"Would you prefer blogging or non-blogging?"

he plan for last night was to go to the drive-in to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. That's what I thought the plan was, anyway. But Mother and Father Blonde are down here on a visit and, offering to watch the guys, inisted that the blonde and I go out for an evening alone together.

The blonde liked this idea. She says it's something married couples are supposed to do once in a while. She says we used to do it regularly ourselves.

"We did?" I asked.

"At least twice a month."

"Did I enjoy it?"

The question annoyed her for some reason.

"Yes, you enjoyed it!"

"As much as I'd enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean?"

Almost wound up spending an evening alone alone with a blanket on a chair on the front porch.

Fortunately, the brand-new teenager is a romantic and he stepped in to smooth things over and push us out the door before I could make things worse.

So off we went, poking around town, with no particular destination, thinking we might get something to eat.

We tried here first, because it's relatively new and we'd never been there before. But while it seemed like a good place to sit and watch the Red Sox game, sitting and watching the Red Sox wasn't the blonde's idea of a hot time on the town.

We moved on to here, where the overwhelmed hostess, half-crying and half-laughing, told us that they'd been hopping all night, no let up and none in sight, she was going out of her mind and we were out of our minds if we thought we were getting in without having booked a table for tonight yesterday.

So we moved on again, and if the Red Nun was too casual, and the Impudent Oyster too popular, then Christian's was just right.

We were given a table upstairs in an alcove with a window overlooking the street. It was as romantic a setting as the teenager could have wished for his parents. And at one point I looked across the candlelit table, stared deep into the blonde's big blue eyes, and I was overcome. I couldn't help myself. I was carried away by the moment.

"Blonde," I said softly and meaningfully, "Those Republicans sure are crazy, aren't they?"

And I was off.

Blabbed on nonstop for half an hour, covering all the usual topics, essentially blogging without a keyboard. Couldn't help myself. It was embarrassing. I don't like it when I do this. I started this blog in the hope that having a daily rant on the internet would take away my desire to rant in real life.

Hasn't worked that way.

Eventually it was time to go and I had to shut up. But as we left our table and emerged from the alcove a woman at the table just around the corner from ours stopped me.

"Was that you talking about what the Democrats should do?" she asked.

I was mortified.

I had tried to keep my voice down and had counted on the piano drowning me out, but she was sitting too close to escape. I began to apologize, saying I hoped I hadn't ruined her meal raving on and on like that.

"Nonsense," she said, "I was agreeing with everything you said. Right on!"

She really said right on.

I still felt like a fool. I said so. "People don't want some loudmouth bloviating all through their dinner," I said. "I should keep my yap shut."

"Oh don't worry," she said, "After all, this is a Blue State, isn't it?"

"The bluest," I said.

She begged to differ on that one.

"I'm from California," she said.

"That's pretty blue," I said. "But there're no Orange Counties in Massachusetts."

I had her there. "That's true. Orange County is pretty bad."

I agreed and was about to say something about Schwartzenegger and maybe ask her how she thought it was that the three bluest states, California, Massachusetts, and New York, all had Republican governors. But suddenly she gave a sharp cry of pain and began rubbing her shin and glaring across the table at her male dinner companion, who was trying to look innocent, and my collar got suddenly very tight around my neck as the blonde grabbed it from behind and began dragging me out of there.

Learned my lesson there. From now on I confine my blogging to the keyboard.

On the way out the blonde had to powder her nose so I was left alone downstairs with my thoughts. I would have sunk deep into a gloom of remorse and self-recrimination but the TV happened to be on.

The A's and the Sox were tied at three in the bottom of the seventh with Jason Varitek coming to the plate.

I'm just no good on these romantic nights out.
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I didn't monopolize the conversation completely during dinner. The blonde told me about the book she's reading, A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger. She says it's very good, compelling, and creepy. She got carried away too and she offered to do something she has never offered to do before---write something for Lance Mannion. She asked me if I'd like her to write a review to post.

I said I sure would! But she began to back-pedal immediately. Your readers don't care what I have to say about a book, she demured.

Ok, readers, let her know she's all wet on that one.

Friday, July 14, 2006 in Cape Cod 2006 | Permalink