Guys' weekend = Asian buffet

It's one of those rare weekends when Mary is away -- up in New Haven seeing Natalie and her friends from grad school, also celebrating Rob's birthday in Valhalla with the Larchmont clan. Long story, don't ask.

In any case, that makes it a guy's weekend, in which we indulge in manly pleasures like polishing up Graham's UNC application... OK, actually that's just something we had to do.

But what we did do is hit the all you can eat Chinese buffet hard. Oh yes we did. Of course, I prepared for this assault by heading out on my road bike and putting in a solid 22 miles (about 1,000 calories burned) late in the afternoon, followed by zero snacks.

The buffet over by what used to be known as South Square is the best one ever. Not necessarily in the quality of its food, mind you. It's all pretty much the same stuff. But the variety. There was a reasonable selection of all you can eat sushi, much of it with cream cheese and fake crab meat and avocado snuck in there as filler, but nonetheless there were things for the mildly discerning eater. There was also a noodle soup area in the back where you got to pick your noodles and protein, in my case udon and duck. It was perfectly fine. On the steam table there was the same motley assortment of everything, but that included a reasonable assortment of seafood and some green beans so I did fine -- though I also snuck some a little sesame chicken and finished up with the Chinese donut thingies.

As always, it was interesting to observe the tables across from us. Directly across from us sat a largish young couple, late in their meal. The woman was finishing up with a mid-sized plate of basically unadorned white rice. That was pure profit for the proprietors. However, in the next booth sat a somewhat country couple who were concentrating almost entirely on steamed crab and shrimp. Those are the people who will break a buffet's business model if too many show up at once. Interestingly, though they looked like they fit the vaccine-skeptic demographic, I happened into the men's room at the same time as the male of the couple, and after he washed his hands he shut off the faucet with his elbow. Clearly he had not been convinced by the clear consensus that COVID is not spread by touching objects. 

America remains a fascinating tapestry.

Also, we watched Blade Runner, which really would have been a better compare-and-contrast candidate for Graham's essay on Frankenstein than Twelve Angry Men, though somehow Graham made the latter comparison work.