oh, my, chocolate

Yeah, the updates have been slow on DarNat. It's probably because I haven't had time before or after work to update. Normally, I get the urge to update during work, but then I stop myself just in case a coworker notices the timestamp. That, and I have a solid sense of business ethics. You have to if you work in PR. ;)

So last Thursday I run into Karissa's office...

--For those of you who may not know, Karissa is a friend from university. We've had similar experiences with co-op, etc. And when a job became available at work, I suggested she'd be good at it. Fortunately, she is, and now we have offices across the hallway from each other that allows us to either yell across at each other or run...--

... into Karissa's office and give her a giddy look and say "Do you and Ryan want to go to Death by Chocolate?!"

--Ryan is Karissa's new husband. He plays Guild Wars with Natalie and I. For the longest time I would ask Karissa if Ryan was free to play games that evening... now I just call his cell. He likes llamas.--

Not surprisingly, Karissa developed her own giddy look and said "Do I?!" and so we were set for a trip to the Palliser for all the chocolate one can eat.

For the uninitiated, this is not like an extended dessert. Rather, Death by Chocolate is the ultimate vice (at least when we're talking about vices that don't send you to hell). It's the type of "event" that involves preparation in the form of light lunch and breakfast and no snacking. It IS dinner. It's one of those things that I would suggest is just for adults.

To clarify: just for adults means there are no parental figures to stop us from doing it. Like eating chocolate cake or Coco Puffs for breakfast or cheating on your taxes.

So we dressed up pretty and met at the Palliser. I love walking into a place that has a door man. As Natalie and I walked up the stone stairs, the conscierge jogged up ahead of us so he could open the door. Classy.

The chocolate is amazing! We were hungry and went right at it. There was a chocolate fountain, chocolate cookies, bars, drinks... so much that we couldn't even try it all. It was wonderful.

We started at 5:30... we rolled out at 7:30.

As we were preparing to leave, we noticed a set of horn players in kilts walk out into the balcony over the Crystal Ballroom (where Will and Melissa got married) and start playing a fanfare. It was pretty cool. We found out it was for the Southern's (owners of Spruce Meadows and ATCO) annual swanky dinner for people involved in the Masters, which was happening that weekend. So, yes, horn fanfare=cool.

Next stop: Hop in Brew for nachos and drinks.

We weren't crazy, we just wanted to eat something with salt. Although we were totally stuffed full of chocolate, we were still hungry for something with a bit of a different taste.

Yeah, it was a good evening. While I didn't want chocolate the next day, I could do it again soon. That's probably not healthy.

mmmmm... chocolate.