Sky Between Her Thighs

A long, long time ago, back when I was even more neurotic but hid it better (or did I?) a new girl in my town was courting me to be her friend.

It was odd. Mostly because I knew pretty much everyone in the town so forming a new relationship was as rare as bumble bees in December. But also because up to that point, I doubt anyone new had ever tried to enter my life.

I remember two things from that short-lived friendship.

1. When she told me that I should have one really good friend and that friend should be heavier than me so I would look better. (Remember how she was courting me?  Let me know if you need help figuring out who was who in this scenario.)

2. When she told me that her brother (I don't know that I ever met him but she made him into this totally cool, older guy with impeccable taste) had a rule about who he would date: "I like a girl who has some sky between her thighs," she quoted him as saying.

I'd never heard that expression before and clearly, it's stuck with me. I know I should really worry for that girl and hope that she's overcome her issues -- or recognized that she has some. I hope I rejected her Rule No. 1 outright. I know it was short-lived.

But I do fret that the second one adhered to my adolescent pyche like a layer of cholesterol on your arteries: potentially deadly, difficult to scrape off and definitely something you should avoid. 

So yes, I tried desperately to figure out how to get some sky between my thighs. I dieted until I passed out on a shopping trip with my parents. Tighter jeans didn't work. And it's harder than you think to give yourself bow legs -- or to maintain that pose.

I thought about that eff-ed up  phrase from the past the other day when I read about a study of a new and dangerous body image problem among girls. They call it the "thigh gap" -- http//:bit.ly/14Nfjju . A little less offensive than  sky between their thigh but still enough to make you want to punch someone. (Like, that guy, maybe.) 

If you're a mother to girls -- hell: if you know a young girl --  it's worth your time to google the term and fight like a demon to keep her from falling victim to this sick, perverted, one-more-thing-for-a-mother-of-girls-to-worry-about thing.

Here's the thing: I'm stocky. My thighs will never evoke imagery like beautiful blue skies or let that color shine through. The only weather-related phenomenon that might spring to mind is thunder. No matter how thin I get, I'll never be one of those girls who can stand with their feet together and have parades of small animals or even large toddlers pass through their legs. 

And that's O.K. Really. It's better than O.K. It's as it should be.

It's taken me a while to get here, but I'm definitely in the camp where being fit and healthy is more important to me than anything else. Sure, I want to look good but looking good is relative. I'd much rather hang out with people who care more about doing good than looking good. Generally that's where the most fun is anyway.

I'm not sure why the genectic code had to make some people naturally thin; others have to struggle to stay moderately thin; and others to be chunky no matter what.

But I've stopped hoping for an apocolypse just to watch the skinny girls die first. 

For one, my body fat would keep me around so long the horrors of the apocolypse would eventually come to Indiana and I'd suffer, too. For another, my daughter is a skinny girl and I don't want to see her suffer.

Plus, I'm pretty sure that in an apocolypse, there'd be no chocolate ice cream. And who wants to live like that?

Another reason is that I'm nearly blind without contact lenses or glasses and in the apocolypse, I'm not sure I'd have access to good vision care. When you can't see the horde of starving skinny girls coming at you (and you know they'll travel in well-groomed packs) , it might be your thunder thighs for dinner. And again, who wants that?

But enough about body image. My birthday has come and gone again. Jeff missed most of it because of his softball tournament so I actually got two celebrations. After presents the morning of the actual day, my friends at work took great care of me and even sent me home with new champagne. Ali and I had ice cream and silly girl stuff. She fled for Jenna's on Saturday, soJeff and I had a weekend of updating some photo walls, biking and having a really decadant tapas dinner with champagne and movies at home.

We got a late start on the bike ride and had headed north. We talked about going out, but that would require showering and getting dressed up, so I was sweating, pedaling and thinking up alternative dinner ideas. It was Jeff who remembered that we'd found one of our favorite champagnes at the Vine and Table in Carmel, about seven miles from our house. 

