in the truffle cream sauce, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I grabbed his fork and insisted he try that, too, and got him a clump. As soon as he tasted that, he looked angry. Looking at his own dish in disdain, he announced that although he always gets that pasta dish because he’s always enjoyed it, he now wants what I had. I laughed and said it happens all the time when people eat out with me, but now he knows what to order for next time. Dwaine vowed to return the next day for lunch and order what I had. In fact, he said, he would bring someone with him so they could also enjoy this amazing dish and understand what we were experiencing in food. I don’t know what it is about that place — even the Framboise Lambic (raspberry ale on tap) tasted better than I’d ever had it. Maybe it’s the company. We chatted for two hours at the restaurant, and then went to his house 10 minutes away (Vicky’s house was 5 minutes away) and continued chatting so that we didn’t have to yell over the bar noise. We hit lots of topics, introspected, made jokes, caught each other up on stuff, psychoanalyzed other people, reminisced, shared photos and inside information, and I only left because he yawned and I had a long-ass drive back home.

Today childhood friend (and bridesmaid) Sandy called out of the blue and we had a long catch-up chat, and are tentatively planning to finally hook up this weekend. I hadn’t seen her since the wedding, and she still has my watch. 🙂 I think I really do have the world’s coolest people in my friends group.

OH, I ALMOST FORGOT. Hey girls, if you’re described by someone as physically “thick”, but you don’t have the benefit of knowing the context of the description (like you don’t know the tone or the sentence it was used in, just that someone described your body type as “thick”), do you automatically take that as a negative description? Like, do you think “fat”? I’m taking a survey.