Sichuan noodles and dumplings: ☆☆☆☆☆
The wife and I went to this new Sichuan restaraunt that opened up for our weekly date night. We’ve been married 25 year years. We try to make sure we carve out one night for just the two of us. It’s important to have these nights to just focus on each other. It got real tough when the kids were younger, but now that our youngest is starting college, we have much more time to ourselves. I was a little nervous about the new restaurant, because I hadn’t had Sichuan food before, and I don’t do good with spice. The kids moving out sure was an adjustment. Ever since we became empty nesters, it’s like we barely buy groceries anymore. We used to have three teenage boys in the house! They’re like bottomless pits, the way those boys would eat! I asked for my dandan noodles with no spice, but they did too good of a job! I ended up adding a little sriracha to heat them up. Linda teased me, she said sriracha isn’t even spicy. The youngest has been coming home on the weekends. He says it’s just to do his laundry, but we know he misses his mom and dad. He was always our sweet kid, very close with his mom. We also split some pot stickers. They were delicious. I couldn’t use the chop sticks, and our waiter (Wei, but you say it like “way”) was a good sport about bringing me a fork. Our oldest got married a couple years ago. We didn’t want to be those parents always nagging about grandkids, but, gosh, it would be nice to have some little ones running around the house again. My son just finished law school, so we’re hoping—after he adjusts—for a bit to the new job that he and his wife will start trying. I got something called a bubble tea. It was delicious. I didn’t expect the chewy bits, but it was a nice surprise. We are enjoying our alone time for now. We might even go down to Mexico this year. Linda went to Cancun a couple years ago with some of her girlfriends. They’ve been friends since college! Stayed in touch all these years. They had a great time.