Saturday, August 7, 2004 - Fireside Chat

Once every few weeks in the summer one of my friends hosts a campfire out at his very rural house. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending one of these with Ironwolf (yes, a night out w/o kids!). It was a nice outing, as always, but it occurs to me that I contribute very little to the discussions. Some of it is my natural quiet, introverted state. But often it's the very fact that the topics are not necessarily in my realm of knowledge. It's always about movies, tv shows, sports, and politics. None of those are my strong suits. I don't seem to have much luck steering the conversation to other topics either. Ah, well. The company's good, and the talk's usually interesting...

After the fire, Ironwolf and I decided to go out. I wanted sushi bad, so we headed toward the only hip place near us - a really cool bar/restaurant that serves sushi, of course. We got there after midnight, so the kitchen was already closed. It's always a crapshoot there late at night. But I don't think we would have stayed anyway - the music was so loud that you couldn't hear yourself talk. Most of the patrons had retreated to the patio - you think these places would learn that it's important for people to be able to hear each other.

We ended up going a few blocks away to the mega-grocery store and getting sushi there. Quieter and cheaper too!