Friday, July 20, 2001
After work, Patrick and I were to meet at Carta for dinner. I caught an N Shuttle and a grumpy old man was sitting directly behind the bus driver. The bus was really crowded. When someone in the back yelled, "Back door, please!" the grumpy man would yell, "Wouldya open the back door?!" to the bus driver even though the bus driver already heard the other person. And the grumpy man would continue: "You need to press your buzzer to open the back door!" When he wasn't looking, other people looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and smiled. Our dinner at Carta was excellent except for one thing: the menu was printed with absolutely no regard to proper page design. Script typefaces were used in all caps, lines weren't centered properly, some lines had two or more spaces where there should have been one, graphics had jaggies, and so on. Patrick had a vermicelli vegetable soup with pesto, roasted vegetables with olive oil, baby chicken with collard greens and portabello mushrooms, and a mango ice cream cake. I had vegetable fritters and tournedos of beef with creamed spinach. We saw a drag queen with what must have been 12-inch heels. After dinner, we saw the musical revue called "Forever Plaid" at the New Conservatory Theatre at 25 Van Ness.