DATE NIGHT IN THE SLOPE

So this is the part where our good fortune starts to get insulting. See, we found ourselves a babysitter. She lives in our building. She's fourteen, just starting high school, her parents are rad, and she makes a killer gluten-free chocolate chip cookie. Just today, she brought over a tupperware full of hand made cherry truffle ice cream. Cherry. Truffle. The best part is she charges a really fair rate--like, what you'd pay a babysitter where *you* live, not what you'd pay a babysitter where *I* live. I am not even fetching you, do you think I would fetch with you? She is the cherry (truffle) on our Brooklyn sundae. Also we've been having these crazy in-depth conversations about Pretty Little Liars. She's got herself some good theories.

We decided to celebrate this and the fact that we no longer live in a culinary dead zone by having ourselves a somewhat last-minute date night. On a Wednesday. Because we could! Hey, feel like coming downstairs? We're in the mood for a night out! Stop it I am getting so carried away with myself! 

We have a lot of really great restaurants in our area. In our part of town there are easily three or four Mexican or Salvadorian joints on every block, a killer taco truck just the perfect distance away by bike, plus all the Brooklyn places that get all the write ups in the New Yorker, so point to you, Brooklyn! We are swimming in dinner options. Man cannot live on The Smith and Jacob's Pickles alone, Upper West Side.

We're taking these places down systematically until we've eaten everything available in our 30 block radius. On Wednesday, we started at Taldé.

Do you know what I like about this picture? The water drips down Brandon's shirt. There is no greater equalizer than a sweaty glass of water.

Doesn't slow him down. ;)

Admittedly we were on an "easy date night high", so we took a lot of goofy photos of ourselves posing with our food.

Derr.

The kare kare was PERFECTION. The Korean chicken was maybe too spicy for me. Brandon ordered the cashew rice because he was attempting "vegetarianism" at that moment. "I've only had meat three times this week!" 

Side note that's about to take over this entire post, but you know, one of the things I like best about that Brandon Holbrook is the way he's always slow to try new things. He has a very specific way in which he views his life. But then, once he does try a new thing (and he always does, which is adorable in and of itself), he'll go about it in the weirdest way possible. The other day he told a friend he was on an "elimination diet" to narrow in on a possible dairy intolerance, so he was "eating a lot of string cheese to see what happens." I'm over here on the couch going... hysterical, this man is hysterical. I've told him a few times how elimination diets work--I was the one who suggested it--but no, this way makes more sense to Brandon, so here we are, five cheese sticks in. Is this just a guy thing? He never seems to do anything the way anybody else would think to do things, because how on earth could there be any other way to do things? You mean I'm not the first person to do this? And then you tell him these things, like, "It's Pink Eye. I promise," and when it's Pink Eye he's like, shocked. Or he'll say, "You know, I really like these pants! The fit is really current," the first time he wears them five months after I bought them for him. Or, "Man, this album sounds so much better on vinyl, come here and listen!" What can I say, that's why I like him.

But yes, too spicy. 

It got dark, we paid the check, we took a long, slow stroll through the brownstones, we stopped for some churros and ice cream, we held hands and laughed at each others' jokes, we stopped in and bought a notebook at the CVS because we happened to pass it and I happened to remember that I needed one ("This is not really date night material, Natalie"), and then we went home and paid the sitter and checked in on Huck in his bed and sat out on our fire escape and talked about all the silliest things. And now you know everything we did on our date night, start to finish, in excruciating detail. Aren't you relieved?

You know, the weirdest thing about marriage is the way you can go for months without being the same people you met and fell in love with. Instead you're "Mom" and "Dad" or "Office Worker" and "Person who researches all the local preschool options," and while you really love those people too, when you get to peel that all back and remember that, Oh yeah, I really like this you, for all these other reasons I'd forgotten all about! It's a pretty great feeling, isn't it? 

And.. see what I did there? Oh brother. All us people having all the same experiences, finding it all so new and different and unique. What a funny world. I'm grateful these days that mine comes with a fire escape. Because fire escapes are romantic. Not to mention useful.

Quick somebody end this post before it gets even dumber! 

The end. ;)