So yeah… Friday night we ended up going bowling after randomly meeting up with some people at the Warren Tavern… which by the way it sucks so bad that they are moving. It was such a good standby neighborhood bar… and so close to us!!! Oh well. Bowling was a ball… I forgot how much I like to bowl. I don’t think we’ve been since back in the day when we were in this league with our college class every Wed. night. Man those were funtimes. Anyways all of the bowling banter came back easily – and I was screaming "That’s the way you bowl" enough to make even Baker proud…. And doing the X handshake thing when someone scored a strike… although I think it was the "Iron Fist of Fury" that was really into that move and not my bowling team – "I can’t believe it’s not Gutter" Funtimes Funtimes. Here's the group shot.... more pics are on the photo blog in the January 2006 gallery.
Then Saturday night we went on a fantastic double date with Osam and Alyson. We started out at Fire – the new trendy restaurant on Shaker Square. It was really nice – good atmosphere, good food, good service, and great wine. I ordered the pork that was cooked in the clay fire oven. It was really, really good. Oh and I also got the tomato/prochutto soup. It was seriously the best soup I’ve had that was just soup and not stew. Matt had the swordfish and he didn’t like the sauce it was in too much – too sweet I guess. But overall I would recommend the restaurant. After that we went to the Cleveland Playhouse to see "A Streetcar Named Desire" I had never seen or read this play so I was going in blind. Wow. What a play. The acting was wonderful – especially the 2 women. They just did a tremendous job. Definitely worth seeing. Unfortunately I have no pictures from this evening out since I completely forgot to take any – the camera was in my purse and everything! Oh well.
Then Sunday. Sunday was great for so many reasons. See I got a pasta machine for Christmas (you know – one of the old fashioned crank things that flattens the dough?) and I suggested one night at knitting having some people over to make pasta. Well Matt was having some people over to watch the game Sunday and the significant others ended up coming too. Since none of the significant others wanted to watch football we decided to use that time to make pasta. It grew from there – we ended up having a full on meal with homemade sauce, meatballs, sausage, mozerella salad, cranberry crumble, and most importantly fresh pasta. It was sooo fun. We went through a ton of wine and basically spent all day in the kitchen drinking and cooking while the guys watched football and played darts… Kindof 1950’s I know – women slaving away while the guys watch the game – eh. I think we had more fun than they did! That and we made them do all of the dishes…We actually had a sit down dinner – I even dug out the placemats I got as a shower gift and everything. First time I ever used those… we had to drag our kitchen table and the table from the basement into the dining room to seat everyone! It seriously looked like a family holiday meal set up.. in our house! How cool is that! And I’m just so glad that the Steelers won… there were a few moments at the end of the game (like when the clear interception was called an incomplete pass) that things got real ugly in the other room. The girls were joking that we should have started a drinking game – every time Matt screamed "fuck", "refs" or "unbelievable" we’d have to drink. But somehow they won and poor Bettis didn’t have to have his last play in the NFL be a fumble. That would have been horrible. Anyways here we are working hard:
Jill is the queen of sausage 'n meatballs.
Alice working the machine.
Wine is essential to pasta dough making. That and my kitchen-aid mixer. 
Jessica working the machine, Alyson making fresh mozz. salad.
And here's what the guys were up to:
Things got a little ugly toward the end of the evening:
But check out all that pasta!!!
And finally - the group shot. Notice how nice the table looks!!!
So needless to say I didn’t knit anything this weekend. I’m like 80% done with the armwarmers that I’m making for my husband’s aunt. I need to finish those up ASAP so that I can finally get around to knitting Dexter the Steeler’s sweater I promised Matt I’d make him months ago. He wants it for next week so the dog is set for the Denver game (and dare I say possibly even the superbowl?). We’ll see if that actually happens though since I think I might paint the bathroom this weekend. Yup. I can’t handle the off-peach anymore… I’m thinking either white (blah), light blue to match the tile, or perhaps even wall paper if I can find a pattern that's not horrible…. We’ll see.
