NYCweboy

On Hookers And Secret Services

Okay... so where were we?

I've been sort of chomping at the bit to comment on various stories - Ann Romney, George Zimmerman, you name it - but nothing is quite as captivating as the scandalous non-scandal of The Secret Service in Cartagena, now, is it? (And really... Cartagena? Other than Romancing The Stone... who's ever cared about Cartagena?)

My raction to the Secret Service story hasn't changed much since it broke: so... apparently after work the agents like to drink, carouse a bit, and maybe pick up a local resident for some R&R. And that's bad... why?

I'm not trying to excuse hooking, but in my own curiously twisted thinking on sex and sexuality, it's not people paying for sex that bothers me. What bothered me, say, about the Elliot Spitzer scandal, and made it scandalous, was both the outrageous prices he paid (which was simply foolish) and the fact that being Attorney General means enforcing the laws he was breaking at that time. That's hypocrisy, and that, it strikes me, is scandalous.

(Also, going to prostitutes while married strikes me as tacky and poor moral character, but that's a separate issue.)

So here's my thing: if the Secret Service agents were, say, using counterfeit money to pay hookers... then maybe we'd have a similar case; but  drinking in bars and bringing someone home for sex doesn't strike, entirely, as a firing offense. Again, tacky, perhaps; but not quite the federal crime it's being made out to be. Indeed, I'll be curious to see if some of these attempts to discipline Secret Service employees stand up as proper for a federal employer. Is off hour behavior really fair game for the government as an employer?

In any case, there's been a lot of huffing and puffing to try and dress up what is basically a salacious exercise in peeking behind other people's bedroom curtains as somehow a major breach of national security. You can almost see the visible relief of many media organizations reporting today's triumph "hooker may have been in President's hotel!" That's, you know, serious. It's almost like, you know, she was in the President's room. Except, you know, she wasn't.

All the heavy breathing doesn't amount to much, and can't really make the agent's behavior seem much more than what it is - tawdry, mostly, with a side order of tasteless. The idea that patronizing hookers might "lead to blackmail" is an old saw that was always meant to comment more on sexual behavior than any actual threat - it's the same nonsense that was trotted out about gays during the Red Scare years, and just as dopey. It's a suggestion that sex is dirty, embarrassing, and rather than be humiliated for a peccadillo, most people would, I don't know, pay thousands and reveal state secrets. Evidence of this actually happening isn't just mostly scarce... it's basically nonexistent. It's the stuff of movie plots and bad novels one buys in airports.

More to the point, these ideas of salacious blackmail seem especially absurd in this era where people's nude photos wind up on internet websites. Shocking? Embarrassing? Does anyone even know what these words mean anymore? The small number of people actually "shocked" to discover that Secret Service agents hire hookers lead especially sheltered lives and are, in general, awfully naive (almost as naive as the people who seem to think this only happened, once, in Cartagena). There's nothing especially shocking, or possibly even embarrassing about the President's guards getting randy after hours in a foreign country. The trope that this "could lead to national security breaches" is pretty much nonsense, and most sensible people, I suspect, get that, even if they hate to admit it. Because once you admit it... then we also have to admit that this story is getting way more play than it ever deserved.

I don't think, as Americans, we'll ever get over our nosiness, our voyeuristic tendencies, or our confused notions about sex generally. That's our culture, and that's how we define who we are - simultaneously wildly open and free, and puritanical and judge-y, all at once. By all means, go overseas and go wild with the foreigners. Just don't get caught. Or we'll really be mad. And if it helps us to pretend that somehow this is crucial to our "national interests", it's just a reminder of the lengths we go to when we need to justify our prejudices. Mostly, I suspect, the excessive interest in this story is about envy. And that's never pretty. And we're lousy at hiding it.

 

The Swing Of Things

The suitcase officially went back into the basement today, so I guess the vacation excuse is officially over. We got back home late Tuesday night (memo to self: Miami remains the worst reentry point into the US of anywhere), and Wednesday was mostly about resting up and feeling settled back home. Yesterday was my first morning back at work, which was fine, but as usual, the early rising and energy reqired at work makes the afternoon and evening after a bit of a wash.

