O my....we had SO much fun with our friends last evening! We realize most people have great times of fun like we had last night as a regular way of life, but we don't get out much to entertainment venues featuring special events, so for us it was quite a grand occasion.
The evening started with a delicious dinner at The Willow restaurant. It was a slow moving, relaxing, feast filled evening of excellent service, a relaxed atmosphere, a sunset view, twinkly outdoor lights and excellent food.
My husband and I skipped the yummy sounding appetizers, but one of our friends ordered the wild boar soup and it smelled like heaven in a dish...maybe it was just my intense hunger from waiting such a long time for our meal, but it smelled like something I could eat every day for the rest of my life. He said it was indeed very tasty. While we waited for the rest of our meal, we were each served a teensy bite of pickerel on a round sliced pickle and a Japanese sauce with sesame seeds. Beats the heck out of the usual basket of hot, doughy bread and greasy butter as a "freebie" we often get from the kitchen in many other restaurants, that is for sure! My husband ordered the "Meat and Potatoes", which arrived with an incredible amount of freshly roasted beef slices and the potato puree. I was too invested in concentrating on my plate of wild boar meat balls and spaghetti squash with a light helping of marinara sauce and topped with crisy fried kale, to notice what my husband was served for vegetables on his plate. All I know is we both cleaned our plates completely of food! The spaghetti one friend ordered looked so delicious and she truly enjoyed it, a relief since she is not one to try new adventures in food comsumption. Her husband had a lamb dish that featured a large "hunk" of tender, juicy lamb. I think I may just order that if we go there again sometime before the Fall Menu changes over to the Winter Menu. We tried 3 of the desserts. There was a cherry "flan" sort of thing made mostly of whipped and baked sugar, so I didn't try that one. My husband and my friend declared the honey pie to be quite a taste sensation, but when I was told it was like a combination of caramel and shortbread for flavour and texture, I passed on trying that one too. Had I liked it the other two would have lost any chance of getting another bite! I settled for the rather fabulously flavoured chocolate beet cake...gluen free of course, so I did get the occasional heavy, woody tang that seems to accompany most gluten free foods on my taste buds...but it was so good. There were bits of chocolate shaved avocado that didn't add a lot to the flavour, but looked amazing and gave a lovely soft texture to add into the thicker cakey one. The prices were middle of the road reasonable, the portion sizes big enough we knew we eaten a good dinner but without making us feel stuffed and uncomfortable. Not having to feel rushed because our friends made the reservation for early in the evening and gave us the exact amount of time required to relax and enjoy the time it takes to wait for freshly prepared food, set the perfect tone for the evening. Listening to the stories of their very interesting lives was entertainment enough for us, but then after dinner we got to go to the comedy night event!
One of the friends works for Investors' Group and that company sponsors a Canada-wide comedy tour each year for its employees and clients. What a privilege to be invited to attend. We haven't laughed that hard for years! Ivan Decker was our comic MC for the evening and he was hysterically funny. The first main act was Patrick Haye. He was funny too and didn't resort to the "dirty jokes" until the very end of his set, so we were spared anything really gross. At least his little foray into that realm was funny enough not to be annoying and meant there truly was something for everyone at the event. As much as I enjoyed Mr. Decker and Mr. Haye, I super duper party pooper enjoyed Bengt Washburn! He had a long set, we started laughing ten seconds into it and didn't stop for the next 20 minutes or more when his set ended. He talked about the most every day things and made them hilarious! He didn't need to resort to bad language or filth to make his points, he was just a real "everyman" sort of comic and wow, did we ever enjoy him!! There are a couple of lines from his set that I suspect are going to become family sayings in this house. hahaha
Despite the headache of trying to drive out of the parking lot at Conexus Centre after the event, we were still home by around 9:30pm. My husband was able to collect his papers and computer set up to take with him to his meeting this morning and still be asleep by shortly after 10pm. I stayed awake a little longer, replaying some of my favourite jokes from the evening in my mind.
It was SO good for my husband to have a chance to step away so completely from work and all its tiresome stresses for the whole evening. He dealt only with one issue just as dinner was getting started, then that was it for the rest of the night. He had no cell phone calls to deal with, no frantic emergencies arose after 4:30pm yesterday that required his immediate attention. He had his 2 naps yesterday afternoon, had a good sleep last night and left for work this morning more rested and cheery than I have seen him in awhile. One day of catching up on sleep will not completely solve all his lack of rest issues, but it certainly helped! I am going to take his work phone away from him on Sunday, as it is his one day off he is "fer shur" supposed to have between now and sometime in October.
I am so grateful to our friends for the invitation out last night. They are truly nice folk. I am so grateful to God that He allowed my husband to just relax and enjoy it without interruptions. I am so happy my husband stepped out of the office yesterday and took the time he needed to rest. I am happy he is supposed to have tomorrow off work. I am happy I have choir rehearsal tomorrow afternoon. AND right now I am happy to be up to my armpits in laundry, so I better go and rescue the load presently in the washer and change over the clothes to the next load.
Have a wonderful day family and friends!
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