5 September 2006

Tropical storm (or was it a Depression?) Ernesto lost a lot of steam by the time he churned into the mid-Atlantic. We had an all day rain Friday (which we desperately needed) but it wasn't so much that we were overwhelmed. The lawn and flowers look better than they have in months.

We went out for a wonderful steak dinner at Ray's the Classics in downtown Silver Spring Saturday night. Wonderful filet mignon with crumbled blue cheese. The girl had hangar steak. Both cooked to perfection. We had potatoes au gratin and corn pudding as sides. For wine we had a wonderful Chilean cabernet sauvignon. (I'm totally into "new world" wines.) Heavenly. We are so happy to have a restaurant of this caliber in the neighborhood. It felt very "cosmopolitan" in the candle lit dining room to be eating steak and drinking wine as the lights flickered on the marquee of the American Film Institute's Silver Theatre.

By the way, the building where the new Birchmere is supposed to move already has a banner on it that says "NEW HOME OF THE BIRCHMERE." I thought it wasn't quite a done deal, but apparently it is!