That, and I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things, especially writing. Blogging lately, for me, has been an off and on enterprise at best, and, admittedly, more off than on. Writing about politics isn't simply frustrating at this point; mostly it feels simply pointless. Watching TV news and discussion programs - which I do a whole lot less lately - is frustrating and, I hate to admit, depressing. The waste of time and energy spent on useless topics ("our first story tonight: something not very controversial that happened on the Republican primary trail, amongst candidates you don't care about, pretty much all of whom will never be President.") really just floors me.

I'm left trying to fashion a blog out of movie reviews, the occasional pithy observation, and some witty asides about television programs I've seen, and no, I don't think that's much of a life, either. At the same time, I have no interest in simply stopping. As much as I like the idea that someone reads what I write, enojys it, gets something out of it... I write mostly because it fulfills something for me. And still, as I do it, literally as I type this, I feel more purposeful than I have... well, since I scribbled a few words about my vacation from a hotel room in St. Kitts.

There are two other obvious complications: I just got an iPhone for my birthday - mostly because my iPod died and I've come to the conclusion that the BlackBerry Curve, while nice, is technically flawed - and I have to admit, the remarkable number of things it can do (listening to online radio of disco remixes whilst reading the AP newswire, for example) means not even having to use my laptop for most anything. Second, on the job front, I am up for a fairly significant promotion and, when I am realistic, getting that promotion changes my priorities. I'm actually ambivalent, on a quiet personal level, about moving up, because I don't really know if I can sustain writing, even at this reduced level, over the long term while in management. On the better days, I resolve to try. On the worse dys, I just curl into a ball and avoid everyone and most everything.

(None of the last few sentences belong in a blog post that could potentially be read by your boss... but oh well.)

I suppose my point is that "real life" - off of the interwebs - has become the life I'm actually spending more time leading. Interesting things are happening; interacting with real people in real time is emotionally fulfilling; pounding the keys about personal and political frustrations isn't much fun (and frankly, has never entirely been my style). There's no real conclusion here, no absolute "that's it, I'm done", no resolution that I'll try harder to blog more. It might happen... and probably, however well intentioned, it won't anytime soon. Life goes on, I'm back in the swing of things, the journey continues... and that, really, is what matters, isn't it?

Island Time

Long ago - before I started working for Starbucks and my income dropped to 25% of what it had been - I liked to take my Spring vacations in the Caribbean. Back then I had a plan (a life's goal, if you will) of seeing every Caribbean island at least once. And I was doing pretty well with it, too. In the months before I quit my old job, I had even made plans to make my next vacation a trip to Nevis, which seemed somewhat remote and less accessible.

But then I quit my job (and just to be fair, I'm not trying to blame Starbucks for my financial predicament; I made the leap out of corporate life knowing that it would be less money and challenging. Not quite that challenging, but still), and vacation plans became, literally, a luxury I couldn't aford. For several years I took almost no vaccations involving considerable travel (Maine, Canada, that sort of thing), and indeed, almost no vacations at all. 

Then I moved back home, and between her financial support (I can't pretend it's not there) and my own mildly improved fortunes, vacations to further off places resumed. There was our lovely trip to Tucson and Sedona in Arizona. We took several cruises (qhich is a quick way to up one's island total, I found).

And this year, I managed to convince her to join my island hopping quest directly.

And oddly enough, here we are, on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts and Nevis are one nation, St. Kitts lying slightly north and east of Nevis, the islands separated by a two mile strait (a moment where the Atalntic meets the Caribbean). Yesterday, spur of the moment, we took a ferry from Bassaterre, the capital, over to Charlestown, the capital of Nevis. Two islands, one vacation.

We have shopped and explored and eaten wonderful food and laid in the sun. Well, technically I have laid in the sun while mom sits in the shade or under an umbrella, rrading a book (the latest Sara Paretsky, on her way to capturing my newest Elizabeth George). My face is red and a little sore, but otherwise, it is a typical tanning adventure. Already in just a few hours over a couple of days, I am several shades darker.

St. Kitts is marvelous, less developed than some of the islands (Nassau, Aruba), not too expensive, with some nice opportunities to eat well, pick up a few duty free items (a watch, some perfume, and my boss's cigarettes), and generally relax. Nevis, as I suspected, is somewhat less developed, but even more pleasantly low key and easy going. And we even managed to shoehorn in some history, seeing the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (which, for this graduate of Hamilton College, was a treat).