I don't know how much six bottles of wine weighs, but as the only one of us with a basket on her bike, I can tell you that it's not insubstantial. The bottles are, however, easily broken and not inexpensive. So biking home with champagne in your basket is not for the faint of heart or delicate of build.

A skinny girl probably couldn't have done it.

   

Friends and Family Plan

In all the world, I'm not sure there's a sweeter image than a father dancing with his newly married daughter.

Especially when the father doesn't look right unless he has his cowboy hat on and she looks like a fairy princess come to life. 

OK. Maybe I have a few of Alison and Jeff that would rival the shot of my cousin, Howard, and his lovely daughter, Micajah Green Grassick.  I would like to say I have sweet pictures of the newly married David Cowan and James Reed but they're goober boys and didn't provide any great poses while I had my iPhone ready.

No matter. I attended my second wedding in two weeks on Saturday. It was traditional country wedding and my date was the lovely Kirsten Jasheway. My family calls Jeff "City Boy" or just "City."  They only briefly got to meet Kirsten, who is so much more city than Jeff can ever hope to be.

She grew up in Australia's capital city of Canberra and spent her early adult years in Sydney. Yeah. Indianapolis is rural for her.  And I took her home with me.  She silently took in the corn and soy bean fields as we drove. Sure, I was driving fast because we were running late and she might have been struck dumb by terror (It's happened before.) But she didn't let on. 

I was forced to slow down around what I think of as Knuckoll's Curve in Clay County. We saw two boys running through a field, one holding a rod and reel and the other wielding their catch high over his head with two hands. It's Mayberry with a slight twist. "That's awesome," she said.

When we slowed for the turkey crossing the road on the way to my sister, Donna's house, she asked if it was going to be Thanksgiving dinner. And when she came out of the bedroom after changing for the wedding to see most of Donna's family standing about in tee-shirts and jeans, she just swallowed hard.

They were going to a dirt track race instead of the wedding, but she didn't know that. 

Sadly, we didn't have time to chat, so we flew off to the Lebanon Baptist Church ( I should have entered myself in that damn race and thank you very much local police for not being around...) where the ceremony was lovely but brief for the girl used to Catholic ceremonies and had once attended a 4-hour Indian wedding.

We were among the late arrivals to the capacity wedding and thanks to my Aunt Shirley, my sister Nancy (just kidding, sort of) made room for us in their pew. We had the good fortune to run into Jeff Blanton, one of my favorited people in all of Greene and Clay counties. Like my cousin Howard, he is rarely without his cowboy hat and I've never seen him without his humor.

We got to talking about prior get-togethers where he, Howard and Jeff indulge in fireworks fetishes and I told Kirsten about how Jeff and his wife Bridget would take the kids on Gator-wagon rides through the woods.

Warming to a new audience, he threw out his hands and said to Kirsten, "You know what three things a redneck's best day has to have?"

She shook her head no. "You need three things," he said. "Something you can blow up. Some cold beer. And at least a little bit of nudity."

I told him we'd work on the third ingredient for our next time at the lake. What I didn't tell him is that he could have had one of the three later that same night when Kirsten and I changed out of our wedding finery  for the drive back home. (I didn't want to backtrack to Donna's and it was dark. We were buttoning and zipping up before anyone came down the path.)

We had to get back home so we left before the bride and groom departed but we did have cake (beautiful and yummy) and we applauded Micajah's choice to substitute the garter ceremony with a quiz that involve her and Kyle answering questions back to back, holding up either his or her shoe to answer which one of them was best suited to the answer.  I hate that garter thing.

Jeff and Alison spent their Saturday -- 6 hours of it -- at the Indiana State Fair where Ali and her friend Breanna Tabor apparently rode every ride 12 times and the threesome sampled just about every food item the fair had to offer. (Thanks, Aunt Cindy!) 

"I only almost threw up one time," Alison reported.  

