We have been very busy so for the last couple of nights we have to eat out. We are too lazy to go to a new joint so we just walk across the street to Marco Polo.
Once of the best things about eating in the same joint is you can get what you want. Order off the menu. Get what works for you. So that's what we did. Let's review.
We started out with some figs and prosciutto along with a hot antipasto that consisted of mozzarella 'n carozza, stuffed mushrooms and eggplant rollatini.
Lisa went with the Ferro Pasta with zucchini, cherry tomatoes and garlic and oil. It was a hearty dish and of course she added some cheese and fresh black pepper to finish it off.
I went with the cavatelli with the spicy sausage and basil and as always lots and lots of cheese. This was a great dish even though it was very, very spicy. The best part of a dish like this? Mopping up all of the leftover sauce with a nice crusty piece of Italian bread.
Our good friend that was with us (you know who you are) had the Lobster tail with the gnocchi in a light pesto sauce. Very nice.
So then we came to dessert and decided we didn't want a heavy desert. No cheese cake. No creme brulee.
No pastries. Just some simple fruit.
Of course I had them add a dish of chocolate sauce.
I just have to order off the menu.
79 comments:
Oooooh Chickelit. It sounds as if your stirbits swizzled up the Sunday Night Crowd over at TOP and put the Big Mean and Nasty in a hangin' mood. Hang tough!
El Pollo Raylan
I watched an interview with Elmore Leonard, Timothy Olyphant, and Graham Yost tonight (free prime)and couldn't get over Elmore Leonard. The woman interviewer was awful, but Leonard was a hoot. Easy going, fun, quick and playful.
Double Ooooh. Elmore Leonard is 87!
...put the Big Mean and Nasty in a hangin' mood. Hang tough!
If you mean Althouse, I'm not seeing that. Althouse has never said one untoward thing against Ritmo. Who is this "ritmo"? Even blogfather fell under his spell for a bit and also there was the whole ugly scene here when blake and darcy were ostensibly backing up Inga (a ritmo sychophant).
@MamaM: My comments on TOP of which you speak were pretty much aimed directly at Ritmo, so that's why I ask about the "stirring up" in the way I did above.
That said, I do appreciate your attempt to bring some humor to the situation. Thanks!
El Pollo, I saw Ritmo and Titus hopping on the personal insult wagon in a major way last night with a load of insults and accusations aimed at you were big, mean and nasty, hence the name. (Most prominent in the More Abortion Docs like Kermit thread, with Titus warming up in Meet the Press)
They both sounded extra viscous in a way that went beyond their normal drivel and attention gathering ploys. Something seemed to be bothering them,as if you'd gotten under their skin.
I thought you handled them and what they dumped, with equanimity.
This week, in a book written by an ex-addict who now uses horses in therapy and recovery work, I found this quote, which I'm still considering:
"Anytime I'm in a relationship with any living thing, and I have the need to win, the possibility for connection and closeness is over."
What I hear in your chirbits, isn't a need to win, so much as an opportunity to present truth with humor (which qualifies as grace in my book).
To clarify, it seemed as if the chirbits, though passed off with a laugh, had served as stirbits. Red tin cars tied with violin strings, when "hats off to acknowledge my splendor and ability to dominate" (Ritmo and Titus) was supposed to be the main event.
Thanks for clarifying, MamaM!
I think this forum needs a retreat, virtual or otherwise. We're falling apart.
I volunteer for a sabbatical.
But not at BLS.
What's BLS, Riddler?
Sorry, it's Brooklyn Law School, where Althouse went a few years ago for a sabbatical. I think it's somewhere near Troop because that's when they met, IIRC.
Perhaps blogfather can regale us with tales of mirth. But I really should just close the laptop tonight.
Take care.
Althouse has never said one untoward thing against Ritmo. Who is this "ritmo"?
The agenda being pursued by AllieOop/Inga and Ritmo over at TOP is one they publicly discussed on his blog before he closed it down.
The way I see it, Ritmo's been playing the game of derailment for a long time. As Montana Urban Legend, his original approach involved long tedious circuitous rambles which rarely intersected with other commenters and primarily served to kill and derail threads through boredom, including apparently, his own. His second transformation involved the inclusion of more direct argument which yielded a more entertaining and engaging exchange but kept the discussion too closely on track for successful derailment. To up the ante and prevent his ass from regularly being handed to him, psychological manipulation was added to the mix, with polarizing and shaming practiced along with selective praise. Through it all the agenda and result appears to be the same.
IMO, consistently advancing a goal of domination, derailment and destruction is not good faith behavior. Althouse sees it differently.
