Universal Truths: The Restaurant Week Edition

Every relationship his universal truths. Maybe one of you is always grumpy in the morning and should not be spoken to before they have at least one cup of coffee. Maybe one person likes shitty action flicks and should not be mocked under penalty of Van Damme style roundhouse kicks. In my relationship with Adam there are several universal truths, but the one I want to speak about is that one of us is always running late.

And it ain’t me.

I am the sort of person who starts getting ready to go out AT LEAST an hour before actually going out if not two or more (depends if hair needs to be done). And I plan accordingly for this kind of slavish attention to myself. If I am going to a party at 8PM then I am showered and getting ready at 6. This is just how I work.

Adam on the other hand, is fond of naps. So most going out events (parties, weddings, nights out) necessitate a nap beforehand. Now, I will factor his nap into my getting ready routine so if we have to be out the door at 8PM I will wake him up at 7PM and be like “Okay sweetie, time to get ready”.

Ok maybe what I say is more like “You better get up soon and if we are late again I swear to god!"

Did I mention that another universal truth is that one of us can be kind of a withering bitch?

Ok, So inevitably he won’t get up until like twenty minutes before we have to go out the door, and at the time we SHOULD be getting out the door he is just getting dressed. ARGHHH. He tries, really he does. He just does not get as stressed out about being on time as I do. Which is a good thing to look on the positive side of things since two Stressed Withering Bitches do not a good relationship make.

But I digress.


So in any case, last Friday we had Restaurant Week reservations at Bonfire. I had sneakily booked us a much coveted 8PM Friday night reservation by making it before Restaurant Week was even announced, thanks to some insider info from Jenny. So I was psyched. I also belong to OpenTable.com and have been making my restaurant reservations through them for about two years. As luck (and a propensity towards dining out) would have it, I have accumulated enough points to be 1 night out away from a $20 gift certificate (Not that I do it for the points, obviously getting $20 for dining out 10 times is no deal but it's more convenient to make reservations online anyway AND if they want to buy me a round of drinks because of this, so be it!) BUT Opentable.com has one serious rule: If you are a no show three times in a row you get your points taken away and you are kicked out of Opentable.com. Over the course of the past two years I have had two no shows (eek) and was in no way prepared to have a third at least not before collecting my gift certificate.

So I was VERY impressed that through minimal goading on Friday night, Adam was ready to go at 6:45 – a full fifteen minutes before I had told him we should leave ( It’s only a 15 minute ride into the city but if you are hanging out in most parts of the city you should always factor in at least ½ an hour of Looking for Parking time). So we were on the road right on schedule, unstressed, and with plenty of time to make our reservation.

About half way there though, I was struck with dread. Something was missing. You know how sometimes you just realize all of a sudden "Oh I think I might have f*cked up". So I threw open my clutch and noticed that I had FORGOTTEN MY ID AT HOME.

Dun dun DUN!

Knowing how anal nearly every establishment is in the city about ID checking (a few weeks ago we couldn't’t’ even get INTO Parish Café because Adam only had a temporary license on him), we knew we had to turn back.

But at this point it was already 7:30.

I told him we should just go to dinner and forget about it. But Adam, bless his heart, knows another universal truth of our relationship is that Sarah is happier with a cocktail in her hand. And never once did he point out that the one time he was on time I was about to make us late. And not only late but potentially miss our reservation all together. And then get kicked out of Opentable.com (the horror!).

So at the next exit we got off and headed back to the apartment, I frantically called Bonfire and asked if there was anyway they could push back my reservation to which they said no, but they would hold it for 15 minutes. The next available reservation they had though was at 10PM. Which just would not do. So we raced back to the apartment, I ran upstairs in my rhinestone sandals, grabbed my ID and we were back on the highway in ten minutes.

We arrived in the city at 7:55 giving us 20 minutes to find parking. And with this time limit we would have to find parking pretty near Bonfire (aka The Park Plaza) because we did not have time for a fifteen minute walk. These are not my kinds of odds. So we circled. Once. Twice.

Everywhere was Valet Parking only, or taken, or Tow Zone. You know the drill.

Finally, at 8:10 when I was about to give up, kiss my hard earned gift certificate and a lovely night out that I sneakily and cleverly made reservations for months before, we found it.

Street parking. FREE. Fifty feet from The Park Plaza.

SUCCESS!!!!!! Adam parked the car expertly and oh so quickly and we strutted/ran into Bonfire, at 8:14 on the nose.

And don’t think I didn’t say “You know if I hadn’t forgotten my license we never would have found that spot!”.

In any case, dinner was lovely and SO worth the wait. The food was delicious (he got the steak, I got the sockeye salmon), our waiter was funny, attentive and really down to earth, and the cocktails were divine (I knew I would have missed my ID). We had such fun that when we finished dinner we headed over to Flash's for a nightcap and could not stop talking about how much fun we had at Bonfire.

So one positive universal truth we share is that we both really (really!) love a good night out.