It's the change of pace that I notice the most, not surprising for your average impatient New Yorker... but somehow the cheerfulness and friendliness of most Kittians makes the slow pace tolerable. Our dinner the first night (at a local legendary beachside "shack") took 45 minutes to arrive, what with the crowds on hand for the bonfire and the fire eater (he was quite remarkable). Somehow the wait was just fine. And the food was worth the wait.

Being here, on island time, made getting to writing this post an effort; I have had it in my head for tow days, but life, and wandering, intervened. We only have a couple more days to enjoy, but this trip is already one of the standout vacation choices I've ever had.  Now it's off to my morning run and another great cup of coffee at the local coffee place, a cup every bit as satisfying as the ones I get at work.

I promise to poat pictures too.

Oh, and, Happy Easter. :)

Articles We Never Finished Skimming: And No, You're Not All Going To Die

James Fallows, opening up his long "think piece" on President Obama's first (and possibly only) term:

In the late 1990s, when his fellow University of Chicago professor Barack Obama had just run for the Illinois State Senate and long before a newly inaugurated President Obama named him to his Council of Economic Advisers, the economist Austan Goolsbee was on the most terrifying airplane trip of his life. He was traveling on Southwest Airlines from St. Louis back to Chicago’s Midway Airport. The plane got into a thunderstorm, and for a while many passengers thought they were doomed.

One jolt of turbulence was so strong that a flight attendant, not yet strapped in, hit her head on the airplane’s ceiling. After another sudden drop, the lights went out on one side of the cabin. The violent ups and downs kept getting worse. Two rows ahead of Goolsbee, a professional-looking woman in her 50s began wailing, “We’re going to die! We’re all going to die!” “Everyone was looking around and on the border of panic,” Goolsbee told me recently. “I was kind of wishing someone would start yelling, ‘No, we’re all not going to die!’”

At last the plane made it safely to Midway. As passengers filed off, Goolsbee spoke with a strapping young man who had been sitting, ashen but stoic and silent, in a window seat next to the woman whose nerves had broken. He was a high-school football player coming to Chicago on a college recruiting trip. “Quite a flight,” Goolsbee said to him. “This is my first time on an airplane,” the young man replied. “Are they always like that? I can see why people don’t like to fly.”

Goolsbee’s punch line to the story is that during his two years in Washington, “I was that kid.” He and his colleagues were trying to devise policies to cope with the worst worldwide economic crisis in living memory, in the most contentious political environment in nearly as long a time. He would ask himself, Is it always like this? He could see why people didn’t like politics and government.

But when I heard the story, my thoughts turned immediately in another direction. Goolsbee may have felt like that kid, but to most of the world, the more obvious comparison would be to the man who hired Goolsbee, Barack Obama. Four years after being sworn in as a freshman senator, occupying a position of executive authority for the first time in his life, Obama was, at age 47, instantly responsible for guiding the world’s superpower and its allies through an emergency that had left far more experienced leaders wailing the political and financial equivalent of “We’re all going to die!”

Fallows uses the story as an analogy about the President, but I think the more telling line is in the second paragraph: "I was kind of wishing someone would start yelling 'now, we're all not going to die.'"

In other words, rather than actually offer up a contradictory opinion, Austan Goolsbee sits there and waits for someone else to do it.

And that, really, is a pretty good sum-up of why Goolsbee is about the last person one would probably want in a crisis.

And PS... what's this fascination with strapping young men?

Friday Field Trip: Bittersweet, Hot Chocolate, And The Home Fires

My Friday Field Trip Report is about coming home last night after a short (4 day) jaunt to Maine, a new family tradition you might recall us starting last year. Like last year, everything kind of fell into place at the last minute, reuniting the same group for a second go round of food, festivities, and family time. And again, a good, warm time was had by all.

I said last year... families are weird. This year wasn't so much about how different we were, but, for me anyway, how similar. This year we found more time to spend together as cousins - me, my cousin Christine, and cousin (if not exectly blood related) Jamila. It's complicated... but only on paper.

In person, we make quite a team - we managed a half day road trip to Brunswick to help Christine renew her international Driver's License (she's off again to Mozambique next Monday), shop for shoes, and do a quick tour of Old Navy. Christine and I played hosts of What Not To Wear with Jamila, suggesting new outfits - which was fun, but also depressed me, because I can't stand the show's hosts and the way they try to make their makeover recipients feel bad about themselves.

