I was gone for a long time today. It felt like a long day to me, so in dog years, Charlie had already decided I was gone forever and it was time to fend for himself. I expected to come home and find he'd built a contraption to convert his urine to water and had painted a handprint face on one of his Wilson tennis balls.
He hadn't, of course. He just sat on the couch all day and almost spontaneously combusted when I walked in the door.
Tonight was a good night, though. Grace has named 2009 "The Year of Girls' Night Out (GNO)" and tonight was our first event. We went to MOCA Jacksonville for Best of Jacksonville 2009. There were over two dozen restaurants and sponsors there, and we tried food or drinks from every single one. Some of the highlights:- Chocolate caramels with sea salt and chocolate-covered Cheerios from Claude's
- Beef-cured salmon tartar from Pastiche
- Steak and mac & cheese from Morton's (hello!)
All that, plus funky music and an open photo shoot for models who wanted to be on the cover of Jacksonville Magazine made for great fun and outstanding people watching. I swing back and forth on my feelings about Jacksonville as a city, but tonight - I have hope. This place could really be something.
