V-towne dining

I honestly can't remember the last time we ate lunch and dinner in da V, but that's what happened today. For lunch, we grabbed Togo's, each selecting our usual--I get the half Farmer's Market salad and half hummus sandwich on honey wheat without mustard, mayo, or pickles and Jim gets roast beef on honey wheat without mayo. Good stuff. The bread today didn't taste quite as fresh as usual, so that was a bit of a bummer. I hated Togo's originally, but since dating Jim, have come to like and almost love the place. He also got me to give Subway another chance.

My afternoon was crazy busy, what with children's choir practice and then going to Angwin for T's concert. *proud teacher moment* He was outstanding. The program director invited him back next year. His solo piece wasn't perfect by any means, but he gave a very good performance that was far superior to anything that he's ever done before. I'm very glad I pushed him to do the festival, because it really stretched him as a person and a musician. Definitely a growing experience for the kid. Hopefully he doesn't hate me too much, since I was pretty tough on the boy. His mom is already talking about doing it again next year. I don't know that I can take doing it another year, since prepping him for it this time was insane amounts of work. Well, I'll be recovered in six months, so I should be fine.

I got back in town right on schedule to meet up with M & R for dinner. We originally planned on going to Berkeley to eat at Barney's, a burger joint Jim's co-worker raved about that also offers a ton of veggie burger options. However, C happened to be in town this weekend, and her brother's band was playing in Livermore tonight, so we tried to change things around a bit. I didn't talk to them, but from what I understand, M & R weren't having it at all and had no desire to be the least bit accommodating. We hang out with them so rarely these days that I kind of forget that there is no room for flexibility on our end when we make plans with them. Being late or changing the restaurant is no good at all . . . unless they're the ones needing to change things up.

Anyway, while it would have been nice to have hung out with them, things probably worked out for the best. C is moving back to Santa Barbara with her hubby V at the end of this month, so this might be one of the last times we see her for a while. And we had lots of fun tonight.

The show started at 9-ish, so we ended up going to The Red Onion, which just opened up about a week ago. I couldn't believe how packed it was or that there was a wait. C came up with the brilliant idea of ordering our food "to go" and then when we were seated, our food could be brought out to us. That saved us quite a bit of time, which was nice. C and I ordered Boca Burgers, but C got hers with cheese, mayo, and mustard. Jim got the double bacon cheeseburger, which was four slices of bacon, four pieces of cheese, and two hamburger patties. It was absolutely huge! We all split a "half-n-half" of crinkle cut fries and beer battered onion rings. Any place that serves Boca Burgers instead of Gardenburgers is all right with me, and Jim loved his burger. The fries and onion rings were decent enough. The verdict is that we'll probably be going there again shortly. It really didn't seem like a V-towne restaurant.

We arrived at the bar where the show was around 9:30, and thankfully, C's brother's band was still setting up. I thought they were quite good and put on a fun show. There were serious microphone problems, but other than the technical glitches, it was great. I was impressed. After they played, there was a Go-Go Girls cover band, followed by a wet t-shirt contest, and another band. The wet t-shirt contest was slightly disturbing. Naturally, the girl with the biggest boobs who flashed the crowd won. Seriously, $250 is so not worth losing your dignity for.

Anyway, it was another fun evening out with C. Glad we could do it. M & R missed out, but it's their own fault. Oh well.