9/1/04 Circle Line "Crashing"; Revisiting Olive Garden:

This morning, my Circle Line boat was on a training trip, and I decided to come along for the ride.

The only slightly scary part, was that the person being trained, was the one driving the boat.

Casting off.

It was a beautiful morning.

The trainee.

I stayed up front, behind an open window, so I could hear the real captain, pictured above, giving instructions on how to maneuver the boat.

It was a little odd to be out of the pier with NOBODY on board.

One of the maneuvers we "tried" was to let the tide pull us in sideways, ever so slowly. So, in a still, it looks like we're crashing into our own pier, but in reality, we're drifting to the right.

This evening, Natalie and I decided to go back to a restaurant we visited early in our relationship. A restaurant that will, therefore, always have a special place in our hearts.

Unfortunately... it's the Olive Garden. The one on 6th Avenue and 22nd street.

The last time we were inside this restaurant, we had a conversation that basically was going to make or break the future of "us." The conversation ended up going fairly well, obviously. But it was quite nerve wracking at the time. Today, we felt much more relaxed and comfortable, and the same location helped to bring that juxtaposition of emotion to life. And so we celebrated each other... by making faces at each other across our silly "Italian" food.

And then we got tired of that, and had some dessert.