Bruce, Any real sabbatical/retreat would need to be centrally located. Maybe the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago[See TOP Chicago HS baseball thread]. Of course, that won't happen. However, I am serious about some type of group session ala a "Festivus airing of the grievances." I like this place but it's falling apart. I believe you, myself, and MaMaM are sympatico on this, and I'm sure there are others. But, as we all know, the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one. I would love to hear from others on this.
The only solution may be to stop talking about TOP altogether. I could take a sabbatical from that. But the stirbits really got me off track.
BTW, I am able to do celebrity voices speaking with foreign accents. For example, Rod Serling can be voiced with a French accent.
I'd like to Chirbit Troop as John Wayne with a Brooklyn accent.
Can you do Ronald Colman? That's the voice I'd want associated w/me. Cary Grant would be an acceptable substitute.
But not Gary Coleman.
If you ever do the original EBL, may I suggest Margaret Hamilton?
Cary Grant I can do. You got him.
For some reason I can't do female voice well at all.
The one I should really work on is Obama. He's tough though because he does those whistling little tics.
Cary Grant would be an acceptable substitute.
I'll work on him saying something provocative to Darcy for you.
And then I'll tweet it.
I like this place but it's falling apart.
Rule #1. No more references to TOP.
Rule # 2. I don't have a rule #2. But if rule #1 were kept it would be a start.
It's not my place (quite literally) so I'm probably out of place saying the above. But since Sixty came back, which may have been a one-off or maybe not, time will tell, I figured I'd come back to put in my 2 cents. Especially since it did take some courage for spinelli to make his comment.
I'm pretty sure I've got the shortest tenure here of anyone, so what I say about anything ought to carry the least weight. But fwiw, if comments about TOP are keeping blake and TTB and Sixty and Darcy away, then an embargo on such comments seems worth trying.
But if that's not why they've been scarce, then I'm not sure it helps to eliminate the topic of half the comments that are posted here.
How about starting modestly, w/an embargo on comments about necrophilia w/ terrorists?
The shakiness of this joint attests to the fact that this isn't the driving force of our lives. It gets the scraps. Even Trooper has to set it aside for the responsibilities of the real world. Hey, that's not a complaint; it's just the way it is. Is it falling apart, like nd says? Dunno. Perhaps unwinding is a better description?...just losing momentum? I know I need to do lots of other stuff than spend time on-line. From the sounds of it, some of the losers over at TOP have little more to live for other than exposing their asses to the world and raging against each other.
How about starting modestly, w/an embargo on comments about necrophilia w/ terrorists?
I'll delete that comment if Titus deletes the one that provoked it.
I was mean to Chick last night and I am sorry but he posted about my demise.
that hurt.
tits.
"Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."
--Oscar Wilde
From my point of view, y'all expect something from others that you don't expect of yourselves, and y'all take great umbrage at not getting something that you won't give to others.
In this sense, I see very little difference between this blog and the one so often stabbed at here.
---
/Eh+WTF
Would that be respect, rcommal?
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. #oscarwilde
chickelit, when I want a laugh, I pick a chirbit. The combination of audacity, parody and playfulness in them makes me smile, no matter what else is going on.
I recently read that children who learn to play imaginatively are not as apt to turn to violence as a first response to conflict, because their brains have been wired to seek and imagine alternatives. I don't know if that's true, but it made sense to me
Your chirbits aren't the problem. I see them as an alternative way of handling or giving voice to something untoward that remains prominent but largely unaddressed.
Not talking about TOP isn't going to make a difference. What's going on over there has been going on for a while now. It's not an all bad or all good place. Finding imaginative and alternative ways to manage the situation seems appropriate to me.
As for what goes on here, it seems to me as if everyone is pretty much responsible for their own entertainment.
No, MamaM. I'm referring to the predecessors of that.
Chip: I see you've got Wilde on your brain. I didn't realize that the charges leveled against him and which finally imprisoned him stemmed from discovery in a law suite which he had instigated. That from the Wiki.
"Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."
Chip's Oscar Wilde quote is funny and it may also be key. If it's always supposed to be surfacy on this site, and I think it is, that in itself can begin to pall. Look, it's a matter of temperament. Troop wants to keep it light? Well, it's his site. God knows he's probably at the point of exhaustion from running his business when he can manage to squeeze in a few minutes to post here anyway. That's why I made my original post with trepidation. Temperament is temperament and it ain't gonna change. And it can't be persuaded to change. Which leaves it up to us, individually, to participate or not.
Hey Titus, didn't you almost go out from the big C? Which makes it all gravy for you from now on. What chick says should roll off your back. Anyway, we all take what chick says with a shaker....ducking. ;^)
For MamaM.
rcommal, try as I might, I don't know what you are trying to convey.
What's not being given to others?
What being expected of others but not self?
And how does the song pertain?
For Titus
Or at least the 2% that calls itself Titus.
I believe you, myself, and MaMaM are sympatico on this,
I am indeed simpatico on this, ND.
