Project 289 : Day 143 : Coffee, Me and Ana.. and the Dinner Thereafter

Fridays are traditionally a little quieter for me.

Not always but generally, and thankfully after a hellacious week in which I was 'abused' by three people for moving meetings (like I take some perverse pleasure in the random reordering of peoples' schedules!"Oh yes, yes, yes! I love when you move the 3pm Monday meeting to 11am Tuesday...oh YESSSSS!") and had more work than a council cleaner on Oxford Street after the Mardi Gras parade, today has become a typical Friday. Normally I loathe typical but this TGIF, I embrace it, caress it and offer to have it's babies....

A lovely part of today was sitting now with one of the other Executive Assistants (EAs) who look after a Managing Director, Ana (pictured above) who is witty, sweet, feisty, and a fabulous person to spend any amount of time with - she's not just a colleague anymore but a friend, and I always look forward to our lovely coffee meet-ups.

It looks like the day will keep it's "Just Chill, Mon" vibe with a very relaxed dinner tonight with my beautiful guy, Steve, and good friend, Fahmi, at this delightfully eccentric Pakistani restaurant in Dulwich Hill. The food, service and prices are all excellent but the restaurant's decor is basically photo scrapbooking meets posters on a teenager's wall meets Santa vomiting in random directions.... it's not chic by any means, but wonderfully one-off, and fun to be in, and surprisingly, the sort of place you're happy to spend a lot of time in....

Ah it's good to have you Friday....be as typical as your slovenly heart wants!

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Work done and dusted, I headed home, threw myself into something fabulous... oh all right, I wore the same thing I'd had on all day but dammit I looked good!.... and went to dinner with my beautiful guy, and our friends, Fahmi, David and Andrew (another one.... trust me if I was going to have a split personality, I wouldn't use the same name again now would I? Hmm would I?) to a wonderfully kitsch-looking Pakistani restaurant in Dulwich Hill called "Jinnah's". The decor is a sublime mix of Christmas decorations, party lights, Pakistani press clippings, historical photos with Bollywood playing on the in-house video system, and is so OTT that Top is just a distant fading memory of good taste, but somehow it all works, and coupled with great food, and prices, it's a great place to eat.... 

Usually the service is top notch too, but last night our waitress, with all the social inter-actability of Beaker (from "The Muppets"), timidly delivered our food and withdrew, averting her eyes as if staring into our eyes would turn her to stone, or a pillar of salt.... I am fairly sure that even on our worst days we don't have that effect on people but I can't say with a 100% certainty that we haven't created some stone-like garden statuery in our time... all that aside, she seemed rather relieved when we left, and I think she probably needs to see her guidance counsellor for a referral to a secluded basement somewhere with minimum social contact, and maximum data entry.....

Still, the night was a lovely one and we mightily enjoyed ourselves over delicious food, much wine, and all the funky kitsch that money can buy (see the photos - Andrew & David below; myself, my beautiful guy and Fahmi above)....