This weekend was a busy one for us. We had dinner plans with She Nay Nay and her husband, who we’ll call Dallas, on Saturday night. In addition to that, I also had a meeting with a client early Saturday afternoon.

I spent that morning tidying up around the house and then went to my meeting. The meeting was a quick one and on my way home, I stopped in at an LCBO store and picked up some beer and wine in case She Nay Nay and Dallas wanted to have a pre-dinner drink. The plan was to go out for dinner to one of our favourite haunts and then venture out for a drink or two. Neither S nor I thought to make reservations, and we should have known better considering it was a Saturday night and this particular restaurant is always busy.

Dallas and She Nay Nay arrived not long after 7 and after getting a tour of the house, we bid good-bye to the gal pal and walked to the restaurant. Not surprisingly, it was packed. The hostess, an older Italian woman who you could just tell was a spitfire; let us know we were looking at an hour’s wait. We gave her our names and mentioned going out for a drink at a neighbouring bar. She asked which one and then asked for a number where she could reach us.

“Oh, I thought you wanted to know where we were going because you were going to go get us,” She Nay Nay teased.

The hostess, who we’ll call Liza, immediately replied in Italian something along the lines of, “only an Italian person would think of something like that.” (She Nay Nay is also Eye-talian.)

With our names on the waitlist, we made our way back outside and walked to a bar we had planned on going to after dinner. I had heard good reviews of it online and was looking forward to checking it out. It was really cozy with an old and stylish feel to it. We parked ourselves on some plush couches and ordered some drinks. A few of us were hungry so we also ordered some sweet potatoe fries which came with a pretty amazing dipping sauce. That alone is reason enough for me to want to go back to the bar.

After an hour of catching up and enjoying our fries, Liza still hadn’t called Dallas’ cellphone. We decided to head back to the restaurant to see how things were progressing. We got there and Dallas and S headed inside while I kept She Nay Nay company while she finished her bitch cigarette.

The tables in the restaurant were still packed and there was a group of people waiting at the entrance. I didn’t know if they were ahead of us or behind on the waitlist, but Liza certainly wasn’t ushering Dallas and S to a table. While waiting to be seated, we couldn’t help but notice the clientele at the dive bar across the street. There was a woman smoking in the entrance, wearing her finest trackpants and a scowl that just told you she was not to be messed with.

When we got tired of making fun of her, we turned our attention to Dallas who somehow convinced Liza to give him control of the music playing in the restaurant.

“He does that stuff all the time!” She Nay Nay told us. “Just walks into people’s homes and takes control of the remote.” S and I laughed as we watched him and Liza talk about the different songs in the library.

Just then, Dallas came over and regaled us with a story about a time he and some friends got on stage and started playing the instruments a band had left in between sets. They didn’t know how to play any of the instruments, but they felt like jamming anyway.

She Nay Nay followed up on that story with one about Dallas once getting behind a bar and serving himself one New Year’s Eve. Not surprisingly, they were promptly kicked out of the bar once Dallas was caught. “That’s what happens when you’re the youngest and you always get what you want,” She Nay Nay said.

We continued to laugh and share stories for a few minutes. Then Liza came by and let us know that our table was ready. S and I apologized to our guests; there we were getting seated for dinner at close to 9 o’clock at night. We could have gone somewhere else, but we know that the food at this particular restaurant is good and we wanted our friends to have a nice dinner. We just didn’t know it was going to be close to being a midnight snack.

The restaurant was so full and the tables  were so close together that talking to each other required yelling across the table to be heard. Regardless of the noise, we kept on telling stories and having a laugh or two.

She Nay Nay and Dallas really are a unique couple. They’re both of European background, so the quick tempers and stubbornness are common to both. She Nay Nay let us know about how Dallas had spent some time that afternoon putting up a light fixture and had gotten frustrated when it wasn’t going so well. “I just watched him quietly,” she said.

“Ha!” he retorted. “S, you know how she is, when is she ever quiet?”

