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September 19, 2005
The Queen City
Categories: A Case of the Mondays
Sarah and I spent a lot of time in Charlotte this weekend, it seemed like, which was a good thing.
Sarah's new job is in Myers Park, a fancy old-money area of Charlotte. We had been invited out Saturday night by her boss, so I got up early and took her to work that morning, so we'd have just one car that night. It's about 35 minutes without traffic -- a hefty commute. I dropped her off, then headed back home. I stopped in Fort Mill to work out at the new YMCA, which was supposed to be all nice and fancy. The Fort Mill Y is in a new development called Baxter. Baxter sits right off of I-77 and looks like someone tried to take a Cape Cod village and dropped it in South Carolina. On one hand, it's a nice place. You can walk to shops and stores. It's very family and pededstrian friendly. The YMCA and an elementary school are right in the development. The houses also look very nice from the outside; unlike a lot of developments, they all don't look exactly the same. There are different colors and styles. On the other hand, it's a little wierd to see those style houses in South Carolina; it has a Disney-like inauthenticity to it. Plus, even though I acknowledge and would enjoy many of the benefits such a place provides, those type of developments freak me out a little. Something "1984" ish/The Prisoner about them all. Of course, our next house will probably be in one.
I ran some other errands Saturday (a garden hose! whoo!), then messed around the house while watching football. Texas A&M won. Virginia won on a last second field goal. I dozed off somewhere in there. I stopped over at cousin Robbie's for a bit to watch some more football on his giant TV, then went to pick Sarah up. We followed her boss to Ilios/Noche. This restraunt was great, made even more great by the fact that Josh (Sarah's boss) knew everyone that worked there. There's a definite food subculture in Charlotte that the Pasta and Provisions folks are plugged into. So, we met the chefs (three Culinary Institute of America grads own and run the place) and most of the waitstaff. We were met at Ilios/Noche by Bernie (Sarah's other boss) and some of their friends. We basicly closed the restaurant down, eating octopus, pizza, lamb chops, and more of the Spanish/Greek/Italian fusion cuisine. While all the folks we were with knew a whole lot about food and wine, things never felt snobby, which was a good thing.
Sunday we slept in a bit, then took a drive because the weather was so nice. Wandering aimlessly, Sarah stopped in some tiny SC town so we could play on the see-saws in the park. I love my wife because she does stuff like that. I understand why you never see see-saws anymore, though, because they are broken bones and lawsuits waiting to happen.
Sunday afternoon we read the paper and watched The Last Samurai, courtesy of Netflix. Enjoyable, if not great. The we headed back into Charlotte (Matthews, technically) to hang out with our friends Lee, Marianne, and their son Ben. We ate some burgers and talked for a bit. Sarah and I were home about 9:45 and promptly went to bed. I slept like crap for some reason, waking up at 4:30 and unable to get back to sleep. That was a hard way to begin a Monday, but thankfully work is pretty light today. I'm giving my first test tomorrow, so I just had to polish that off and get it copied. Nothing else is pressing, so I may leave a bit early today and nap.
Posted by Nakia at September 19, 2005 12:54 PM