Best Return to the Land of the Living

Earlier this week a little dream of mine came true, I got an invitation to a dinner from Mary Benac. It seems friends of mine are always being invited to dine with Mary and Ram, so I was pretty excited to have the opportunity to be counted among the ranks of "Those Who Have Dined with Mary and Ram." And the occasion of the dinner itself, the celebration of the recent birthday of Ms. Emily Kunz, Esq., was something I was definitely willing to support, too. And since I took my first final today and I had spent the week in near-complete study lockdown, I felt I deserved a little socializing.

The dinner was at Jules, a fake French bistro run by real French people on St. Marks place. A little advance research had me a bit worried about the quality of the food to be had, but I'm happy to report that the food was fine, the conversation was lively, and the lighting of the restaurant inspired the taking of poorly-lit photos of people who've never been on Steady Mobbin' before.

Counted among the revelers were the incomparable Molly Ryan


and the one-and-only Tina Baker. (With Myung and Alexandria chatting in the background.)


Here are Mary and Ram starring in something I like to call "The Best Underexposed Photo Ever Taken"


And this is a Perrier bottle with candles and Emily poking at her palm pilot in the background.


Mary gave me one of her scallops. I hope this photo adequately expresses the joy I derived from her generosity and the thrill of the taste of that little butter-drenched mollusk. I wonder: is there a difference between a scallop and a sea scallop? You see a lot of "sea scallops" on menus these days. (Also: note finals-related facial hair situation)


Here are Mary, Emily, and Alexandria outside of the restaurant. Considering that the dinner was in honor of Emily and everything, I sure should've gotten more pictures of her. Please, don't sue me. (Funny, I'd usually consider myself above such a lame little law joke [or is such an otiose attempt really even classifiable as a "joke"?])


Afterwards there was a little after-party dessert action at, man, I forgot the name . . . an old, famous Italian dessert place at 1st and 11th. There I was served a tiny little cheesecake sitting atop a coffee lid. Now I am at home, ready to go to bed and wake up tomorrow to totally study corporations with all my might non-stop until Monday afternoon.

Also the first time someone asked me how my final went today I nearly answered "Piece of sweat, no cake." Seriously. Is that a Spoonerism? Or some other sort of transposition?

To my dinner companions If any of you want big versions of any of these dark but awesome photos, let me know.