Day 19: Oops I Did It Again...

I'm a bad girl... But it's all Kevin's fault! I swear!

I started off today really well. I had my bran flakes and blueberries, my mid-morning apple and then a bunch of vegetables from the deli salad/hot bar with a small baked chicken breast.

But then around 1:30, I got a text message out of the blue... "Dinner tonight?" It was my friend and fellow Evil Crew member, Kevin. We've been trying to get together for dinner for a while and apparently he was coming into Manhattan today for a meeting. I considered playing hard to get, don't want him to think that I'll drop everything just because he calls. So, of course, I immediately texted back "Sure. Why not?"

We set the time for 6:15 at Choice Kitchen and Cocktails. A friend had told me about the place and Thursday night is martini night, so the time seemed right to try it. Of course now that I had plans for the evening, I immediately spilled some of my lunch on the shirt I was wearing. So I ran out of the office and grabbed a new shirt from the store around the corner. (Ah the perks of working in midtown.) I headed over to the restaurant after work and got there about 10 minutes early so I hung outside and waited. Kevin was a little late, which seems to be the norm for him when meeting me! And when he arrived he walked right past me and the restaurant. I called out to him but he kept walking lost in his cigarette and his thoughts I guess. I watched him walk to the end of the block, look around, cross the street and start down the other side. Laughing, I waited until he got to the other corner and then pulled out my phone to call him, just as he called me wondering where the restaurant was. I got a good giggle from that.

When he finally arrived 20 seconds later, we grabbed an outside table. I tried to be good. Okay, I didn't try that hard. The remedy martini sounded entirely too tasty, coconut rum, pineapple juice and... something else with alcohol in it, oh, wait, vodka and banana liquor, that was it. I had three. They were sooooooo good. So I tried to be smarter about my food. I had the goat cheese tapas appetizer, basically dollops of goat cheese on toast with artichoke hearts and tomatoes. It was tasty and I only ate half, then for dinner I got the striped bass in a citrus glaze. Kevin was a big ol' copy cat and got the bass too. It was okay, but nothing to write home about. Did I mention that the drinks were really tasty?

We talked a lot while we were eating, so that kind of forced me to slow down my eating, which is a good thing. I used to race through my meals. When I was a kid, I was a very slow eater and I always ended up getting yelled at for holding up the whole clean up process. So I learned to eat fast. The problem with eating fast is that you never feel full so you eat more. That's something that most people don't think about as they inhale their meals and run to the next thing, I know I never did. Thinking about it, maybe I should never eat alone, so I talk more and eat slower. Scott and I have hit that comfortable silence stage so we're going to have to invite a third party I can chatter to.

We gossiped about the crew and chatted about work and travel. It was funny, this is only the second time we've ever met face to face, but it feels like I've known Kevin forever. It must be all those emails.

We walked from the restaurant back to the PATH train and Penn Station, and then I walked home from the PATH train. I'm going to count that as exercise, especially since I think I covered a little extra ground since I wasn't exactly walking a straight line. Boy, three drinks go a lot farther when you've been living on greens!

I've really got get back to the exercise tomorrow. I'm feeling a little guilty, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I'll just do a nice challenging hike this weekend and not be surprised if I don't lose anything this week. (Just as long as I don't gain!)

Did I mention that the drinks were really tasty? Next time I want to try the blood orange cooler.

Well, at least I had the fish.

'Night all!