I'm not sure Kirsten can say the samething. I did drive more slowly going home though.

Oh! One more thing: we were honored (and I mean that sincerely) to see Denise McFadden and Scott Cunningham on Friday. They were in town from Charlottesville, Va., and we dropped in for another fabulous meal at Petit Chou. 

They are amazing people and we're lucky to count them as friends. They're the kind of people who make you realize you need to do more for the world. And they're really funny. Well. Denise is.  :)

Anyway, it was a lovely weekend, which will be capped off for Jeff and Alison tomorrow when he takes her to her first concert: Bruno Mars, with opening act, Fitz and the Tantrums. 

Scott, whose children are both nearly grown, informed Jeff that he represents everything that's wrong with American parenting by letting young Ali go to a concert ON A SCHOOL NIGHT.  "I hope you got cheap seats so she can't see anything and has to lean down to hear," he said.

"Nope," Jeff confessed. The seats are center stage on the floor.

Scott groaned but took some small comfort in my interjection: "Uh, Jeff wants to see the opening act. It's not ALL for Ali."

Jeff has informed his daughter that this kind of event won't be coming along for a long, long, time, and that she will have to get her homework done, prepare her school bag on Monday evening like normal AND get to school on time on Tuesday. He claims I'm the one who indulges her. He is the strict one. The enforcer.

Right. I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thinking that my cowboy hat-wearing cousin had when he first was confronted with the possibility of making his eldest daughter smile. 

  

I do. I do. And I would again.

Back when Jeff and I got married, our brother-in-law (in heart but not yet in deed) said he'd bring his camera and maybe take a few shots.

To say that David is a professional photographer is a disservice. He's an artist. And the few shots he took were amazing. He put them together in a beautiful album, which was his and James' wedding gift to us.

So when we were asked to join them at their wedding, and they hadn't hired a photographer, I made David give me his camera. So there do exist some shots of the wedding, but they're in David's camera. And they will in no way capture the lovely moments were for fortunate the share with them.

It was small ceremony in a church built on Monhegan Island, Maine, in the 1800s. There were just 11 of us, not including the minister, who was on a two-week rotation that he and a bunch of other men and women of faith take part in so there's an official at the church. They're all sorts of denominations and I think their tours of ministerial duty are a great expression of how godly people ought to act. They just take their turn and respect the other. How cool is that?

The ceremony was short. The words were lovely, but I remember mostly a phrase that was something like, "marriage isn't the pursuit of a great partner; it's being a great partner."

It was totally and wholly wonderful and I feel blessed to have witnessed it.

Also a blessing was when Peter saved us all when he noticed a candle had lit up one of the blooms on the table. It became a great momento/corsage.

.

We met David's friend Frances Kornbluth, who was a wedding guest and was once a cover girl for National Geographic. She's in her 90s now but she still paints in her studio, which is in her summer island home, which is one house away from Jamie Wyeth's home, which is a few hundreds rocks away from the Atlantic Ocean.

We visited her studio on Sunday morning as part of our island exploration. I found a print of brilliant reds and orange and blues and kept asking people where I'd seen it before. Was it on a print? A tee-shirt?

Not looking up from where she was looking for something for David, Frances said, "You've looked out over the water on Monhegan at sunset. That's where you saw it."

It was a short but great visit. The place is just soaked in serenity where every dirt path can lead you to new kind of inspiration. Jen and Peter probably covered the most ground, though I think we all made it to the lighthouse and the rock that proclaims John Smith (Yes that John Smith) was there before you. 

The Monhegan House, where we all stayed is at least as old as the church. All but one of the bathrooms are on the second floor. None of the rooms have keys. They all have windows that open to the breeze.

After the wedding supper, I was wiped out. I went upstairs for a minute and made the mistake of laying down. Two hours later, I wandered downstairs again where most of the wedding party was yukking it up. We ended up on the porch and James found an open bottle of wine.  

