Hot Date

In the Church (I think other places, too), they're always encouraging couples to keep going out on dates, even after you're married. I'm all over this idea, but when you're poor and really busy, it's hard to make it happen as often as it probably should.

For our anniversary (which, yes, was back in August), my Mom said she would treat Craig and me to a nice dinner. Well, this wasn't something to just flippantly squander away. Craig and I thought about where we wanted to go and waited until we were feeling pretty desperate for a fancy meal before we bothered to actually plan anything. When we finally got to that point, we decided on a local restaurant called Carmello's. I have heard nothing but good things about this place. It's a Portuguese and Italian restaurant, and everyone who talks about it RAVES about how delicious the food is. I was so excited.

Until the actual day arrived. And my stomach decided to go crazy. I'll spare you the gross details, but suffice it to say, there was no point in spending much money on food that weekend. I think I finally resorted to rice and toast for a day or two before things settled down. So our date got canceled.

A month later, we finally rescheduled it. And again, we were really excited. Craig's parents were watching the kids. I put on a necklace in hopes that this would channel my self-image from "huge" to "pretty." Craig even put on cologne. We drove into Old Towne Manassas, parked, walked up to the restaurant holding hands, and this is what we found:


Yup, look closely into that window. Carmello's is currently a pile of rubble. Apparently there was an electrical fire some time ago.

So much for that idea. (The good news, for all you who recommended Carmello's in the first place, is that they are rebuilding. But by the looks of it, I think the grand re-opening is still a few months off...)

By then it was too late to head to a different (fancy) restaurant. So we laughed for a solid five minutes, snapped that picture, and then tried to figure out what to do instead. We finally decided on Panera, mostly because it has a cozier atmosphere than Chipotle. That was almost a really great idea, but unfortunately, some homeless guy also appreciated a good cozy atmosphere, and proceeded to sit near us and snore throughout our entire meal. It was one of those nights where I might have wanted to cry if we could have just stopped laughing for a moment.

Some day, Carmello's. Some day.