Day 21
Listening to: What a Beautiful World
Thought for the day:   My HVAC went out today, but in the words of William Makepeace Thackeray, “Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.”

Every Wednesday I join a group of friends for dinner. We call it the Wednesday Night Dinner Club (WNDC). Yes, I know. How original. Each week we choose a different restaurant. The restaurants range from the “what the hell is that on my plate?” to “oh chicken fingers…….how chain-esque.” I’ve not had a bad experience yet.

One of the suck-hemorrhoidiest parts about growing up with divorced parents is that I never knew what it was like to sit down to dinner with a family every night. We did TV trays and TV. It was deprivation man. I know this now because the WNDC has shown me just how precious this experience can be. It’s priceless. So guess what……….. I will be devoting every Wednesday 365 to the WNDC.

Macaroni Grill

There are a bunch of Italians (their parents got off the friggin’ boat) in the WNDC. We frequent the Italian joints. I ALWAYS order spaghetti. If I ever order something else, y’all need to check on me. Italian restaurants rarely mess up spaghetti, so I’m going to talk to you today about the wine instead…………the wine in the water glass.

Yes, the wine was served in a water glass. I’ve never seen this type of service, but after Googling the topic I am apparently some kind of wine in a water glass retard. It’s an Italian thing and very common………….but of course y’all already knew this because y’all are not wine in a water glass retards.

I turned to my Italian friend Nic during the meal and said, “Did your family drink wine from a water glass.” He said, “Oh yeah. Juice glasses. In fact. when we were kids, our parents would give us wine mixed with orange soda.” The conversation quickly changed, but the wine and orange soda was fermenting in my brain while I was slurping up the spaghetti. Toward the end of the meal I said to Nic, “Tell me more about wine and Orange Crush.” The entire Italian group jumped on me like the mob at a bank raid. “NOT ORANGE CRUSH! Orange soda.” WHAT? There’s a difference? First I didn’t grow up eating dinner at a table and NOW……… NOW I know I missed out on the wine and orange soda (NOT Orange Crush) too. Oh the horrors of a broken family.

Btw: Two of the WNDC ate the sea bass and raved about it.