Ever the gentleman, he asked if I wanted to share.  I declined, saying, "I said I'd never drink again on Thursday night."

From the dark reaches of the porch came this Eastern drawl: "But it's Sahtidday night now."

Early Sunday morning, I came out of our room to meet David's brother, Steven, as he emerged from his and John's. We gushed about the beautiful light that was streaming in. 

He couldn't wait to get downstairs to walk about. I was just as enthusiastic and we struggled for a moment to describe it.

"It's like, it's like, it's like I've just put on my glasses," he said. "I have to get out there. Plus. I've gotta pee."

It's a very practical place, Monhegan. They tolerate the tourists. Ali and I had walked down to the beach to check if the tide had left more sea glass. As we left, two older ladies stopped us to remark on our hair and said just the previous week they'd had redheads too.  So unusual. What brought us to the island? 

"Oh the wedding!" they said. Of course they knew about the wedding. James and David have been visiting for years and there are only a few families that live there year round. There's a sign somewhere that says "If you can't stand the winter, you don't deserve the summer."

I don't deserve the summer. But I'm glad I got to experience it and to meet a few of the people there. 

 

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine....

You know that song, You are my sunshine, my only sunshine? 

I'm so tone-deaf I should qualify for some kind of special assistance. Certainly anyone who's been within earshot when I think I'm alone in my car and belt out a tune should get some sort of compensation.  

Despite this, I used to sing that song to Alison when she was too little to do anything about it. God bless her little heart, she didn't cry and she even sometimes went to sleep. I'm hoping it was long enough ago that she'll never actually remember it.

I have the song in my head because I watched "Trouble with the Curve" this weekend. Clint Eastwood has gone kind of right wing batshit crazy in his golden days but my sister had Two Mules for Sister Sara on her TV last weekend and when he came on again, I had to watch. The bad guys in this latest movie are as one-dimensional as his spaghetti westerns, but life is  complicated. Sometimes you need a simple story. The sunshine song played a bit of a role. 

So it's been in my head. And it led to the photo part of the PhotoShoot today.

She IS my sunshine. But then, again, I have so much more sunshine in my life than storm.

Thanks for being part of the light, everybody.

And, you're welcome for now having that song on repeat in your head.... :) If you've seen the movie, I sing it even more badly than Clint does....

Put me in coach.....if you have to

So my eldest niece and her friend decide they want to raise money for cancer research. As they've played softball nearly all their lives, they decide it would be fun to have a 100-inning softball game to do it. If you play, you convince people to give a donation to the cause based on the number of innings you can complete.

This is how they sold it to me: "Oh, come down. It'll be fun. We'll have a bunch of girls and you'll only play as long as you want to. You won't have to play every inning. We'll mix it up and play with bouncy balls and running the bases backward and fun stuff. Even the little girls can play. It'll be fun."

So I said yes. As long as I could just write a check and not hit my friends up for donations, I'd do it. Jeff would get a weekend at home alone (he had to work anyway); Ali would hang out with her cousins; and I'd get to hang out with my sisters before and after the game. 

Here's what really happened:  Ali and I went down Friday night. She wanted to spend the night with her cousins and I didn't want to get up at dawn for the 9 a.m. start. Friday night, Jaime tells me not to worry about being at the ballfield at 9. They had a bunch of girls ready to play. Just sleep in and show up when I was ready.

So Donna, Jim  and I were having coffee, catching up on Saturday morning when the call came in. The crowd hadn't showed. Could we please get our butts in gear and get the heck over there?

Off we go. Forty innings later -- that's six hours for you unfamiliar with how softball works -- we called it quits.  Some of us had had to leave early due to family obligations; others were just there to fill in and never wanted to see a softball again; but most of the original 15 or so were there til the bitter, aching end. 

And it was SO much fun.

It had been something like 15 years since I'd played and my only real goals were to deliver my check; get Ali on the field and having fun; and not embarass myself. 

