Birthday Celebration

Pete took me downtown today to see Spamalot then out for a fun dinner. The show was hilarious, based on The Holy Grail movie, but with some new funny bits thrown in.

We had great seats, (as long as we could ignore the chatty lady behind us) which Pete bought on Craigslist. And were laughing at the program before the show even began. It made us think of my cousin Mark, as I think he may have been the first person to introduce me to Monty Python...and there were plenty of Scandanavian jokes thrown in. Mark, of course, lives in Sweden now. We plan to send him a program.
Dinner was at a shmancy place called Sushi Samba. Pete had been given a gift card while I was still pregnant with Henry. We wanted to save it for a time when I could actually enjoy some drinks and raw fish...tonight was the night. We ordered a 3-tiered appetizer dish which had 'Sawagani' ("flash-fried Japanese river crabs"). I tried not to appear startled when it arrived, but I did have to ask "how am I supposed to eat those things?" I'm not sure if this photo (courtesy of my cell phone) does the little guys justice.... we were told to just pop them in our mouths and crunch them like toasted pumpkin seeds. The problem was that they were about the size of ping-pong balls (okay, small ping-pong balls) and they had eyes. I hesitated, but decided I should just go for it. The 'Caipirinha' cocktail helped a little bit.

It was an experience, but I would not order them again. It's one thing to know you're eating something that used to be a living animal. It's a completely different thing when it looks like it is staring at you and might pinch you with it's tiny little claws. And when you look up from your second cocktail and realize that you're dining across the street from the Anti-Cruelty Society, well, then you really start to feel a little creepy.
In any case, it was a fun birthday celebration. Thanks, Honey!