Flatlands

Monday night in Junction City/Fort Riley, KS. There's not much to do, and the movie theaters are too far. Jackie and I didn't get to see a single group of military people wearing fatigues running drills while working at one of the Elementary School's in the Fort. They were a good group of people though! After searching around, we ended up at Napoli's, the area's Italian restaurant.

In an effort to be different, I got me something that involved grilled chicken, noodles, tomatoes, and broccoli. I can't remember the name of the dish. It was deeply disappointing, specially since Jackie got what seemed like a delish lasagna. Not an auspicious beginning for Kansas.

A Sunday with Mi Cariño

Sunday was a blast: low key but fun. We began by lazying about in bed, reading and what not before heading for brunch to Cafe Triskell. I had scrambled eggs with bacon, sausages, salad and red onions.

I did not really like it. I put as much stuff as I could in them eggs to stem the yuck feeling I knew I was going to get from them, but c'est la vie. Brunch took some time so it was well in the afternoon by the time we set out to do some shopping. Or mi Cariño shopped while I tried to not be a pain in the bum. Eventually, however, we made it to the city, where we watched "Circumstances."

The filmmakers described the movie as taboo busting, and that it was. Two young girls in Iran, best friends, lovers. One comes from an affluent family, is used to the little freedoms money can buy. The other is used to pain and oppression - her parents were professors, killed by the regime. The story really begins when Brother (I can't remember his name) comes to town, ostensibly after spending time in rehab. In an attempt to get his life together he repudiates what was once important (music, friends, drugs) and tries to become a better Muslim. Unfortunately, for him this means getting in cahoots with the Morality Police. This doesn't help his sister and friends at all though - soon enough Brother reports them to the Morality Police, and has no qualms with the fact that they'll check to see if his sister is a virgin. Several new things are found about the Brother, and Friend and Sister go through the hardest part of the film. There is no real happy ending, as these kinds of movies rarely will, but it was tough for us to watch. I think you have to be in the right set of mind to watch this film. We were glad we supported it, although we left the movie theater already thinking about what happy lesbian movie we'd watch once arrived back at her place. 


Before that though, we stopped at Patsy's to have some pizza and salad. I'd never been. It's a chain, I believe, but it doesn't feel like one. 

Before heading back to Astoria we stopped by Dylan's Candy Shop to look at the candy, but didn't get any. We finished the day by (partly in my case) watching "Saving Face," which is a happy ending, actually fun and loving romantic lesbian story. 

Italian again

Thursday night we headed once again to Gnocco. I decided to try something different this time, going for Gnocchi al Pomodoro e Mozzarella di Buffala.

It's potato gnocchi with tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarela and basil. It was mouthwatering good. But also extremely filling - I was barely able to eat half of it, and was helped by the rest of the table, thankfully.

Dessert was courtesy of Lauren, a Calzone Nutella.

The smell was intoxicating. You can't go wrong with Nutella, even more when it's warm Nutella. We quickly went to work on that, and it ended the movie beautifully.

A couple of hours later, Mi Cariño and I sat to watch Eat, Pray, Love in the theater. It was midnight and if you know me, you know I am not very good at staying awake once I'm sleepy, but I tried my best. The bits of the movie that I did see were pretty good, but I'm afraid I'll have to watch it again to make sure I know what I think of it. It was a good time, though, since it's been a while since I saw a midnight showing. I should do it much more often.

Girl's Night

So Heather's in town! Perfect reason to get together, eat tons, dance some, drink some. We began the night at Gnocco's.

I got there a bit earlier than the rest, and so I sat outside to wait. While waiting I was roped into dogsitting for a bit... Puppy's name was Josie, and she seemed to be quite able to sense that I'm not much of a small dog lover. In the meantime mi Cariño arrived and we did some chatting while waiting for Heather and Steph.

Once everyone was there, we got to seat in the Garden out back, and the weather was perfect for it. We began to whet our appetite by toasting with some Prosecco, and it was perfectly fruitty. We liked it so much we soon decided to ditch the "by the glass" we had started with and asked for a bottle. Laura arrived and our party was complete. Steph chose our appetizer, which I think consisted of Burrata Cheese, cherry tomatoes, toasted italian, evoo and black pepper goodness.

Entree for me: Caserecce al Pesto. A very simple but quite mouth watering good plate - pasta with basil pesto, string beans and potatoes.

Dessert was Steph's favorite: Tiramisu.

It was all extremely good. We go to Gnocco's often because a good friend of Steph's works there, but the food really is worth the visit.

The rest of the night will be told mostly in pictures, some of them really blurry. First, there was Eastern Bloc.

Eastern Bloc held beautiful posters, plenty of pictures of penises, and an extremely amateur three way male pole dance. Then there was the Pyramid Club

Since it was Friday night, there was no DJ and they seemed to stick to their "only music from 1984" rule. We took a cab to what we thought was The Annex, but has now been renamed, The Doghouse.

Huge disappointment.  Music's changed. Place was empty. We walked some more, this time close to Delancey Street until we hit Los Feliz. The place moonlights as a club/lounge, has three kinda tiny floors, serves as a Taqueria in the daytime.

Either the music was better there, or we were tipsy enough to enjoy ourselves regardless, because we stayed there for the remainder of the night. Good Times.