Many of the girls -- I can say that because I was literally the oldest on the field (not that I outed myself; at least verbally) -- had been playing off and on together since high school. They had real skills. I threw my mitt away years ago after discovering it had grown over with mold in the garage.

Connie Bolinger was non-stop hilarious. We'd never met before but I do hope we meet again. She was  part coach, part rodeo clown. I don't think she stopped talking for more than 30 seconds from inning one to 39 when she had to go home to get ready for her high school reunion. 

That reunion had to be something. She has a twin sister, who I deeply regret not meeting. Apparently "back in the day" they were fearsome on the diamond. Brittany, of course, we knew, but there was an Angela, an Ashley, Tiffany, Tara, Alisha, Sherri, Diane and a cluster of others who I'm sorry I can't remember all their names.

This is all you need to know about them all: 

We'd gotten there, were introduced and lightly mentioned that Alison hadn't really played before. Ali got up to bat. A swing and a miss. On her second try, she got a hit. The field and dugout erupted in hurrahs and claps.  Alison's grin rivaled the sun.

Now she didn't stick with it as long as the rest of us. She took a few breaks to help Aleasha out in the rarely-visited concession stand, and she ended up playing with small children -- enough to earn $5 as an unexpected babysitter. But she had a good time. 

I'd never met any of the softball ladies before, other than Jaime and Brittany, but I felt like I was home. 

I asked Tiffany how she'd gotten mixed up in this. "Brittany," she shrugged. And that word said it all.

These girls were there for fun and love of the game. And probably for love of each other. For me, it was as if my Bunco and Book Club had gotten together on a softball field in Sullivan County with little pink houses on two sides, a field and U.S. 41 on the others.

The ages ranged from 12 to past 40. My sister Nancy, Jaime's in-laws and a host of others dropped in to watch. My sister Donna was there almost throughout. Mostly, though, it was just us on the field. 

The laughter could have fueled the highway traffic. I'm not sure today that my muscle aches are all from sprinting and throwing. Thank God I work out.

Rachael, Jaime's daughter, is a sought-after fast-pitch softball pitcher. She's 13 and played in the outfield. Others play on high school teams. When the defense was short, some of the offensive players ran to the outfield. And yes, they'd get their teammates out, given the chance. 

Did I mention that girl's softball is big down home? The older ladies were local legends in their day. These days if they're not playing women's travel leagues, they're playing coed. When I say I just didn't want to embarass myself, I mean it. 

Connie should be a color announcer for some professional team; she was so excited to be there. She cheered on even semi-good plays her teammmates made. She cheered on the opposition.  She ribbed players for running too slow or swinging too wide. She even had commentary on her own hits and misses. You couldn't help but laugh with her.

We played one style for five innings. Once it was a drill from high school (not my high school) where the fielding team would have to run to wherever the ball was hit as the runner ran the bases. If it was left field, you had to drag your sorry butt from 1st or 3rd or right field to get out there. 

Once there, the team had to toss the ball to each other without dropping it. If the defense could get the ball around before the runner got home, it was an out. If the runner scored first, it was a run. If someone in the defense dropped the ball, you had to start over until the whole defense caught the ball.

My team somehow ruled at this drill. But it was a heckuva lot of running for everyone involved.

Other innings involve using a bouncy ball instead of a softball; using a foam ball and bat and playing regularly; and running to 3rd first instead of 1st base -- it's easier to run the wrong way than you might imagine. I actually got Jaime out at home because she'd run all the way to first and had to hot foot it back past home to third base. 

Sometimes we had enough people to field every position. When we didn't, it was an out if you hit to an unmanned outfield position. Two of Jaime's daughters played every inning with us. They were thrilled to get  their mother out. At one point, poor Rach was getting it from both sides. Mom in the outfield and Grandma in the dugout were criticizing her batting form. 

"Softball season is over," she reminded them. My sister, Donna, coached Jaime's team. Jaime coached her daughters until they got to school. They've eached served time with the local ball associations.

