Lovely Day

So LO went home from the theater last night with a gf for a sleepover. DH invited me on a date, or I threatened him if he didn't, I don't quite remember which.
We dressed up and went to Restaurant 46, a delightful place in a nearby little town.

The little town was a textile village until it became an incorporated town in 1986. Until then, it was just a company village in the county. A huge textile company had a plant there, and virtually everyone worked there. Their grammas had worked there before them, and their parents before them.

Then NAFTA took all the textile business to China, and India, and even Sri Lanka, and all the textile mills in NC closed. It wasn't glamorous work, but it was work for generations of people.

One of the recent owners had been David Murdock, a multi, multi-millionaire who owns Dole foods and who knows what else.

He for some reason had some empathy for this little town whose only real revenue came from the now-closed textile mill.

He bought the closed mill, tore down all the gorgeous old brick buildings, and established a research center. Biotechnology. Dole foods has a lab there and the NC universities all have a presence there.

So now where the textile mills stood, beacons of the past, now stand labs, beacons of the future. All the buildings are red brick, as were their predecessors, four or five stories, all traditional architecture.

Scientists are moving into town. The campus is becoming quite lovely.

Murdock, although wealthy, is said to be a bit idiosyncratic. Quite the health nut. Rumor has it one of his contractors for the buildings was obese. Murdock offered the man $10,000 if he would lose 150 pounds. The man did and Murdock wrote him the check.

Someone in the little town told me DM doesn't want the scientists cranking up their cars to go across campus from one lab to another, so this fellow had to assemble 100 10-speed bikes for the employees to have available to travel around campus.

A restaurant opened there recently, named Restaurant 46. The number represents the strands in DNA.

I had been wanting to go for a while.

It's said to be pricey but healthy.

We had fun. The flowers on the table were in a beaker, a real beaker, with cc's marked on it.

My wine was served in a beaker-like glass.

The walls had stenciled on them quotations from famous people, quotations that had to do with discovery, curiosity, and education.

The waitress was great. There really weren't any vegan items on the menu so she chatted with the chef and they came up with a dish that was out of this world: artichoke hearts, asparagus and tomatoes atop fettucini. With a little white wine splashed over it. mmm.

DH had seafood served over lobster risotto.

We did not order salads or dessert. I had one glass of wine and he had a glass of beer.

We were full as ticks as we waddled out of there, not our intention, but it was so good! Happy. I felt very coddled with my custom dish.

We came home and DH built a fire and we watched CNN and chatted. We spent all evening chatting.

When LO is around we can certainly chat. But being just the two of us felt special, it is in truth very rare, and we had a lovely time.

We slept in this morning. We worked together to get the house clean, quite necessary nowadays that I am a working girl more than usual. At about 3:30 he said, grab your coat, we are going out.

We ran to the thrift store to find a dresser for LO less than 43" wide, the space betw her closet and bedroom door. She has a teensy dresser there now, with only one drawer, and it is overloaded with makeup and keepsakes.

We found a perfect antique dresser with a big round mirror, very art deco, and paid $22.50 for it. When it is warmer, LO and I will take it outside and sand it and paint it white to match her bed and nightstand. For now it is black, but very charming. And. it. was. cheap. Solid wood, I might add, with dovetails and all. Even the drawer insides are not plywood, I daresay it was built before the onset of plywood.

So we had a lovely day. Missed LO and were glad when she returned. But it was fun to have a date. And I don't even feel guilty.