a night out with julie (lyn)

BAFTA is co-sponsoring a downtown event, Importing the Funny: A Transatlantic Comedy Event with Phil Rosenthal, Creator, Everybody Loves Raymond. Three winning writing teams from the UK are staging excerpts from sitcoms  they have Americanized for tonight’s audience.  I have volunteered to help with check-in.  I dress up, assuming it’s a dress-up kind of event.

I wear a slinky black tight dress and heels.  My hair is completely untamable; I look good from the neck down.

Julie and I get to the event after a long circuitous walk from the subway.  It is humid and sticky and my hair has progressed from bad to horrid by the time we arrive.  Most people have come in jeans.  Oh well. 

The event starts at 5:30 so both Julie and I come hungry, assuming the pre-event reception from 5:30 to 6 will include food.  I end up taking the only thing served…red wine in a plastic cup and a handful of chips and pretzels. 

The shows are all well-written, gorgeously acted, and beautifully staged.  It’s an impressive array of young talent, and I soon forget how hungry I am until the show ends, around 8. 

We decide to skip the cheese-type post-event reception that follows.  I'm not much of a mingler.  Chinese food is the obvious choice since we are in Chinatown.  Julie even knows a place, Amazing 66.  Funny name for a Chinese restaurant, but easier to remember then some of the others nearby (A-Wah, Big Wing Wong Restaurant, Danny Ng Restaurant, New Chao Chow, Kwok’s, Mei Li Wah or Jing Fong).

Amazing 66 is busy, clean, and very well-lit; every facial imperfection is magnified. I am more aware of Julie's lack of wrinkles (she looks the same as when I met her in Chicago over 30 years ago) than I am of the massive menu.  I would never come here on a date.  The lighting reveals too much.  But the food is great, and we order healthy entrees:  shrimp with snow peas and chicken with broccoli.  


I leave feeling the need for a deep-cleaning-wrinkle-minimizing facial.