Tara and Jaime were rival players in opposite schools when they were in high school. Jaime once slid into Tara and broke one of Tara's limbs. Tara is now the principal at the elementary school Jaime's girls attend. Happily, their softball rivalry is behind them.

Rachael had a hard time cheering for "Tara" and ended up using her title instead. "I just can't call her 'Tara,'" she said.

Cousin Kaitlin -- long banned from softball due to her failed knees -- got in a few innings. She's only 18 and is generally unable to play because of knees ruined from her years as a softball catcher. 

You'd have thought she'd died and gone to Iowa to play in Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams. She loves softball. It's been three years since she played. 

It's not as if we were competitive. So we promised her mother to keep her from injury, and Kaitlin got to bat and run and play 1st base.  

So we didn't get to 100 innings.  But it really was fun. No one got hurt, though Becca, Jaime's oldest,  ended up with raccoon eyes from her wrap-around sun glasses, which she didn't remove once during the games. We raised almost $1000 for cancer research.

Sunday dawned and both Jaime and I could still walk, though I think I am more sore now than I was yesterday. I don't know about the others.  

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm pretty sure the memories will eclipse the pain.

This one time at summer camp

It took a little while but we convinced Alison to come home with us from Flat Rock River YMCA Camp.

That's not really true. We did have to show Ginny Reed the Alpine Tower and the girls did have a few last hugs, email and phone number exchanges and top-bunk gatherings to do, but we were all ready to get back home. 

"I really need some time alone to chill in my house. And TV! I haven't seen a screen all week!," she said. "And Ramen. And I missed you guys."

She had a great time, as always, and made better by the presence of BFF Jenna Tokash. They slept -- and I use that verb very lightly -- head to head in a top row bunk. They made friends with Reagan and Kennedy -- ha! -- and were paired up with new horses. They canoed and river stomped and swam and played volleyball and had an awesome spa day that included some special mud packs. They're claiming the camp has access to deposits of mud with a special ingredient -- the largest such stock in the country... 

"Feel my face. My skin is super smooth and the pimples on my nose are gone!"

Magic mud indeed. I asked if they'd squirreled any away in their baggage, but they followed camp rules and left it in the bogs from whence it came. Amy and I both want to go back and camp there ourselves, so if we ever get that chance, we'll be sure to sample the magic mud.

There wre only two occasions when Ali had to eat bread sandwiches because she didn't like the food. She happens to love bread sandwiches so no harm there. No day this year of salad for all three meals.  She even tried chicken pot pie and found that if she discarded the biscuit topper, the filling really was made of stuff she liked. 

We got home, garbage-bagged her bedding to ward off bed bugs and tossed it in the garage where it will sit for a week just in case. As I fixed her Ramen, she got reaquainted with her iPod and unpacked the rest of her stuff.

Before she disappeared, I advised her that laundry and a thank you note obligation were outstanding on her to-do list. She didn't protest, but she's had her door closed ever since.  At one point Jeff said he was leaving to run errands and she did pop her head out to express dismay.

"You've been in room with the door closed. You won't even know I'm gone," he pointed out.

"But I like to hear your voice in the house," she said.

I know that feeling....

 

Stay-cations are so 2012; How about a Plate-cation...

I love food. All kinds of food. This does not make me a bona fide foodie. I am a simple country girl. I have evolved from a Crisco-based diet, but my palate isn't sophisticated and never will be. But I would much rather have a food hangover than a drug or alcohol hangover given the choice. 

Now the captain, he's got a deep appreciation for food and libation, and he'll invest in research, time and tools to produce great stuff. I tend to be the sous chef and scullery maid. And chief sampler. 

All that said, we tend to get into food ruts. Jeff once picked up dinner from our favorite Chinese take-out place, Zheng's Garden, and was reprimanded by the owner who I chat with but don't really know well: "No. No. No. Your women, they like steamed dumpling, not fried." The guy at The Gyros Joint knows Alison by sight and slips her extra pita when she goes in to order while Jeff stays in the car.

