Daily writing prompt

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

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This is a tough one. I can give you what the meal was, and a few options on where it was, but I can’t recall how much it cost.

It was definitely a steak dinner. We went through a phase where we liked going to really fancy steak restaurants and blowing the monthly dinning out budget in one shot. They were always steak places. Near home it was usually The Capital Grille in Burlington, MA though it could also have been Ruth’s Chris Steak House in the old state house building in Boston. There was also our first Ruth’s Chris visit which was in San Diego on our honeymoon. We had been at the beach and were sweaty and gross and just stopped at a restaurant for dinner, not realizing it was a super high end place. We felt massively under-dressed in our shorts and t-shirts, but oh my goodness was the meal spectacular. One other possibility was a place in Kissimmee, FL called Charley’s Steak House. We went there a few times and it was always excellent. The exception being an appetizer we had on our first visit. It was a year before we were married and we went with our friends Larry and Nawal. Larry and I were feeling adventurous and ordered an appetizer called Alligator Bites. I mean, it was Florida… why not eat some alligator, right? I had one bite and managed to get it down. It was absolutely vile. Larry tried one bite but had to spit it out. That was the end of our alligator culinary experience. The steak was incredible though.

For the question of how much we spent… I really don’t know. It was a lot. Like, a ridiculous amount. Like maybe $30 a steak, or possibly $40 a steak. Something like that. It was the kind of thing you do once a year at most, and we haven’t spent that much on a meal since pre-pandemic. We’ve probably come close at a couple of higher end Disney World resort restaurants, but I don’t think we’ve ever matched one of those Steak Houses. Jen has a better memory and she might correct me if she gets a chance to read this masterpiece of a post. I’ll add an addendum if she does.

Was it worth it? Oh, hells yes. It was absolutely worth it for the quality of the food, but also for the overall experience. You’re bill includes paying for the level of service you get at a place like that. The staff treat you like royalty. It’s really amazing. It’s fun to be a middle class, white collar flunky and pretend you’re upper class, upper crust types for one evening. It’s practically pampering. The whole experience is just as impressive as the ultra-impressive meal.

I definitely recommend giving a place like these a try if you can, just be prepared to blow a huge chunk of your monthly meals budget in one stop. Save up for a while if you need to. Good luck.

Daily writing prompt

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

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I’ve been posting this blog in one form or another for years. There are entries dating back to 2006, but the nearly daily posts go back to November 2008. In all that time if I were to count posts that are uninteresting I would guess that the total count would be exactly equal to the total number of posts that exist… know what I mean? My stuff ain’t that interesting unless you’re… me.

Now today, the daily writing prompt is asking me to find an uninteresting story and write about it. So it wants me to find a fellow uninteresting thing and then choose to write an uninteresting post about it.

Okay, I guess. I can dig it. To the Google News I go.

I set the search field for stories posted within the last 24 hours because I figured I should make sure we’re keeping things current and relevant and stuff. This is the world beater I came up with:

Solid Waste Container Replacements for Kingman

Now the gist of the prompt is to read the article, figure out how it relates to me, and then write about it. Okay, I can do that.

The article is about city trash pick up where the city is providing the barrels, right? Well, as luck would have it today is trash pick up day in my neighborhood, and my city provided trash and recycling barrels are on the street awaiting pick up.

Other than that, this doesn’t relate to me at all… which I have to believe was actually the point of this exercise. Right? Sure feels that way, doesn’t it?

Okay then… daily writing prompt post written, breakfast eaten, morning exercise finished, really nasty gastric bypass stomach issues that I woke up with dealt with and hopefully passed for the day… Okay. I guess we’re good to go for the day then. Happy Tuesday, planet Earth.