happy birthday, Julia!

Last night, thanks to Carlos's planning, Carlos, Marshall, Julie, Debbie and I went to Bayona. We had a meal in celebration of Julia Child's 97th birthday.


Thankfully, Julie offered to drive, since my parallel parking skills are notoriously bad. On the way to the restaurant we took a bit of a detour, by accident, and I caught glimpse of a fabulous ass parading down the sidewalk in coochie cutters and a baby blue tube top. She was walking far too well in high heels to be a biological woman. I could tell that much.

Surely enough, when she turned around to flirt, I could see the adam's apple gleaming in the street light. Trailing behind her were two young thug types, practically panting. Can't say I blame them. She had it going on.


(approximation)

(actual dining room)
It was a four course meal of Julia-inspired dishes. We all had the Veal Orloff, which I'd never had before. I had heard of it centuries ago, by way of Julia herself no doubt, but never had had it.


(not a very accurate approximation at all)

It was wonderful, much better looking than this. Most of us had crepes with cheese and ham as the appetizer. Marhsall and Julie had the liver mousse, which was described as "like wet cat food" more than once.
Oddly, that didn't seem to be a complaint. I had a salad of butter lettuce and a lemon/almond tart for dessert.

(reasonable facsimile)

All in all, a lovely meal.

As an added treat, we got to see local part-time resident Harry Shearer on his way out of the restaurant.

(as I would have liked him to look, but he didn't)

Julie had parked in a dubious parking spot, but near a fabulous trove of trash. I couldn't help but get excited. As I've mentioned before, I'm an inveterate trash thief. When I got a bit too excited, she had to calm me down with a stern warning, "I'm not letting you get fleas in my car!" So I didn't pick up anything...well, much.

There was a black tuxedo jacket on the top of the boxes, a mildewed print, a few dogeared copies of Details, some gold bullion fringe, a pair of thigh high leatherette boots, lots of bamboo, some sequins, a bulletin board with photos of various young men mugging for the camera....and strewn all over the ground were pages of very mediocre Czech porn.

(reasonable facsimile)
I'm no Hercule Poirot or anything, but it looked to me like some young gayling had been evicted from his garret apartment and all of his fabulousness was now out on the street. Sad, but nothing one hasn't seen before.