LIke much of this past year, the trip to Maine was ultimately sort of bittersweet, more good than bad, but something of a mixed bag, at least for me. Which is not to say I didn't love the company of family; to a person, it was wonderful to see them and reconnect (and typical of our stays in Maine, Mom and I actually see less of each other there than at home, even staying in adjoining rooms).

The bittersweet was more about places and memories - thinking of my father's side of the family and how estranged we are, for instance. And the increasing sense that so many bad memories I have lately are associated with Boston - from leaving my old jobs, to having to move, to the collapse of one of my close friendships. Driving home, we listened to a local NPR discussion program about problems with the "T" subway system in Boston, which reminded me how frustrating the commute was, for no comprehensible reason. And it's winter. And it's dark. And it's cold. My family isn't weird. But I am.

(There's also the part about the dreadful decision - which was entirely me - to stop and spend a night at a Motel 6 on the way up. Inexpensive to the point of being depressing.)

But in the end, the pluses outweighed the minuses. Mom and I stopped at a little German market that her sister recommended, stocking up on yet more German and Swedish specialty foods, always enjoyable, and we even tried their little cafe, which had delicious foods and an especially magnificent hot chocolate. We also stopped, as always, in Freeport, where we both found some bargains at the outlet stores. And we made it home in plenty of time for me to restart my viewing of The Vampire Diaries, cause I'm a teenage girl - with TV plans - at heart.

The best, and brightest moments, in Maine, were those quiet ones spent close to the fire, talking with family about times past and present, our hopes for the future, our views of the world at hand. My Uncle makes a mean fire, with all the seriousness and dedication required, as he does most things (and, my Aunt reports, he now approaches vacuuming and ironing with this same precision and seriousness, leaving her free to go out and about). That, plus his encyclopedic knowledge and love of jazz makes for some pretty comforting evenings of warm conversation to a relaxed beat. Keep the home fires burning... and maybe some of that bittersweet will get smoked out. Or something. Now it's back home, and soon it's back to work. And, right now... that's okay.

But The Ending Kind Of Restores Your Faith In Humanity (#Snowtober!)

I'm sure karma had something to do with it, because I said, for two days, that this winter strom would turn out to be a dud.

After finishing my post yesterday, I got up from my table to get dressed for work. My mom said "big flakes!" and it was the first moment that I realized that the snow was stickiong and far more dramatic than I first thought.

Still, I set off for work; I know how to drive in snow, and where we were, things looked passable. And surely, plowing and salting were underway.

I knew I was in trouble when, one town over, I started to skid just trying to get up a minor incline. Major hills were in fact easier than mild grades. I called my boss to say the roads were looking bad, but we agreed I should still be on my way.

Then I turned onto Route 133, one of about 3 options I had to get from where I live to where I work. It's something of a country road, two lanes, rolling hills, but I figured since it was a major connecting point for the county, it must be  getting attention.

But it wasn't. It was pretty clear, right away, that we were in for trouble. Cars were packed onto the road, lots of spinning out, and trees, as predicted, were collapsing under the weight of the laready heavy snow.

I made it about half way towards work on this road when traffic just stopped. Using what judgement I could, I decided it was best to turn around and make it back to the side road I knew connected back to a mjor artery. I figured from there I had options to either try and get to work or head home.

And about 100 feet after turning around, I slid off the road into a ditch.

After the initial panic, I was surprisingly calm and sanguine about it. I mean, once you accept the reality of your situation, there's not much to do: here you are, and you're stuck. Unless someone pulls you out, you're not going anywhere.

And I wasn't going anywhere.

Four hours later, the magnitude of the disaster was apparent. Between listening to the news, and taking to drivers as they passed - slowly - it was clear that, across Westchester, this was really bad. Roads were unpassable. Trees down everywhere, Power outages all over.

And now, it was getting dark.

Something about the darkness simply froze my soul. I'd seen to many movies, heard too many stories. What if a tree fell? What fi power lines came down around me? It was clearly hours before help would come, if ever. And the fuel truck, which had slid off the road before me, just feet in front of me, had been pulled out. Now I was alone. The 4 other cars that had come off the road near me were all abandoned. No houses were really that close.