Apparently, She Nay Nay had offered Dallas some advice while he was putting up the fixture but it had been incorrect so he got even more frustrated and lost his temper. What’s funny is that both Dallas and She Nay Nay get the rage and in the ensuing argument, Dallas called his wife a Big Monster Head. (Those heteros sure know how to argue.)

Speaking of the rage, I let She Nay Nay that she should check in the blog, keep up with stories of S’s antics. I then went on to describe the incident we’d experienced a few weeks ago at the grocery store and the always popular morning rage story. Although, having to yell in over the din of the restaurant, the stories didn’t have their full effect.

Just like the last time we were at the restaurant during a busy evening, our fellow dinner patrons gave us plenty of fodder. The couple seated behind me got up and left during their entrees. They left their plates full of food and just up and walked away. We thought they dined and dashed but they eventually returned. She Nay Nay chatted them up a bit but then left them to their conversation. She thought that perhaps they were on a first date.

There was a table in the middle of the room that had about fourteen people sitting at it. “Trust fund, babies,” S said scanning over the crowd. Most of the women were bottle-dyed blonds and it was obvious that everyone at the table came from money. “You can see that one’s roots!” She Nay Nay said. “You know for sure she’s not a real blond.”

I commented on the fact that the men of the group were probably going out every five minutes to check that their cars hadn’t been broken into. “You know their Lexus’ are going to be pulling up front any minute now,” She Nay Nay added.

On our way out, She Nay Nay and S spotted what looked like another first date. “You can tell, he’s agreeing to everything she’s saying and smiling all the time,” S said. While the gals were checking out the dinner patrons, Dallas was chatting up Liza at the bar, so much so he arranged for us to have a shot of something with her.

“Does it have dairy in it?” S asked, always vigilante of her severe lactose intolerance. Fortuately for her, the shot was dairy free.

We left the restaurant, sated and feeling a little tipsy from the alcohol. The plan was to walk around and find a bar to have a drink to cap the night off with. S was in need of a smoke but left her cigarettes at home. There was no way she was going to smoke one of She Nay Nay’s menthols so I stopped in at a variety store to buy a pack for her.

I thought for sure the guy behind the counter was going to card me, but he didn’t. When he gave me my change, he wished me a good night. Putting my money away, I wished him a good night too. “I’ll be here until 8 in the morning,” he said with a smile.

“Ok,” I said, unsure of what to make of the comment and the way he said it. “Good night.”

I joined the three amigos back out on the street and we continued along in search of a bar. The night was brisk as the temperature was definitely dropping lower than it had been earlier in the day. We walked for a few blocks but didn’t find much open. There were a couple of dives but we didn’t want She Nay Nay and Dallas’ first night out in awhile to end up with us witnessing a redneck bar fight.

Eventually, we approached a bar that S’s pretentious cousin Roberta had gone on about one time. I wasn’t sure where the next bar was and I didn’t want us to keep walking all night so I suggested we try this bar out. It was situated above a store and if you didn’t know about it, you would totally miss it.

We made our way up the rickety wooden stairs and were greeted by a dinner party taking place in what looked like someone’s dining room. The people at the table looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, I thought for sure they were up way passed their bedtime. We walked further into the bar/restaurant and passed a bathroom and a small dining area which was comprised of church pews for seats and old sewing machines for tables.

The tabletop we were seated as was an old door which still had the handle attached. We scanned over the menu and the only beer available was some Italian lager none of us had ever heard of. Dallas had wanted to end his evening with a cold beer but I didn’t think the no-name Italian one on offer was what he had in mind. I suggested we leave and keep walking but everyone else agreed that we should stay.

We stayed for a bit and took in our surroundings. The place had potential to be a cool hangout but it was trying too hard to be hip. It just felt so forced with all of the old furniture and photographs on the walls. We also couldn’t help but notice the drunken girls from the dinner party in their tight dresses and random picture taking in the bathroom door.

After finishing our beers, we promptly called it a night and walked back home where we saw Dallas and She Nay Nay off.

S and I felt bad that we had dinner so late, but overall, it was a really fun night. I think She Nay Nay and Dallas had fun too as they seemed to laugh and enjoy their time with us. What can I say, S and I are fun gals to know.

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