Saturday NIght in Foxborough before The BIG GAME

We thought it might be instructive to go pub crawling in the stadium area on a Saturday night before the playoff game between the Pats and the Chargers. Set forth in the bracing but not ungodly cold around 10:00. Debate between the two places are know--Outlaw Barbeque and the Lafayette House.

We love to eat at Outlaw Barbeque but are usually two of five people in the place at 7:00 p.m. It seems to be a sports bar, but who knows? Maybe the crowd doesn't show until midnight? We don't actually know who the crowd is. I do know the place is NOT mentioned in the paper as home to drugs and fights and carnality, so the crowd is gentlemen bikers? Wannabe jocks? ??? No clue.

We ended up at Lafayette House and indeed the joint was jumping with lots of groups, a guitarist singing about Margaritaville, a few bar flies of various ages and general hilarity. No place to sit down and we stand at the bar. I am dressed like Nanook of the North because of the forecasted cold. Too warm. Handbag feels like a millstone.

Nice crackling gas fireplace. Cozy at hell. Hard to tell if this is a crowd of tomorrow's football fans. I can't even tell if they're from out of town. We look around, have a drink and leave. In the parking lot, we determine that except for two Rhode Island cars, the license plates are all local. Of course if you fly into town you rent a car and you are prohably downtown in an Irish bar or at the Fanieul Hall Marketplace or a hotel or the Prudential Center. Where indeed are you? I never get deep enough into the sports pages to read interviews with out of town fans or maybe there are no interviews.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig, as ignorant as when I left.

I wrote a new paragraph to begin Festival Madness, which apparently started off like lead shoes. My assessment, not the instructors. Falling asleep I had an idea for a short story with the heroine a middle-aged clerk at J.C. Penny. Must be losing it. I can see what develops, which is usually nada.

Ham and eggs and grape tomatoes provencal this morning with the almost rest of the challah bread toasted. White Chili a la South Beach Diet tonight with chips and bean dip, the Yin and Yang of it all, and of course the big game for which I usually make meatloaf, but that will happen on Super Bowl Sunday, and here's hoping the Patriots will have a 100% undefeated season. Must admit the suspense is quite palpable.

Anyhow, onward.

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