Drinks Out With a Manhattanite

Regardless of the number of delicious vodka-based beverages I sucked down the other night, my headache the next morning could not be described as either “teeny” or “tini”. I’ve only managed a few benders over the past few years, so it should be no surprise that the night’s adventures in mixology were with a single friend, in town from the Upper West Side.

My friend, who has been to San Francisco on numerous occasions, is a capital M, capital S, Manhattan Snob. It was great to see her, but she spent much of the evening missing New York and bemoaning California. “At least we’re not in L.A.”, she said at one point. I felt like the mother pressured by a gum-chewing skeptic to explain how she loves each of her children’s unique qualities. Still incredulous: “I can’t believe that YOU, of all people, would move from New York to California…”  Judging by my friend’s expression as I tried to quantify my new found joy of hiking, I realized that I hadn’t really struck a chord. Similarly, my description of the weekend’s Maker Faire fell flat to this (impressively titled) employee of the Lincoln Center. She had abandoned her half-eaten meal in favor of a cigarette by the time I got to the “how cool it is to have such a year-round array of fresh vegetables” card.

The food was good, the drinks tasty, the service friendly, but when the packed hipster restaurant emptied out by 11pm, my friend gave out a sarcastic “What IS this?”. The dishwasher was mopping around our table when we finally took the hint around 11:40. She relayed that just last week she’d had to wait 45 minutes to get a table at a trendy Meat Packing District restaurant at 4am. I know the place well, and miss it on those rare occasions when I’m drunk and peckish for French food in the wee hours.

We hugged as I put her into a cab, which she was surprised to have hailed so quickly. “Next time let’s meet in New York”, she suggested with still leftover disdain.  I ran off to narrowly catch the last BART ride home of the night.