Friday Night's Meat-ing With The Wife

Now I'm sure like anyone else out there who has 2 young kids, whenever you have the chance to get away for some decent "couple time", you take it. Last night was our chance to just get out and decompress from a long couple weeks of work. Usually, it's a dinner and a movie, which I'm totally cool with. None of this dancing or club-hopping or anything wild...just something somewhat subdued and simple.

One of our favorite places to go eat is a place here in Fayetteville called Boi de Ouro, which must mean "incredible meats served at a gluttonous pace" because that's what happened to me! This place is absolutely awesome!! If you've never been to a Brazilian steakhouse type of restaurant, here's how it works. You sit at your table, they bring you your drinks and you serve yourself at a huge 50+ item salad bar...not much of which is found at the local Golden Corral. This is prime stuff folks. Shrimps, gourmet mushroom salads, escargot, fresh lettuces & salad dressings, chunks of meat & cheese...real high end food.

Then, after you have your salad, you flip over a card next to you at your table. "Red" means "stop", "green" means "bring it on son". The waiters bring you out an individual slab of meat stabbed on large (2-3 ft skewer) and they cut you off a slice (or 3) right there next to you. Anything from lamb to sirloin to flank steaks to various styles of filet mignon & chicken to Brazilian sausages...it's all juicy, hot and melts in your mouth the moment you begin eating it.

Of course, with all good things comes the bad and I walked out last night feeling like that very large man from the Monty Python bit who "overate". I'll leave it there for those with more delicate palletes but when you're feeling brave, look it up. Funny and gross...but mostly funny. Anyway, it was incredible and we had a real good time talking to each other without having to yell at the kids for something. I think both of our favorite(s) last night were the flank steaks, the sirloin and the pork tenderloin. Ohhhhh, Mylanta.

So we head out to go to the movies to see a definite chick flick. It's the new one with Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker called "Failure To Launch". The premise of the film is that MM is 35 years old and still lives at home with his parents, played by Terry Bradshaw (who actually has a brief nekkid scene...g-r-o-s-s) and Kathy Bates. SJP is hired by the parents to "woo" MM away from the family nest, focus on her and realize he needs to find his own place to live. Blah blah blah...MM walking around with his shirt off...blah blah blah...MM smiling and flirting with the girls and with the camera...blah blah blah.

Make me even sicker.

I knew I was in trouble for this "movie" when we first arrived. We got into the theater about 10 minutes before it started and the ratio of men to women was about 1:13. Now multiply that by 9 because there were 9 guys and the rest of the "crowd" were women. YOUNG women all there to ogle at Mr. M and his dreamy eyes, smile, body, etc. And guys...you know what I'm talking about...a room full of young women there to see a stud like MM are NOT going to be sitting there quietly discussing the current interest rates' effect on the housing markets.

Hunh-uhhh. They were loud, expressive, jumping in their seats, fixing their hair & makeup, gabbing on their cellphones AND talking to the row of girls they came with at the same time. I began messing around with my cellphone, trying to see if the Razorbacks' score could be found online anywhere. Then, the lights (mercifully) went down.

"Let's get this over with" I thought quietly.

The only thing masculine on the screen the entire night was an ad for some new power drink who's slogan was "Let Your Man Out". It ended showing hundreds of men chasing this semi-truck full of this energy drink (I think it was Full Throttle) in their cars, motorcycles, tanks, jeeps, helicopters, etc.

Then the "meat show" on the screen started up.

I don't like Matthew McConaughey. I really don't like Sarah Jessica Parker. I DO like Terry Bradshaw but not in chick flicks. Kathy Bates has scared me since she was in that Stephen King movie where she busted James Caan's leg with a sledge-hammer.

But to be honest, there were enough funny moments to keep me interested and not totally wish for a non-drugged dental visit, like when we went to go see "Pride & Prejudice". The movie was only about 90 minutes long and it did go by pretty quickly. However, seeing the appreciation in my wife's eyes and knowing SHE enjoyed the movie was good enough for me.

That and also knowing that next date night, I get to pick the movie. And I know Superman PLUS Mission Impossible 3 are both right around the corner.

What's that you say? Both of those movies have hunky, meaty, heart-throbs as leading characters?

(sighs) Well, there's always Ice Age 2.