Just Your Typical Evening of Surgery Bots and Salsa

We ate at Chevy's. 

Chevy's - in all of its splendor.

It wasn't glamorous but I'm not afraid to say that it was delicious.  Initially, after looking up the traffic on the way there, I saw that it had received 2.8 stars on the Google reviews and 2.5 stars on Yelp. Now if that's not a red flag, I don't know what is. Either way, I hadn't been to Chevy's in over three years so I figured that I'd keep my expectations low. Needless to say, the food was great. I couldn't stop eating the chips and salsa once I sat down, and the "Sizzling Fajita Salad" I ordered was oddly tasty considering the fact that at home most of my family pretends to have already eaten our fair share of vegetables when my mom offers to mix up some salad for us. 

Let's take a moment to recognize the fact that I was the first of my cohort - besides Ms. Thrift, obviously - to have arrived. If we're talking realistically here, there's probably higher chances that a total solar eclipse would have occurred that night than me arriving before any of my other cohort members. I pulled off the near impossible, yo. (And it probably won't happen again anytime soon.) 

Food for thought in the mix. 

When I first walked into the restaurant, Ms. Thrift was already there waiting, sitting in a poised position that only the truly elegant can pull off successfully on an indoor Chevy's bench. We chatted about the end of the school year and I, desperate to tell anyone who would listen, explained my crisis on the possibilities for a future in something other than engineering. Ms. Thrift then told me about her daughter, a talented mechanical engineer, who worked on surgery robots and technologically advanced arm supports to help improve and streamline surgical processes. She went on to say that the world of science is vast and full of variety, and that perhaps I would find something other than just general math and science that I could be passionate about. 

All the while, Mark and Izabel had snuck in and sat on the opposite bench, so we got ourselves seated at a table and talked some more college-y stuff until Saba and Alyanna arrived. From there on out, the conversation took lots of crazy turns. We talked about everything from places to see in New York to Ms. Thrift's husband's membership at a highly selective and elite men's club, Bohemian Grove. I felt that the latter topic was far more interesting and hysterical, although I'm not sure how much more I can say without compromising the integrity of (what I would imagine to be) sworn secrecy and legendary status. Come to think of it, out of context, the list of things we discussed are actually quite odd ranging from things like a police car on top of the famous dome building at M.I.T. and Stephen Colbert's new beard to an elementary teacher's stab wound (from an insane parent) and the potential for Ms. Thrift to become El Cerrito High's new theater teacher. *crosses fingers*

Thirsty for more?

All in all, I don't mean to be biased here but I'd just like to say that I think we had the most lively meet-and-greet out of all the cohorts. I'm not sure, however, we can take all the credit for the liveliness. I mean, it wasn't as if we were lacking in riveting conversation topics to begin with, but the Warriors game and the legion of fans that hooted and hollered for every point definitely kicked the buzz of excitement up a notch. And so it would seem as though, everything considered, this dinner brought our cohort closer together. 

Note: By "closer together" I mean physically closer since it was kind of hard to hear some of the conversation over the yells of the die-hards. But, I suppose it could logically be interpreted the other way too just as well.