dinner date

[fflo]

I've been fighting some queasiness bug all week---"off my oats," as I've been thinking of it, to say the least---but I managed, after taking it easy, sipping water all day, and making only a brief appearance at the office, to be up for a lovely meal out with lovelikeyeast and headbump. Good food and drink, and great dinner companions.

There have been times when I've indulged in dining out w/friends much more frequently than I manage to any more. Times when I was in almost as dire a set of financial circumstances, and even times when things were worse that way. (One word: telemarketer.) It was part of not letting money rule my life any more than it had to. I still allow myself movies at the drop of a hat, even though it pretty much means running up debt to do it; it's just worth it to me. I guess we all have our things like that. Yet sometime a few years ago H. & I curtailed the eating out socially, and I certainly haven't reversed the trend.

In Kansas there weren't many nice places to eat out, 'cept when we drove to Larryville. Well, Coco Bolo's was pretty good. And we did eat at the downtown hotel place once, I think, not counting the English Dept banquet. In Georgia we were at Willie's Wee-Nee Wagon or Mack's Bar-B-Q more often than we could reasonably afford, but there was only one really nice place in town. We had a few great meals there, just us all romantic, and when S&E came to town, but we had no friends locally to eat out with. So it wasn't like the Balto/DC restaurant days. I think where I really felt the slow-down was shortly after arriving in Ann Arbor, where we have more restaurants per capita than any other U.S. city of its size, or some such statistic. It wasn't just us, but most folks we were hanging with were necessarily penny pinching, too---prob'bly not just cuz housing is so dear here, but also cuz we're getting older, and you can only be profligate about money for so long before that in itself adds to its ability to rule your days.

Money is going to have a certain amount of power over us, of course. Strategizing to limit how much that power flexes its muscles in everyday living, or how much it SEEMS to be doing so, is a method of living I have done well with from time to time, and one I want to remember to focus on practicing more, again, to whatever extent I can manage.

I do sometimes make myself miserable about certain stuff, or add to my misery with bad habits, but if I get in the groove I can kick into a perspective that limits my feeling financially constrained to a minority of my days. I'm trying to call up & use that skill again by, fer instance, doing things that give you a lotta bang for your (literal) buck---especially the very helpful bang of not feeling, at least not every day, as financially precarious as you actually may be.

You know, things like the occasional leisurely meal at an eatery with a thoughtful, well-executed menu, an appealing atmosphere, and truly fine company.

Comments

[wednes.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Dining in a nice restaurant is one of the great joys of life.

As you know, I too get bummed about money stuff just because there's so much I want to buy and do and such that i can't afford. But, now that i can see free movies at the V7 (thanks Dan) I feel a lot less poor. And you know, a $3 worth of cake supplied shared among friends with conversation can make one feel like the richest lady in town, I find.

:-P

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

You know, now that I have gotten into the habbit of not spending money, I don't feel like money has power over me. I'm sure you don't feel that your inability to buy a private island with a custom-built castle and heliport is a matter of money controlling you.

After a major financial downizing effort a few years ago, when my ex and I started running *down* debt, I came to realize that living cheap isn't inherently difficult (well, to a point). Adapting to live cheaper is hard. But in the long run, the only hard part is other peoples expectations that you spend money. I got along just fine with an old computer with no CD drive, until everyone I know was giving me data on CD's. Then I got along fine without a dvd player, until people started givng me DVD's.

Eating out is real case where friends expectations can make you feel like money is a problem. A freind of mine is getting by on a limited income from a part-time job. She's able to pay her mortgage, buy food, and has health insurance from her job. She can even travle on occasion, but her co-workers and better-off friends are constantly going out for lunch (not to great places, but not fast food), so now she's considered unsociabe because she can't blow $10 a day eating out.

Once you settle into a life where you don't make unneeded expenditures, you don't feel so much like money is running your life. You feel like money is irrelevant to most of life. If a friend takes me out to lunch for $18 for the two of us, then I just have to reciprocate with a $5.00 for two home-cooked batchelor meal.

Health insurance is a real issue, though, especially now that we're getting old enough to have chronic conditions.

The nice thing about Ann Arbor is that you will find plenty of intelligent, educated, and interesting poor people you can hang out with for cheap.

Which reminds me--shadowriderhope's concert band has a concert sunday at 3:00 at Huron High. Including some Copland (my favorite composer). I mention this because of the ticket price. Free.

Money has no power over that.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that the people I hear talking the most about what they can't afford to acquire are talking about added luxuries. Like their second car isn't in such good shape (though in better shape than mine) or they can't afford a very good vacation this year, so it'll just be one week in the Caribbean, dangit. How can they not hear what I hear in that sort of thing?

I'm just glad they somehow want to live in cardboard McMansions in a corn field with no trees, literally spittin' distance from their neighbors' boxes---cuz if they didn't, little older houses in town would cost $500,000, and I'd be renting in Flint or something.

And yeah, I know it's kinda bourge-y of me to feel good about being pampered in a restaurant now and then. Works just as well to have a leisurely feast in good company at somebody's home---even better, in some ways. Still, it's kinda grand for somebody other than us to do the cooking, bring the food to the table, and do the dishes afterwards. And give us our choices of many tasty-sounding options with lusciously described side dishes, and to take care in presentation, and all that stuff. It feels like quite an indulgence, and I like it.

But even on the lunch counter level I feel something special about a sit-down meal out.

Maybe I'll hit that concert on Sunday, depending how the day's going. I've got an event in the early evening, but I do like Copland, even if he's been used rather unfortunately much in TV commercials.

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

HB and I both came away from that meal feeling so relaxed and luxuriantly satisfied. It was great to splurge with you.

I am all for the many cultures the world over where the feast is really where it's at in terms of social and/or family pleasures and $. Food /wine /entertainmnent and festivities are a much bigger priority to so many other cultures than owning so much crap and electronics and appliances and gizmos (and living alone is also rarer luxury in so many other cultures & countries). Here, entertainment often runs toward fast food and videos/home movies. Very anti-social.

The irony being, I'm often anti-social. Takeout and movies is a real treat I enjoy. But the frenzy we live in to spend spend spend money we don't have on things we don't need and probably wouldn't otherwise want really gets to me. Expensive meals here really are expensive, and yet I would rather blow it on a great, memorable meal or travel and then cook well and cheaply the rest of the time at home and get movies/books from the library and own/maintain a car I can afford over making monthly payments on something better. (Or car-free when I lived urban.)

I'm rambling here. I guess I hate debt, and am happier to go without than rack it up. But whether I'm comfortably off or in debt, I splurge on food for special occasions (whether it's traveling or visiting w/a friend). Life is short.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I was initially attracted to that "slow food" movement, but then got the impression it was all about upscaley white people indulging themselves & simultaneously patting their privileged selves on the backs for being so hip.

I'm just re-learning how to enjoy the cozy night in with a movie as a single person. So much of that domestic pleasure was all tied up in coupledom for me. Not that I didn't have a great time when H'd be out of town for some reason. (I'd make steak, for one thing.)