Friends With Jens

Things I have, now that the weekend is over:
-a feeling of sadness, because Jen & Mark are out there on the freeway somewhere, heading towards Toronto
-a feeling of happiness, because I just had one of the greatest, most renewing, most laugh-filled weekends EVERRRRRRRR
-a new taste for coffee liqueur
-a new appreciation for my vision, and a new admiration for those wh0 must go without (more on that later!)
-3D glasses ... from watching this on Saturday afternoon, while an indefinable substance fell over Montreal (is it rain? is it snow? is it God jostling His frothy cappuccino while he reaches for a pain-au-chocolat?)
-tons and tons and tons of delicious, beautifully imperfect, crunchy vegetables from a fabulous adventure to the Jean-Talon Farmer's Market this aft
-new tall boots that make teacher noises on uncarpeted floors! new winter coat avec furry, cold-proof collar!
-a tasteful souvenir from the Flying-J at Napanee
-some blow (this kind, not the other kind)
-a renewed love for two of my best people.

Saturday night deserves a specific mention of its own... Here is a fairly accurate artistic portrayal of what the dinner looked like at O.Noir:

We arrived there (after briefly waiting out the rain in what we later realized was the door to a ... um... well, let's just say the light that guided us to said doorway hummed from a three-foot-tall pair of neon legs), and made our way into the dimly-lit lobby where a charming bartender explained the "rules" - order your food while you're still in the light of the lobby, lock your gear away in one of the cupboards provided, turn off your cell phones, etc... and then we were introduced to our waiter who lead us conga-line style through the thick double curtains and into the pitch black dining room. All the waiters and waitresses working in the dining room are 50-90% visually impaired (as explained by the bartender earlier), and they do an amazing job. It was truly incredible. Before we went into the darkness Jen pointed out a floor plan framed behind the bar, so we got a quick glimpse of the dining room's layout - I think it was essentially one loooong room, with tables close to the wall on either side and a wide aisle down the middle. The servers moving around and between the tables kept tabs on each other by any kind of call they felt like - some clapped, some called "Attention! Attention!", one even meowed as she went between kitchen and guests (at least, I assume that was her route ... who knows!). Our waiter helped us find & conquer our chairs, and we gradually realized that we were sitting in a row across from another couple, who sounded about our age (and one of whom was also a Megan! That can get confusing in the dark). I was hoping we'd meet them in the light afterwards but we didn't end up leaving at the same time... plus it's kind of cool knowing someone based on words only. Maybe I'll overhear them on the Metro sometime and be like, "hey, are you the people from the dark?" It could be the beginning to a good story!

The possibilities for any kind of thing happening at that place are endless - dirty deeds, dangerous deeds, desperate deeds would all be a piece of cake for the right (or wrong?) people! No wonder they make you lock everything up before you go in. There were some very happy, loud people somewhere to our right and we all had theories about what was going on at their table in the dark. Along with our incognito cohorts, we scared each other with made-up horror movie scenarios... imagine the police questioning afterwards? "I swear, officer, I didn't see a thing!" Mark scared us further by GETTING OUT OF HIS CHAIR and sneaking about in the dark. I had a fork in each hand and was ready to jab at whatever touched me but luckily he was seated again before the waiter came with wine. Every time he arrived with something new for us he'd let us know he was there with a very polite "Sorry?" and then help us adjust to whatever he put down. "Sorry? Your wine." And my hands would be found, lifted, and placed around the cool bowl of a wine glass. When he brought our food dishes he waited patiently while we groped for our wine glasses and lifted them safely out of the way. An added fun feature of O.Noir is that you can order food described on the menu, or (feeling brave) you can order their "surprise" dishes! Mark & Jen ordered both a surprise appetizer & surprise entree, while I stuck with a known entree - chicken & eggplant - and ordered a surprise dessert. Everything was sososooooo delicious, probably a combination of no sight/good cooks. The surprise appetizer for J&M was pacific salmon, and their entree turned out to be some sort of combination of all the entrees on the menu. The surprise desert was a raspberry/mango custard! It would have been fun to see it all after we had eaten it, to find out if our mental images of what we were fumbling with were accurate. To reward ourselves for having re-emerged onto the street without food or wine stains on our laps we went for some raspberry beer and, eventually, some Donnie Darko & popcorn back at my (fully lit) apartment.

What a weekend... time now for a bit or recuperation, then bed, then back to life.
JenandmarkImissyouuuu!!!!