There are a ton of new restaurants around us and some that have been open for years without us darkening their doors. So this week while Alison was away at camp, Jeff and I had our own little vacation, which I've decided was a plate-cation. I'll be working it off for weeks, but I'm OK with it. As the former food editor of The Evansville Press used to say, patting the sides of her rotund tummy, "Every pound came from really good food." 

So we established a plan to have dinner out every night somewhere neither of us had ever been before. But on Monday, we went to Carnicerias Guanajuato In. 

We were turned on to this little slice of Cancun on Indy's West Side by our friend Joe Hudson. He learned of it because his aunt is a fan of flan (how do I say "blecchh" in Spanish?) and she buys it at the grocery which also houses the restaurant. Jeff and I spent many a great night in downtown Cancun back in the day with our friends Eric Yocum and Traci Wiseman. 

Walking into the grocery was like being back in the heart of that city and the restaurant just sealed the deal. I ordered the Shrimp el Diabla and our way fun waiter looked at me and shook his head and if it's possible to frown in Spanish, he did so. 

I stared him down. He stared right back. "El Diabla? Oh no, not for you," he said. 

So of course I had to insist. Jeff put his order in the hands of the waiter who was muttering things about me that I couldn't understand. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with "crazy American lady," but he was good natured about it. 

Joe had a huge burrito. The guacamole was good. There was a variety of hot sauces. The Mexican beer was great. The shrimp? Well, the shrimp were hot. Very hot. And they were living in a sauce that promised more than I could handle were I silly enough to dredge my shrimp through it. I only did that once. Jeff was too full at the end to try the flan and the bakery was closed by the time we left. 

Rating the plate: Great atmosphere. Entertaining and helpful wait staff. Good food and lots of it. Good drinks. Not expensive. We'll be back. And not just for the flan. 

Next up was Mesh. I had heard a lot of great things about this trendy place on Mass Avenue so perhaps my expectations were set too high. We're wine drinkers and Mesh likes to sell by the bottle, but we went after work and were driving home so we decided to just have a drink or two. The waiter was very nice, but he might have been new. We didn't recognize one of the fish items so we asked about it. He explained very well and I ended up ordering it. 

We must have come across as rubes because when Jeff asked his opinion about the various cuts of steak, he gave us Steak 101. FYI: the filet is the best cut and you should have it rare or medium rare. The mushroom in puff pastry was really, really good. Jeff liked the fish tacos but didn't moan over them. The tortillas from the night before were still fresh in both our minds and they were far and away better than the fancy ones that wrapped around the fish. The entrees were fine. Not bad in any way. But between people repeatedly trying to take our plates before we were done and the waiter trying to push drinks we'd already refused, it just wasn't a great experience. 

Rating the Plate: (Meh)esh. Trendy venue. Staff was pleaseant but kind of pushy. Our waiter did tell us that bottles are half-price on Sundays, which would bring one of our favorite (and hard to find lately) champagnes down to retail price. Food was fine but not exceptional. Jeff's Belgian beer and my malbec were poured without spillage. Crazy expensive given the total experience. We won't likely go back for dinner. Maybe for brunch. 

On Wednesday, we went to Flatwater with our Jasheway friends. Kirsten favors vegetarian fare and Duane (like Jeff) likes to sample beer. We'd thought we would sit outside but we couldn't get a table and that was OK because it was really hot. Of course it was hot inside, too, but the waitress was kind of fun and we were in a casual kind of mood. Jeff and Duane fell in love with the pork nachos. Like lick the plate kind of love. I had a salad so I could drink and have fries. We introduced the waitress to putting malt vinegar on the fries, which was fun. We were so stuffed we had to walk -- even in the heat -- but our ulterior motive was to end up at Brics for ice cream. (Another reason for the salad.) 