The interview I watched last night with Elmore Leonard (the author), Tim Olyphant (the actor for Raylan) and Graham Yost (co-creator and executive producer of Justified) wasn't all that spectacular, but what stood out as unusual was the way the three men related, each presenting an approach that was different yet similar in respect, humor and creative energy. It was fun to see them taking and using each other's ideas to reveal something beyond and different from what each individually had to offer.
"Yost described a more active collaboration in the third season of “Justified.” “He (Leonard) wrote this novel … and said, ‘Hang it up and strip it for parts... And so we did...The result being that the character of Raylan Givens and the world of Harlan continue to evolve not just in two mediums, but between them in a way never before seen."
Active collaboration...between. What's being described is relationship, and any relationship will, over time, reach a place of pain where it's impossible to stay surface and level 1. While I enjoy the laughter and silliness that shows up here, I treasure even more the stories of real experience hidden in the anecdotes or told outright. What they offer can be hung up and stripped for parts.
I'd go with Connie Francis and the special TY rendition of Whose Sorry Now?
MamaM:
rcommal, try as I might, I don't know what you are trying to convey.
Either this is bullshit or it's mighty funny that you're the wise voice at Troop's "[y-]oracle" place.
What they offer can be hung up and stripped for parts.
OT: "Parted-out" is a great expression I didn't know until I got involved with my T-Bird.
So, you gonna sell it or part-it out? Meaning sell it off bit by bit to others who had need of particular pieces, in the end for more than the whole car. It's anti-synergy--is there such a word?
It's anti-synergy--is there such a word?
subadditivity
I don't claim to be a wise voice, rcommal. I am who I've always been, here and at TOP, regardless of what others insisted or thought. However you want to read me is up to you.
When you made a comment I didn't understand and provided a song with my name attached, which I also didn't understand, I asked for clarity.
The ball is in your court. If you aren't willing to be honest about what you mean, why bother to engage?
I don't claim to be a wise voice, rcommal. I am who I've always been, here and at TOP, regardless of what others insisted or thought. However you want to read me is up to you.
Nope, not buying that.
What do you want from me, rcommal?
If you are going to order off the menu, don't do something stupid like order a cheese plate of Velveta and celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins.
Garçon! Bring me another carafe of wine! Game of Thrones is on and I want to bond with Cersei Lannister!
MamaM, Eloquent assessment. Like you, the life stories are the best part for me. I have a friend who is in AA. He will sometimes got to 3 meetings a day. When he told me that I asked if he did that because he was struggling. He laughed and replied, "No..I do it when I need good laughs, the stories are great!!"
ChipS, The Wilde quote I often use is, "The truth is never pure and rarely simple." Titus should be happy we're quoting a great homo writer. Any Proust quotes?
The best I could find:
True friends stab you in the front.
Oscar Wilde
nick, a sus ordenes:
"There is no man...however wise, who has not at some period in his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man...”
MamaM, Thanks.
ChipS, Merci.
True friends stab you in the front.
This is the spirit of my chirbits/stirbits. I put them out there in plain sight.
I love Oscar Wilde. He was fab.
tits.
You're right Titus, Wilde was fab. And a visionary. I like what he wrote about machines:
The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
I put them out there in plain sight.
Yes.
Which works with the other quote I liked:
I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
Oscar Wilde
Which conjures up a Shoebox Diorama comprised of an Althouse curtain skirt, appropriately glued fore and aft, and El Pollo Raylan standing on deck in his blue boots and hat, practicing his art!
Hi Mamam and Chick.
My mommy had that Connie Francis album and I would sing it constantly. I am sorry....so sorry. I loved Connie.
tits.
Do you guys know Gays love Patsy Cline?
There is even a group called gays for patsy.
It's because her songs were all sad and dramatic. Gays live for that shit.
tits.
@MamaM are you suggesting I'm a thespian?
BTW, I loved dioramas as a kid.
Do you guys know Gays love Patsy Cline?
My dad loved Patsy Cline before the gays did.
I meant Brenda Lee-my mom had both those albums.
I am sorry, so sorry.
Hey Titus! I told you months ago that chirbits were the way to go if you wanted to revitalize your act and get more hits. But no, once again, you don't take direction.
In the hope you'll change your mind, I'm willing to stick a stool on the stage for you, right next to the bird in the boots.
I have to admit...I was overwhelmed today.
It was a beautiful day in my hood and the streets were packed with fabness.
BUT. There were a huge number of women joggers and their tits were flying all over the place. You could not even focus. You could not swing a cat without hitting a swinging set of jogging tits. First, why aren't these tits working? I live in a very expensive area. Second, hello? Do any of you whores think about possibly restraining those bouncing melons? And lastly and most importantly all the straighty possible rough trade were looking at you and not me.
totally deva.
tits.