It was at that moment that a red truck pulled up, and yet another nice lady asked me if I was okay and if help was on the way. I said, more earfully than before, that I didn't know quite what to do. At which point she leaned over, and her husband leapt out from the driver side, grabbed a shovel, and dug out my tires. Then he got in front of me, and pushed the car as I tried to back out.

At first, we made a little progress, but the wheels started spinning. Then he dug around again, went back to the front, and pushed again. This time the car awkwardly lurched onto the road. I was free. Before I could even finish my heartfelt thanks, they were gone.

Driving back on 133 was an almost entirely unfamiliar landscape. Cars were abandoned everywhere, trees had fallen. I passed the remains of a burned out shell of a car, what I can only assume  resulted from a power line fall. Further on, a mail truck was jacknoifed going down a hill. I barely got around it.

I pulled into a gas station, called my mom, called my boss, and had a hot dog for dinner. I'd been trapped for four hours. And really, I was one of the lucky ones, getting dug out and able top ride to safety. I debated staying at the gas station. Eventually, abdout 45 minutes later, I decided to attempt the ride home the rest of the way. More downed trees, but the roads from here were in better shape.

In my own town, the power was completely out. Fire had broken out, burning down a local restaurant my mom and I had eaten at multiple times. They were barely letting cars through, but my house was on the near side of the fire trucks. I got home, hugged my mom, and sat in the dark. The wonderful, blessed, candle-lit dark of home.

Thirteen months ago, a tree fell on my car, and I survived. Yesterday, I spent four hours in a ditch in a blinding snowstorm. There's no punch line to this. No feeling of invincibility. Between those evnts I feel like a lot of clarity has fallen into my life - what matters, what doesn't, what it takes to survive and carry on. 

That and I've learned that we can survive best when we are there to help one another. I'm grateful to the kindness and decency of strangers. I always joke with my mother, at the end of especially sentimental films and TV shows, that they "kind of restoore your faith in humanity." This morning, my faith is thoroughly restored. And now, it's probably back to work.

Here's To Good Friends

Today is a day off and I've been catching up with good friends, all of us linked in strange, nearly magical ways. This one's for you guys, and all we talked about today:

 

 

Down East

Apparently, I decided to take some time off.

I feel better about these occasional pauses if I make a decision ahead of time - plan ahead, that's what I prefer (which, objectively, I also disapprove of in myself - I'd love to be a more "seat of the pants" kind of girl/weboy... but it's just not happening). Instead, life just kind of catches up to me... and something's got to give.

There's this debate, each time, in me: do I write about the not writing, or just move on as if everything just resumes normally? I hate to just leave the breaks unacknowledged, and sometimes writing about not writing is all I've got to give. And blogging, after all, was something I started so I could write about what's happening. Or not happening. Sometimes, not writing is all.

The past week was hard, but satisfying - a lot of productive time at work, a chance to show myself as someone seriously interested in management. I wasn't always like this; it's a recent development. For a while, I figured being a writer/barista was enough; then writer/shift supervisor. Now, maybe some sort of manager. Maybe that's the best I can do on spontaneous plans: I'd rather not have a career with goals, just let it unfold as it unfolds.

I'm weird that way.

This past week also marked the beginning of serious rehearsals for my summer foray into musical theater; last year, I reawakened my theater interests with a local production of Annie. This year, I'm happily back in the thick of my summer troupe doing Curtains. It's much fun... but a week of rehearsals only to get up at 4:30 to open the next morning does take a lot of a person.

So, here I sit, a week or so later, ensconced in my Aunt and Uncle's house in Maine, back for a slow summer weekend, and a chance to decompress. As usual, the relaxed air - and reduced heat - makes contemplation a little easier. 

Yesterday was an easy day, with a relaxed lunch, some time on the internet, and an amazing dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. Tonight, it's a cookout after this morning's breakfast at the local maple syrup store. And probably a trip to the local museum.

Starting Tuesday, it's back into the thick of work and rehearsals, and who knows how that will go; another short break may be in the cards. For now, it's a nice break Down East, and a chance to reconnect. And that's pretty good.

Friday Evening Footprints in the Sand

 
jinb

Friday Field Trip: Whole Foods And PF Chang's

I tend to leave Fridays to J and his lovely pictures. It gives me a chance, among other things, to go out and do things in the world.

