Weekend in Indianapolis

I haven't posted for a few days because I spent the weekend in Indianapolis seeing friends. I lived in the city for 3 years, and I have 3 close couple friends in the area, and my band mates live there. I'm in a punk rock band, and though we aren't active playing shows, we recorded 2 cds... one of them is currently available on I-Tunes and I'm submitting the other to be available soon.

Anyway, it was quite the amazing weekend. The particular details aren't really that exciting to anyone else but me, so I'll keep them short. I arrived at my friend's house, met her absolutely darling new baby, got Mexican food, got a little drunky (but not too much), woke up, ate at Yats (one of my absolute favorites in Indianapolis- Cajun food... GOOOO and try the Chili Cheese Etoufee with Crawfish), had dinner with my 3 dear, dear couple friends with whom I will never, ever mind being the 7th wheel, and went out and got VERY drunky. Karaoke night at a bar in New Palestine, Indiana was a BLAST. I sang "These Boots are Made for Walking" and "Give Me One Reason" by Tracy Chapman. Second one was a hit, first one was such an easy song that I don't think I had much room to impress. After that, we went back to my friend's house in New Pal, and drank nearly an entire half-gallon bottle of vodka between the 5 of us who stayed out (on top of the near bottle of wine I drank with and before dinner, and the 5 beers at Karaoke). I was HURTING the next day, and I sure did pay for not cutting myself off before 4:30 AM.

So, the next day, we all met up at 12:30 for lunch at Dagwood's Sandwich Shop (the one in Broadripple) before attempting to find a place to do a wine-tasting(called a wine-flight). For my friend's 29th birthday, we were attempting to recreate one of the lovely Sunday afternoons we spent in Bloomington at the beautiful Oliver Winery without driving the hour to get there. Unfortunately, we didn't consider the fact that a corner wine bar may be different than a winery in the fact that they may not allow babies. In fact, smoking laws have made it so that certain restaurants are now 18 and up. We abandoned plans to visit the Corner Wine Bar and tried Binkey's down on College and Kessler. They no longer do wine-flights. Though we were disappointed for the sake of my friend's birthday, none of us felt very well. Perhaps wine consumption would have been a bad idea anyway. We abandoned our plans and all headed our separate ways.

After a much needed nap, I woke up feeling very poorly rested, and headed out to meet a few of my band mates for a beer sampler at Rock Bottom. My friend and bass player, Rich, brews his own beer and is a beer enthusiast. He joined their mug club and has drank enough beer there to get his name on the wall. He advised me to order one of their samplers, and though I did so, I was honest about my condition. I tasted all of them, but only drank about two of them (large shot glasses full) and passed the rest on to Rich. I don't think he minded much. If you go there, get the pretzels with the hot spinach dip. They are really good- fresh, and warm with a hint of garlic. We chatted for awhile about just a little bit of band stuff and the new stuff in our lives, with the occasional sickly moan from me as I nibbled ever so slowly on my pretzel. I discovered that my sweet little drummer boy (I call him cutesy-ish names sometimes because he's always been the baby of the family at a ripe-old age of 21, and he's a total sweetheart) works as a sushi chef. Well, that just pretty much rocks since I really love good sushi. Rich and I made plans to eat at his place of employment, Kona Jacks, at 96th street in (or near?) Carmel.

First of all, I have to recommend Kona Jacks to everyone, not just because my favorite drummer works there. It's also really a neat place with awesome fish tanks in the back... a shark, 2 turtles, and a bunch of large fish. The sushi was also really good. Kyle is very creative and came up with the daily special. You can get ordinary rolls too if you're a purist (the normal sushi place variety), but he made us this one with shrimp tempora, spicy sauce and very thin slices of steak that was FABULOUS. That little bit of rare beef was just so tender and delicious. It was my favorite of the 4 we tried, though there wasn't one I didn't like. I always think it's funny when sushi gets named after places that couldn't be less Asian... like the Monroe Roll back home at the Plum House, the local Japanese restaurant in Monroe, NY. The roll I just described with the steak was called the Hoosier Roll. That's very Indiana of them, but no worries... it didn't taste like Indiana cuisine at all (not like Indiana food is bad, but who wants sushi that tastes, for example, like a giant, fried Tenderloin? Not me).

Anyhow, to finish out my story, I said goodbye to the boys, stopped at CVS, went to Firestone to get my headlight fixed (though after my drive today, it is out AGAIN), went to Fresh Market- the coolest, priciest, yuppiest, but best grocery store ever- and returned to my friend's house to pack up and leave. Firestone was supposed to be a short trip, but took 2 hours because some truck parked in front of the garage where my car was serviced. The people at the desk informed me that it would just be a few more minutes, but I waited and waited... 45 minutes later and I started pacing around the desk. Then they told the driver to move, and I finally made it out of there. L'humdulilah (That's "Thanks be to God" in Moroccan).

I made it back in just enough time for a few more moments with my friend's precious baby (I'm really not generally one of those baby people- you know the type- but I just love this little girl) before saying goodbye to everyone and heading back to Plymouth for another week at my grandmother's house. This one should be relaxing and mostly uneventful besides the studying I hope to do, but I'll try to keep you updated anyway. For now, safi. Cheers.