Juxtapose

Since the other half/two thirds of the company (from Seattle and Ohio, respectively) were in Boston for a meeting of some sort, the company Mark works for had a dinner party last night at this restaurant in Boston's North End, Little Italy. I'm not gonna lie, that was some fancy food. I've been to nice restaurants before, from cheap eats to fairly expensive local places, but never such a nice place as this, with a private dining room at the top floor of the restaurant, a view of the North End and the city right outside the third-story windows.

There were four courses and dessert, all of the little plates of mezes were these delicious savory bites of things like gnocchi and lamb and house-made mozzarella and prosciutto, really delicate and pretty on the plate, and were were served by (I believe) the chef's wife, the co-owner of the restaurant. There was delicious, deep red wine with dinner and good strong coffee to drink with our tasty desserts as we finished off the night. Mark and I finally had to excuse ourselves to get to the station so we wouldn't miss the last train out to home before the 12:45AM train.

We semi-ran through the busy streets and ran to catch the T, and ran to catch one more, and then power-walked to get to the train home with five minutes to spare. Sitting on the backwards side so we could watch the city lights disappear, we had two big drunken Bruins fan guys from Billerica sit two rows up from us. They asked everyone on the train for a lighter to smoke a cigarette and eventually, the guy just ripped the filter off of his cigarette and stuck it in his mouth anyways. They slapped each other around a bit, all in fun, and at one point, one of them said, like, "I love you man, you're just... awesome, you homo." The other guy laughed and was all, "Nah, man! You're a homo!" and then they were just like, "Oh, man," laughing in that way that the bros do when they've had too many beers and start being all sluggy. This all wouldn't have been so funny, but right then, they got all sentimental about being bros and leaned in all man-hugging and drunk with their faces two inches from each other, huddling together in the comfort of their own bro-ness, and I just burst out laughing uncontrollably, it was so goofy. I tried, unsuccessfully, to muffle my cackle in Mark's sleeve as tears dripped down my face.

And that was my fancy night out in Boston. I hope Mark gets to stay with this company a long time, for many fancy dinners to come, and I hope that next fancy dinner won't involve a Bruins game on the same day. Amen.