For Valentines Day Husband and I Went to The Turquoise: ate a lot, drank very little

Ah The Turquoise. I could write entire entries just on the chronicles of The Turquoise. The Turquoise was my hang out, back in the day. I went on down there for quick bites to eat, I went on down there for nights out on the town. I had birthdays, breakups, makeups, celebrations, and my wedding reception all at The Turquoise.

It's just a place away from all of this. PB is an experience. Walk down Garnet Street any night of the week and you're gonna feel like you're in the middle of Rosarito/Vegas with a side of the Sunset Strip. Lights and people everywhere. Sometimes it's hilarious, like those nights when you're out on a walk and you catch yourself smiling at the guys who are all wearing the same button up shirt, dark jeans, black shoes combo, with the spiky hair or when you spot the girls, all with their huge shoes, seven jeans look. It's funny to see who's doing the late night tattoo (yep, I was that person once also) and who's doing the late night taco run.

But sometimes you just gotta get away, and that is The Turquoise. Right up there on Turquoise Street in NORTH PB (not to be confused with regular PB. Those who frequent NORTH PB will tell you, it's a different world up there) is a European bar/cafe where the tapas are reasonably price and the drinks pretty darn strong. Plus they have music and dessert and Basilio, the owner.

I can tell you this story about this one time that I ended up locked in there with the bartenders and this guy I was out on a date on and somehow the theme of the night became "get that girl drizunk." Or about the time I fell on the band, or the time I did belly dancing with the belly dancing instructor, or the time that I solved this mind puzzle (yep, a MIND puzzle).

This story involves me and Husband settling in for a night of Tapas, chatting away as if we didn't have a care in the world. For one night, it was almost like the old days, only I was ordering Sprite and checking my phone to see if Vee had called with the ever so fun "oh my god your kid won't stop crying" call (which never came, well technically, as we were on our way HOME she called to let us know that Baby wouldn't stop crying, though, Baby did stop crying right after she hung up the phone).

Any way you cut it we ate a lot of food, garlic potatoes, polenta, Caprese salad, grilled shrimp, marinated steak. The cute little waiter kept trying to tell us how wonderful the Tuna tartar is, but we weren't really ready for the raw tuna and Valentines night.

And by the end when we fianlly saw good old Basilio, he gave me a nice long hug, told me to come back again (many, many times) let the waiter know that we were VIP's who had our wedding reception there over a year ago.

"You guys have been married for a year and a half?" the waiter guy asked. "Sort of gives the rest of us hope..."

I smiled but Husband leaned over and whispered "is he kidding?"

"Nope," I said. "He's just 23 and lives in PB. And you know how those young kids are, a year and a half is like... forever."

Here's to forever and a day.