Strapping On the Feedbag With Genius

Can you believe it's been 1 year, 9 months, and 25 days since I saw Genius??? Well, the countdown starts again. Hick and I met up with him for lunch on Friday, in a town almost in the city. Genius was only here for a bit over 24 hours. So we had to coordinate our meetup precisely. I won't go into the reason for his journey, because that would affect other people's privacy.

Anyhoo... you may recall that Genius has a fancy apartment with his Friend in Pittsburgh, where they both work. It's by three big bridges, and Genius has just started commuting back to the office about four days a week, rather than working from home. Friend is still home-working. You can do that when most of your job involves computer juju.

They left Pittsburgh at 3:00 a.m. on Friday, driving Genius's Honda CRV. Taking turns at the wheel, of course, so they could drive straight through. It's about 10 hours, barring any roadblocks. Hick forgot he had a doctor appointment at 11:30 that day, on the way to the city. We were supposed to meet up around noon or 12:30. I had to ride along and wait while Hick had his appointment. Val is not a good waiter. 

We got to the clinic early, in case Hick could be seen earlier. He could not. Good thing was, the clinic closed at noon, so we were pretty sure he'd at least be out by then, and in 20 minutes we could be at the restaurant. I waited in A-Cad, having no desire to wander, masked, around a hospital setting. Genius and Friend arrived a bit early, so stopped at the mall to kill about a half hour. By coincidence, Genius and I both texted each other at 12:02, saying "Leaving now."

It was not a fancy restaurant, but a BBQ chain. We had thought about going even LESS fancy, to Imo's Pizza, but Genius feared they couldn't make it down to the clinic town by noon. Anyhoo... he said Friend had been excited at the though of our original BBQ plan, so he could get the Turkey Platter. I guess they don't have a BBQ Turkey Platter in Pittsburgh.

Nobody ever minds looking at food pictures, so here's what we had:

 

Hick chose the Pulled Pork and Burnt Ends, with Baked Beans and Potato Salad. He had a good start on it by the time I took the picture. Hick also had some Caramel Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream for dessert, but I couldn't get a photo before it was gone!

 

Genius also had the Pulled Pork and Burnt Ends, with Fries and SLAW. Genius is more of a storyteller than an eater, so his plate was still mostly full for my photo. Hick must have already gone through his Garlic Bread, since it is mysteriously absent from his picture. Genius does not have a freakish baby-hand like the angle of the photo makes it look. Just a regular left hand that he uses for eating, what with being a southpaw.

 

Here is Friend's yearned-for Turkey Platter, with Fries and Corn. You can order the meat "wet" with sauce, or "dry" and add your own. Looks like Friend's turkey was dry, to dip in the sauce he chose from the table, which I think was the Sweet Chicago version. That turkey was definitely not literally dry. Looks quite moist to me.

 

I had the Loaded BBQ Baked Potato, which in my case was loaded with Pulled Pork, and topped with cheese. It came with one side (SLAW, of course!) and Garlic Bread, which I took home for The Pony, who was working and couldn't join us to strap on the old feedbag. The slaw was great, though a little soupy. Which was fine, since I was eating with a fork, and left that liquid behind. The sour cream and butter were NOT as big as the slaw bowl! Just another lesson in perspective through the phone camera lens.

The visit ended all too soon, since Genius and Friend had a prior engagement that brought them to this neck of the city woods. Hick and I were happy to be penciled into the schedule.