Things completed: 31, 57 (ongoing), 79
Things worked on: 14, 20, 23, 25, 27, 32, 33, 38, 40, 45, 55, 56, 89, 97
If nothing else, writing down a list and feeling like I need to report on progress has definitely improved my likelihood of getting things done. I am more completion oriented than process oriented, so crossing things off the list is very satisfying. Good thing I figured out how to tap into that.
Completion of 79 was actually motivated by Tim. He had some gift certificates he wanted to use and two of these were for a restaurant in Boston. It's a well-known restaurant with a special table that was used by a certain president with connections to Massachusetts, but I'll leave it nameless only because I found the food to be fairly unremarkable. I had been to the bar about 6 or so years ago on Patriots' Day (perhaps better known for the running of the Boston Marathon than for the regional holiday it is) and had a drink, but had never gone into the restaurant or had any food there. I honestly don't even remember if I really had a drink or just met up with people there now that I think about it more. It might have even been a bar a couple doors down from this place. In short, I considered this a new restaurant.
Due to its notoriety and location, it is a pretty good bet that at a minimum half the people there were tourists. That doesn't really bother me although I know that some stay away from tourist areas as if they were radioactive. Nonetheless, we had a bit of a wait since we didn't make reservations and I drank what may be a girly beer, Sam's Cherry Wheat, which I like in spite of my familiarity with German beers in their native homeland.
My dinner with Tim was really nice and I enjoyed my time with him very much. We had oysters to start. I didn't eat raw oysters prior to meeting Tim. I think it took a couple years of him saying how great they were before I even tried them. It turns out I like them better than I thought- as long as they don't really taste like the bottom of the ocean. I've developed a certain fondness for Prince Edward Island oysters in particular and now dream of a vacation filled with the possibility of eating raw shellfish in spite of my periodic paranoia about food poisoning on this Canadian paradise of oysters. Well, the oysters at this restaurant were not from PEI. And they didn't taste like ocean floor because they really didn't taste like much of anything. I appreciate now the option of paying a little more per oyster and choosing where they are from.
Of course, living large on gift certificate money, we ordered lobster: lazyman's lobster. Lazyman's lobster eliminates the need to wrestle with the shell and wear a bib. I'll admit, there is another restaurant in Boston that draws a lot of tourists and I enjoy the periodic encounter with someone who has never eaten a lobster before and looks dumbfounded at the whole creature on the plate while holding a nutcracker in their hand. A friend and I once coached someone through the initial steps before turning back to our mussels (no nutcracker needed). I went out with someone once who had brought along instructions on how to eat lobsters. Before coming to Boston, I figured a decent amount of the population had eaten whole lobster, but the percentage is obviously smaller than I thought. So, we had the lazyman's lobster, which wasn't bad, except when it wasn't particularly good. I had two pieces that were not particularly tasty, but in the end, the experience just reaffirmed my own opinion of lobster, which is that it is an over-rated food and is best considered a vehicle to get butter to your mouth.
And so, my official completion of trying a new restaurant in Boston is not as exciting as I had hoped. I have a feeling I'll be trying other restaurants before the 100 is over and anticipate finding a good one in the bunch.
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