Chicken burrito and a limeade

Our table number at the Mass MoCA cafe was 13. Unlucky? Not when you’ve got the local North Adams paper and L. and F. to listen to the best parts, historical re-enactments scheduled for the weekend, some columnist talking about his ka-razy Sunday paper habit. (He reads them.) L. and F. both went with the Thai chicken burrito. Everything came with a little dish of sour cream. We suspected the girls bringing us our food were working their first ever tax-paying jobs. The limeade was refreshing, the table sticky with it.

 

Steak burrito

Something I’m ashamed to admit: Sometimes I freak out at the lunch counter and can’t figure out how to say what I want (a fish taco and a pork taco and an iced tea) and some unknown thing comes stammering out of my mouth as an interrogative (uhhh… a burrito?). But it was good enough, heavily salted, I was way way hungry. I forked it into my mouth via an ineffectual plastic knife and fork because I ate inside so the burrito didn’t come wrapped in helpful foil. I didn’t want to drip everywhere, so I just hacked away. Then I wiped my mouth and skipped to the movies. There’s a scene about two hours and four minutes in that is as precise an argument as I’ve seen for the total and utter bottomless horror of war. Please go see it so we can talk about it. Over lunch.

 

Veggie burrito and a Dos Equis

I turned into a little fussbucket, trying to embroider a little cozy for the tip of my iceberg, wanting everything just so. It’s too early for lunch but you don’t want to go to the later movie so we’ll have to eat now even though it’s early we’ll just get a little snack and then we’ll get lunch after, okay? Deal struck, we bought our tickets and hopped across to the Mexican place where I got a burrito and a beer and mom got a quesadilla and we sat and talked about the trip so far, and family, and the movie we were about to see. It was so long that by the time it was over lunch was a distant memory, dinner looming just over the already-pinking horizon.

 

Chicken burrito and a beer

By the time A.’s new tattoo was finished, it was two in the afternoon and I was so hungry I started in with the snap and growl, causing K. to suggest that she ought to start carrying around a granola bar to stop up my wah-wah-wah crybaby tendencies when I’ve gone too long without food. Instead, we walked a couple doors down to the Mexican place where I ordered a burrito and K. had the mini-lunch-portion nachos and we each had a Corona. We watched Cuba rout the U.S. in Olympic baseball and stared around at the other folks in the place–a cutie-patootie waitress, a woman who walked straight up to the counter and yelled out, What’s in your taco salad? What’s in your taco salad?, a group of extraordinarily blonde women carrying many shopping bags and comparing cell phones. When our waiter brought over the check, K. just handed him her credit card. I’ve been able to afford my own burrito for awhile now, but it’s still and always sort of breathtaking when somebody else picks up the tab.

 

Chicken burrito with jalapeno

After spending some time with seven kittens crawling all over, on, and around us at E.’s apartment in Bushwick, J. and I had burritos at this place around the corner. Mine had chicken while J. just had rice and beans–she doesn’t mind if I eat meat, and I don’t mind if she smokes. My chicken had a fair amount of gnarliness to it–a bone in the first bite, a weird gristle mass a little later–and I thought I negotiated all of it admirably well, considering I was nervous in the first place, this being a first friend date for J. and I. There wasn’t much beyond rice, beans, and oaxaca cheese, so I was glad I said yes to jalapenos, which I like anyway. J. will be taking home one of the kittens in the next couple weeks–lucky, lucky.