A fun dinner!

The day finally came. We'd been planning our big barbecue dinner for weeks.

Last night, the gang got together at Tennessee Mountain Barbecue in SoHo. "The gang" being Marc and me, Jeff, PatCHy and Greg, Michael and Anthony, Deirdre and her two friends from Chicago (I believe their names were Kristen and Lisa--I'm so bad with names!), Jase and Byrne.

Dinner was great. Mz. Ouiser and her friends were loads of fun, not surprisingly! It was nice spending some time with the whole gang. I just wish it could have lasted longer. Two-and-a-half hours is just a tease, when it's spent with such a wonderful group of people.

On another, semi-related note, Jase had spent the day running around Manhattan, experiencing various things the city had to offer. He had Jeff in tow, as well as Wayne. Wayne was supposed to join us for dinner, but he was too pooped by the time dinner came, so he headed home.

One of their stops was at Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven. Knowing this in advance, I told Jase that I expected him to bring me something from there. The sweet boy actually did. Isn't he nice? He brought a small package of chocolates. I shared them with everyone there at the end of dinner, and they were very good!

Jase also brought cupcakes from the wonderful Magnolia Bakery. He cut them into quarters, and we all shared these as well.

After we were done pigging out, we headed out to the sidewalk. Michael (who, I neglected to mention previously, wore his finest overalls to dinner--I mean, it was "Tennessee Mountain", after all!) and Anthony had to get going. I think Michael was concerned about running up too many hours on Anthony's bill. ;) Patrick and Greg also abandoned us rather quickly. Apparently, it was ovulation time, so they wanted to get home and try.

Okay, they didn't say that. That's just my guess. ;) Otherwise, how could they bear to part company with us?

The rest of us spent time on the sidewalk, continuing our conversations and exchanging some off color jokes. It was hard to say goodnight, but we eventually managed to do it. So Deirdre took her friends, and they went on their way--did I mention that they're a lot of fun, despite being straight girls (maybe since they like men, too, it all clicked. Besides, any friends of Deirdre's...)? :)

Then Marc, Jeff, Byrne, Jase and I headed for the subway. We all got on the E-train (which, I neglected to mention earlier, skipped our stop on the way down, so we had to walk further than planned--that after having to go to different tracks to catch the train in the first place--it was all fouled up yesterday), and we headed uptown. We said goodbye to Byrne at 23rd Street. Then Marc and I hopped off at Penn Station. Jase and Jeff stayed on, and we can only guess where they wound up!

That was a fun night. I hope we can do something like it again, and soon!