Rating the Plate: It's a great casual place and one we'll take Alison to when we get her back. Entertaining and helpful staff. Food had its really great moments and it's good moments. Nothing remotely bad. Drinks were good. Shaved about $100 off the price of Mesh. We will definitely go back. 

Brics is always good. They don't have a big diet ice cream selection so I always get the child's portion of the Death by Chocolate in a chocolate dipped cone. I'd love more but can't afford the lbs. Regular portions are enormous. Alison always wants two scoops but I think it would equate to a full pint. She says when she's an adult and away from our control, she's getting two scoops. 

On Thursday, Jeff's softball game was cancelled so instead of the snack and drinks we'd planned, we had another dinner opportunity. We tried Twenty Tap, which is within walking distance of our house and has a wide array of craft beers , and we'd been told the food was much better than you'd expect from basic bar food. Jeff was excited but we'd talked options on the way there. We'd worked later than planned so we'd agreed that if the wait was long, we'd try our luck elsewhere. The wait was 25 minutes. Not that long, really, but we moved on. And while we'll still try Twenty Tap one day, my impatience paid off. 

We ended up at Petite Chou in Broad Ripple. We're fans of its parent -- Cafe Patachou for breakfast and its sister Napolese for dinner -- but we'd never been to this place, which bills itself as a champagne bar. 

Now going in, I will admit to being a little grouchy. It was hot. I was hungry. You know the feeling, I'm sure. 

We debated buying a bottle of champagne, but we still had the issue of driving home and we have plenty of bottles of champagne at home. Jeff wanted to try their cocktails anyway so he started with a French Martini made with St. Germain. It was good but the follow up -- The Bittersweet Truth -- made with Campari, Averna Amaro and St. Germaine -- may replace our Old Maids as our favorite summer drink. I was happy with my champagne, but the cocktails were new and exciting. 

The manager, Matt Dye, came over to chat with us about the drinks, gave us the truth about the Bittersweet recipe and told us how the drink came to be. It was created by him and a colleague one night and almost tossed out as a reject. I hope he enjoyed the conversation as much as Jeff did. 

The food was fabulous. I'm not a fan of onion soup, generally, but this was great and I kept stealing Jeff's spoon. The menu includes more traditional French dinner fare, but I had a fabulous omelette and Jeff had a crepe that was really, really good. Yes, I stole that too. I did share my fries -- which were awesome as well. Here's how great it was -- even the butter was something to write home about. 

And the dessert. My god. The dessert. We were a bit lubricated by the time the dessert menu came our way and we ordered a lemon tart and a chocolate pots de creme. The tart was tart and fresh. The mousse had a sprinkle of salt between the creme and the chocolate and it was amazing. (This is an example of why I can't claim foodie status. I'm sure real foodies know all about the magic of salt and chocolate but this was new to me. Picture Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. But I wasn't faking it.. Jeff likes sea salt and carmel ice cream but that doesn't do it for me. This does.) 

Rating the Plate: The restaurant is billed as replicating a French neighborhood restaurant. I may learn French just to fit in. It's cozy but I'm guessing you'll make friends with the folks next to you if you're any fun at all. Entertaining and crazy helpful and interesting staff. Matt was very cool and Susan, our waitress, was key to making the evening flow well. The food was exceptional start to glorious finish. The drinks were very good to phenomenal. It's not inexpensive but we're value shoppers and we don't mind paying for greatness. Even at that, this was our second-most expensive bill -- and a far better experience than the most expensive. We will definitely go back. 

On Friday, Jeff played poker and to be honest, my gastrointestinal system needed a break. I had a drink with some friends and then went home, mowed the back yard, took a shower and had a salad in front of the television in my pajamas. 

Rating the Plate: The venue was private, exclusive even. The wait staff was efficient and helpful and the guilty pleasure television was all the entertainment a girl could hope for. The food was perfect in its simplicity. The iced-tea was lovely. The price was the best bargain of the week. I will definitely go back.