Well, Titus at least your fixations have reoriented. That is a good thing.
If you are going to order off the menu, don't do something stupid like order a cheese plate of Velveta and celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins.]
I think this comment is awesome. It kinda reminds me of some specific stuff back in the day, before Trooper shifted, for example, from individual to tribal.
Spring finally arrived in Michigan today, with flowers blooming, buds on trees, emerald green grass, sunshine and a warm soft wind. I didn't see any Flying Tits, but then, I wasn't looking.
What I did see was an Atlas Moth These moths have the image of a snake head marked on each wing, but are born with no mouth and only last two to seven days.
Our flyover-country-small time- backwater-non-fab-according-to Titus-locale is host to a world famous Garden and Sculpture Park, and I went there today for some Peace and Rest
There's nothing quite like Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park this side of the Kroller-Muller Museum and Sculpture Park in The Netherlands – The Wall Street Journal, April 2005
The Kroller-Muller Museum is one place in NL I'd like to go but have never been. Dutch in-laws highly recommended it and I've been to Holland 3 or 4 times. My recollection is that it's south and east from Amsterdam and Utrecht. It is supposed to be the place to go to see van Gogh.
MamaM's fab backwater.
I didn't go from individual to tribal.
I went from an open house to a private party.
I got tired of the uninvited messing up my rug.
Think of this as the Copa having a private party with bottle service.
I don't know how anyone could look at that Atlas Moth and NOT believe in some great artist that made and goes on making the universe. I deliberately didn't say deity because...well, because I'm not a believer. You either are a believer or you're not, and that's an end to it. I said great artist because there's no reason for the pure play of forms and the variations on forms and colors and textures on that moth's wings. It was just done, made, for the sheer delight of it...and maybe to fight off boredom as well. Picasso. I know many can't stand his work but the joy of it is just this same kind of working variations on a theme and then variations on the variations for the sheer joy of it, the exuberance. And The Greatest Artist did it in the moth's wings and the hairs in your nostrils and the whorls on your fingers and and and.....
You live in Grand Rapids Mamam?
Didn't some article say something nasty about Grand Rapids which resulted in some huge flashmob or something?
L.Z. some fag black espn writer lives in Grand Rapids. He has major dreads.
There's lots of nasty stuff that happens in Grand Rapids, Titus, as well as much that is good and joyful. It's the home of the pair that started Amway, and whatever one thinks of their methods, their money has provided a lot of fabulous for those engaged in the arts. Grand Rapids is also host to "Art Prize", the world's largest art competition.
I thought of you today, because I went back to the butterfly garden, to see if I could get a photo of a pair of black and white butterflies I'd noticed yesterday called Tree Nymph Butterflies. They are the same size and shape as a Monarch, minus the orange and look like something out of a coloring book, as if the artist in charge of butterflies hadn't yet decided on which crayon to use.
Yesterday was the last day of the show, so there were only a few people walking around with the butterflies, and I ended up in a conversation with a young gay couple who were holding hands and watching the same pair of butterflies as I was. We laughed when one of butterflies came close and landed right on one of the guy's head. When I suggested the butterfly might be enjoying his hair gel, he said in a perfect Fab Titus voice said, "Well, he better! I paid $20.00 for it!" We had a good time, and he walked around with the butterfly atop his head for almost 10 minutes, agreeing when we left at closing that it was a highlight and a special gift.
I didn't go from individual to tribal.
I went from an open house to a private party.
I got tired of the uninvited messing up my rug.
I throw up my hands.
I apologize.
I give up.
To everyone.
What a fab story Mamam, thanks.
Gay in Grand Rapids? I wonder what that is like.
I love butterflies. My sister had this "blouse" with all butterflies on-she was like 18 and I was 12. I mistakenly wore it to school one day-not a good idea.
Are there really Rapids in Grand Rapids and are the big and loud and powerful and penetrating and site for sour eyes? I love waterfalls too.
tits.
In my opinion, it's not a good idea for a 12 year old brother to take and wear his sister's blouse to school, regardless of how it is decorated. Not so much a sexual or social issue, as respect for boundaries. The mighty oaks from little acorns thing.
Gay in Grand Rapids? I wonder what that is like.
I don't know. This couple seemed comfortable together and didn't appear to be obsessed with yelling Hey Pappi and checking the bushes for brownies. Not one mention of loaf or plucked balls either. One can never tell though.
For one brief moment I wondered if the butterfly might have been feasting on chiz, but that's because my imagination has been tainted with Too Much Titus Porn. Which is why it was a relief to hear it was merely expensive gel. What I enjoyed was a connection and shared moment that had very little to do with sexual orientation and everything to do with being human and awed by something beyond oneself.
@Titus: Althouse a post up right now where you an go express your sexual fantasies about murderers.
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