I call Giggles when I get out of the subway. "You're already there?" she said, informing she had not yet left her place in the Financial District and it was five minutes to our meeting time. I found a Starbucks, ordered a grande shaken iced green tea with one Splenda. Giggles is often late and does some crazy stuff (refer to previous post), but I must emphasize here that Giggles is not a ditz. Giggles is one of those highly intelligent, hard-working individuals that exerts so much energy at her job that she suffers from brain lapses outside of work resulting in her doing ditzy things.
While waiting for my order, a girl asks me if I live "here". I assumed she didn't mean the Starbucks and said I live in NYC, but not in the West Village and asked "Why?" She said excitedly that she had just moved to the city and has a couple hours to decide on an apartment nearby and wanted to know what to do. I told her I love the neighborhood and would consider living in this area if it were closer to work. A common theme in my life is strangers approaching me. I believe it's because I never really acquired the "stay the f**k away" face that most New Yorkers use as a defense mechanism to get though the day with maximum efficiency and retained my friendly Canadian tendencies.
I sat with my drink and continued reading "The God Deception" by Richard Dawkins, which I am really liking despite the heavy subject matter (the argument for atheism - good times). I looked over to a couple tables over and saw the girl talking seriously with a woman who appeared to be her mother. I think back to my apartment search when I arrived from Toronto, running all over the city with a broker named Doug who ended up finding me the place where I still live. Even though I was paying Doug a ridiculous commission for his services, the scope of his services seemed to be well above and beyond the norm. This included waiting in line first thing in the morning at the Social Security office to hold my spot while I commuted by bus from my aunt's home upstate, where I was temporarily staying. He told me about his girlfriend but also took me for pizza, showed me pictures of his puppy and when I signed my lease, he made me hold it up and smile for a photo. It's hard for me to believe that I have been living here for just over four years.
When Giggles showed up we headed to Westville, but saw a huge line and instead opted for a restaurant across the street called Diablo Royale. I ordered the huevos rancheros with eggs over medium and Giggles opted for the breakfast tacos. There were nacho-looking snacks on the table, but when we bit into them, they were not nachos but fried tortilla dusted with cinnamon and sugar, reminiscent of the cinnamon twists at Taco Bell.
Definitely more dangerous than nachos!
The huevos rancheros were delicious with perfectly cooked eggs layered over a crispy tortilla and black beans and topped with tangy ranchero sauce, sliced avocado, pico de gallo and cotija cheese. There was also a side of potatoes which I barely touched as I was stuffed from the eggs (which I also could not quite finish). While finishing up, we overhear a dude at the next table say "I don't mean to be a Debbie downer, but is there still that salmonella problem with the eggs?" This never even crossed my mind while ordering.
We walk to the tennis courts and see a huge line occupying BOTH the benches. But as luck would have it, several people got up and left, unwilling to wait. We ended up sitting next to a floppy-haired, vintage-loving young guy reading a book (think Michael Cera in Juno and pretty much every movie he's in!). We made small talk with him during which I glanced over at his reading material, a tennis tips book that appeared to be from the 1970's as all the players in the photos held wood rackets. We were further fascinated when he whipped out a book on algebra/geometry and started eating a large slab of cake. He was waiting for his tennis partner, a girl, and had purchased the cake for her but decided to eat half. By the time the court was available (just over an hour wait), she still had not arrived and I felt sad for him and his boring book. We took the court and played, but kept looking over repeatedly and him saw him still alone on the bench probably solving quadratic equations or something. But there is a happy ending. As we were leaving we saw the guy and his lady swatting at tennis balls and she was just as cutely vintage-y as he is. "She looks smart" said Giggles. As one of my coworkers says "There is a seat for every ass." Note to self - never eat huevos rancheros right before tennis (damn was I full).
We walked past the dog park and witnessed this cuteness:
We walked from the West Village to the South Street Seaport (Giggles got her nails did on the way) and managed to work up an appetite again. We ate dinner on the patio at our old favorite Nelson Blue and ordered a ton of food. Mesclun salad with a side of mac and cheese for me and lamb chop lollipops and corn and zucchini fritters for Giggles, with a side of fries to munch on. There was an older couple that looked to be on first date beside us that looked completely mismatched unlike the vintage-y couple from earlier. He was a flashy pompous lawyer (according to Giggles who was eavesdropping), with salt and pepper hair, wearing overpriced jeans, driving mocs and a striped shirt with flipped cuffs which displayed a hideous paisley print. On the other hand, she was a demure lady with carefully bobbed hair and a wardrobe plucked from the racks of Ann Taylor in black cropped pants, neat light green blouse, black cardigan and sensible flats. She listened politely to his stories and delicately nibbled on mussels and fries while he tore through a pot pie of some kind. When our "buffet" arrived pompous guy looked at our spread and rudely declared that he felt "inadequate" that he has eaten so little and his dinner partner looked confused in a "why is he talking to them" kind of way. We told him it was an unusually active day (over an hour of tennis and LOTS of walking), but clearly from his flashy, Mr. Fancy duds this was not the only thing over which he was feeling inadequate. I snapped a photo of our dinner with my Blackberry and he said "Do you always take pictures of your food?" Umm no jackass! We should have pulled the lady aside and said "He's not the seat for you ass! Not a Felipe!", but that would've been insane.
We ate our meal and watched the sun set over the Brooklyn Bridge. Our food as per usual was delicious, but while me and Giggles order lots, we generally don't finish everything! Giggles geting ready to dig in:
The aftermath:
(the waiter took away the leftover picked-at corn cakes)
Thought of the day? There may be a seat for every ass but sometimes you want to stand - and other times you should stand and run away from the dude with the paisley cuffs.
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