Weekend Recap

Speaking of the Baton, here's the picture from below, but cropped. This is how you should frame it up when you shoot it in the first place. Nice and tight.

Anyway, she came up for the weekend and we had a great time. But not until after her flight arrived several hours late, of course. I don't know what it is about flying into or out of New York, but it sucks.

Now if you've ever walked around the 70s on 2nd Avenue, perhaps a restaurant draped in orange on the west side of the block has caught your eye. It's called Baraonda, and it's awesome.

It was quite the charming Italian place, small and intimate, very dark but quite lively with upbeat music and impressive art adorning the walls. The crowd ranged from 22-year-old grad students (OK, that was Jennifer) to well-dressed 30s and even a few veteran couples in search of a late Friday table. And despite its small capacity and bustling atmosphere, we lucked into a table without much of a wait.

Jennifer had the gnocchi and I had something called Maccheroncini with sliced Italian sausage and red sauce. The predinner vodka drink was perfectly poured before we each had a glass of wine. I typically only order red when I'm having steak, but I went with it this time and wasn't disappointed with how it paired splendidly with the pasta.

Every employee we talked to had Italian accents, including one of the bussers who described the oil that came with the bread quite elegantly. "Everybody loves it," he inisted.

Baraonda is presumably an authentic family-owned joint that I think anyone would enjoy. I paid for the two vodka drinks at the bar, but two glasses of wine, a salad and two wonderful entrees only came to about $66, so that was pleasing as well.

Saturday

Got up early and hit the philosophy class as the Baton did some homework at a nearby coffee shop. Was pleasantly surprised at Jennifer's eagerness to go to a sports bar and watch the final three quarters of the Ohio State game. I'm not typically a sports-bar guy, but in a city to which I'm not native, watching the Bucks with dozens of fellow Ohioans is a nice change. Steve and his people were up there as usual, and Jennifer I'm sure charmed the hell out of them.

Was hoping to go down to SoHo, but the early afternoon draft beer made us a little tired. So after a brief nap, we rolled down to H&M at 59th Street and some other places.

Later, our friend Madeline was excited that Jennifer was in town, so she invited us to a birthday party for a friend at a bar called Botanica in the West Village. It's one of those too-cool-to-have-a-sign joints that made us walk past it three times before the third person I asked said, "It's right here, dude." This is another area where I'm the girl in the relationship and Jennifer is the guy. I have no problem at all looking lost and asking for directions. Perhaps Jennifer gets more pride solving problems; I just wanted some damn vodka. Was nice ordering two liquor drinks and hearing the bartender say only, "Twelve bucks please." Stuff is cheaper in the village, I presume.

Finally, if you're ever planning to visit me here, and you see a flight for $40 cheaper landing at JFK, go to LaGuardia anyway. Taking Jennifer to the airport early-ish on Sunday was miserable, and I've bored you enough with the previous 10 paragraphs, so I'll spare you the details. Just suck it up and pay a little more for the convenience of LGA.