December 17, 2005
I am finding it harder and harder to keep up with this whole Holidailies thing, as we approach Christmas at the end of this week. (THE END OF THIS WEEK! AAAUG!) For one thing, I have a work deadline halfway through the week, and am madly scrambling to stay on target to meet it. And then of course there is Christmas, with a last-minute gift or two to buy, and presents to wrap, and a sleeper PJ to sew in time for Christmas Eve. (Zeke's is finished except for one foot; Stazi's isn't even begun.)
In lieu of showering each other with massive amounts of gifts as has happened during Christmases past, Keith and I this year opted to get each other one present each, plus a fancy dinner out. I of course was weak and wound up getting him two presents to open on Christmas, but one is very small, so it hardly counts, right? I would tell you all what it is, but Keith does occasionally get around to reading my journal, so I won't ruin the surprise until after Christmas. Also, when I said there would be two presents, I really meant there would just be one, like we agreed.
That last sentence was just for Keith's benefit. Shh.
We went on our fancy dinner yesterday evening. Keith more or less left the choice of restaurant up to me, although he very generously offered to go to a sushi restaurant if I so chose. This was generous because Keith actually does not like sushi. If we go to a sushi restaurant, he will have the miso soup and the tempura and the edamame and the noodles, but not the sushi. Since the whole point of this outing was that it was a mutual Christmas present for the two of us, I declined his offer, and we went to Ruth's Chris instead.
I had not previously been to the Ruth's Chris here in Columbus, but it was one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. A couple of friends and I used to go every year during the holiday season as a girls' night out kind of thing. We'd get dressed up and sometimes order a bottle of champagne and have some fun. I think it's nice to go to a really superior restaurant once in a while, even if once in a while works out to only once a year.
Anyway, the Columbus Ruth's Chris did not disappoint. I had the NY strip as per usual, although I ordered it rare as I have been doing lately. For the longest time, I was a medium-rare kind of girl. I liked my steaks pink and bloody, but also nice and warm. The problem is that it's hard to find a restaurant that can do a good medium rare without browning the insides a little too much for my taste. So I decided, a few months ago, that I would start ordering my steaks rare to see how I liked them.
Oh, it is wonderful. If you can get past the squeam factor in eating a steak that is barely warm, I would highly recommend it. It's tender and bloody and juicy and you can really taste the steak.
But I digress. I ordered that, and Keith got the bison steak, and we ordered a passel of vegetables to go along with. Both entrees were great, and of course the atmosphere was very swank and festive, and they even did complimentary valet parking. Of course, when one envisions valet parking, one envisions the valet driving off your nice new BMW or something, and not your banged-up family station wagon with the three half-empty latte cups jammed into the space between the two front seats, and drifts of children's artwork, stuffed animals, and discarded McNuggets containers filling the back seat. I suspect the valets have seen it all before, though.
After dinner we did a little Christmas shopping at the mall near our house, and stopped at an ice cream parlor along with a few other intrepid souls who didn't mind having ice cream on a night when the temperature was forecast to fall into the low teens. Then Keith squired me home, and we discovered that his brother, God bless him, had managed to get both kids to sleep with no apparent trauma.
It was a good night out, and a great Christmas present.
Posted at December 17, 2005 10:14 PM