Sister Time (Wished You Were There, Margie!)

Okay, once again I have to apologize for my crappy photograph. Cell phones don't allow for award-winning photography- especially in dimly lit restaurants. (Hmmmm, I just noticed this but my smile looks like I am either missing a tooth or maybe I have food stuck in one of them. Pretty funny!)

My sister, Marysia, was in Buffalo for a holiday visit with her husband's family. We initially had plans to join some of my friends for dinner but the times to meet for that got changed to 7:45pm reservations so we opted to try for an earlier night out (so much for that, we ended up staying out until 11pm anyway). Oh well, it worked out nicely though that Marysia and I were able to have some one-on-one sister time.

We ended up going to a movie matinee and saw "Yes Man". It is not unusual for me to find a movie or something on TV humorous but not laugh out loud. This movie was funny. Yet, I don't know if it was actually *that* funny or if I was just primed for comedy because my sister and I were being silly together. Regardless, while watching this movie I was having some good laugh out loud belly laughs.

Next we went to dinner at a new bistro-style restaurant in Buffalo called Wine Thief. The restaurant got a good review by Buffalo News' Janice Okun. The restaurant is in Buffalo's trendy Elmwood Village. With the bistro style small plates, the choices were perfect for sharing. We decided to try some of the items that were reviewed. We shared the Heirloom Tomato Salad as a starter and also shared small plates of Lamb Chops and Duck Tacos (yes, you read that correctly! Duck! and they were yummy!) We also shared some Cloudline Pinot Noir. After our dinner we were not yet ready to go home so we headed over to Starbucks for tea and dessert. We each had a Cranberry Bliss Bar and a Venti Wild Sweet Orange Tea (I got Marysia hooked on that too). What the heck, 'tis the season over overindulging. Over dinner we discussed our dieting strategies to implement come Monday. But at Starbucks we chose to savor the sweet treats with our warm beverages while sitting in front of the fireplace. We chatted until closing time.

I drove Marysia back to her in-laws' house and headed back home. Since it was late, Marysia wanted me to call her to let her know that I got home safely. Yes, my big sister was looking out for me....but it was more than that! She also wanted to let me know that she planted the anchor in the side pocket of the passenger side door. *UGH!!!* Thanks a ton!