Yesterday, I worked early, but not a full 8 hour shift, which was a relief. Still, by early evening, I was pretty much worn out, and Mom got home too late for any early show of Midnight in Paris, the new Woody Allen film (yes, I never miss Woody Allen. Sue me). Instead, we decided to take a little field trip.

Whole Foods has been slow to expand into Westchester, which strieks me as puzzling, since the high-end grocery chain feels like a perfect fit for Westchester's large number of pampered elites. It's fittingly ironic that their initial touchdown in the county, in White Plains, was the former site of Saks Fifth Avenue, which abandoned the space when The Westchester, an upscale mall prjoect, failed to connect the store to the mall as promised (Leaving them staring at Neiman Marcus and their first arrival in the area). Saks now has no Westchester location... which is also very odd.

Lots of people - including my Mom - might think I love Whole Foods; in truth, I find them exasperating. When I first met them, still living in my Manhattan apartment, I too was blown away by the luxe-ness of the goods, the absurd prices (I don't subscribe to the "Whole Paycheck" humor, but walking out with a small grocry bag with $60 in purchases was a first), and the crowds. (One famous memory is one blizzard-y day when the line in Columbus Circle stretched through prepared foods, past the meat department, around frozen foods and back to seafood.)

By the time I moved to Boston, I tended to use Whole Foods as an occasional backup to my main shopping in more traditional grocery stores. Boston, though, is lttered with Whole Foods - one by Symphony Hall on the edge of Fenway, one in cenrral Cambridge, one by Mass General at the edge of Beacon Hill, just for starters. And their promximity to much of my everyday life made visiting them too easy and addictive.

My Mom joked last night that she could envision a lifestyle where she had the money to only shop Whole Foods. Me... I don't see the appeal. Over time, in Boston I came to realize that what the store sells, really, is a kind of snob appeal: you're not just a grocery shopper, you're smarter, hipper, and probably healthier, the stores seem to say. Whole Foods doesn't bother popular, mass produced foodstuffs of ordinary stores - no, it's all artisanal this, and farm-raised that, organic and expensive and exclusive and hard to find. I always know that, if it comes to it, I will be able to find Creme Fraiche, Clotted Cream, and fancy infused olive oil at Whole Foods. Just not, say, Diet Pepsi. Or Wheaties. And not every department opf Whole Foods can claim absolute dominance - their coffee choices, I've come to realize, are haphazard and incomplete (in part, because they've no use for Starbucks, but they also overlook good small houses like Kicking Horse).

The truth is much of what Whole Foods brought to the grocery experience - the high-end items, the hot food cafes, the luxe presentations - have been adopted widely by competitors. Those with the square footage - like Shaw's in downtown Boston at the Pru, or Stop and Shop in many of its suburban locations - have similar sit down eating spaces, luxurious produce displays, and a lot of fancy olive oil. Even so... Whole Foods continue to have them beat for sheer over-the-top indulgence. As I walked past the refrigerated case devoted to nothing nut rare German and other artisanal beers, I realized  that so mcuh of what Whole Foods offers is class confirmation - come here, and you'll know you've made it. I like to think I don't need that kind of reassurance, and I can't be had for a slice of cheese (though a bottle of infused oltve oil and some fancy tortilla chips did follow me home, inexplicably).

Afterwards, Mom and I dined at PF Chang's, a similar experience in upscale mass appeal. Chang's is a fancy chain of Asian eateries, basically, a Chinese restaurant in a sleek dress. Try as they might to dress up the concept (and they're strying a lot less, these days), Chang's is every bit the aitport hotel chain store it seems to be, with a slight Asian twist. Since the economic downturn, Chang's has had to economize a bit,and they tend to feel dingier, and less epcial, if still a slight cut above, say, Applebee's. If it weren't for my endless devotion to Chinese food, I'd have completely given up long ago.

As it is, we endured one of those silly, pointless waits these chain restaurants seem determined to deliver - forced waits with handheld joy buzzer "pagers" and the promises of tables in 20-25 minutes (we wound up at ours in less than 10). It's an artifical kind of buzz creation, mostly leaving grumpy groups and annoyed dates standing around parking lots, and since the downturn began, it just feelssilly. The demand for this kind of dining has softened tremendously, but the urge to seem "special" can't be shaken.

Still, dinner was pleasant, the food reliably good, the air conditioning a nice respite from the beginnings of clingy summer heat. And overall, not that expensive. It's a weird world where luxury comes so cheap.