"Oh, yes! We're celebrating my husband being awesome."

Yes, there are many more Europe pictures to be posted and posted they will be. But, before we continue on with our exciting European excursion, I have a brief intermission from the great American continent for y'all. But I must warn you: If you've already had enough of "look how cute and great Evan and I are," for the love of God, read no further. Trust me, refrain. But if you still haven't reached your limit, you are in for a bonafide cute story, from real life and everything.

You see, this past week, my dear spousal companion kicked some serious screenwriting røv (Danish for you-fill-in-the-blank) and whereas Evan is not one to celebrate until the deer has been both shot, skinned, cooked and eaten, I nevertheless insisted that we paid tribute to his badassness with a night on the town. Therefore, I kindly commanded that he choose a restaurant, so I could take him out and bathe him in the Friday Night Lights. After minutes upon minutes of deliberation, the bottle pointed to "Roy's" -- a Hawaiian/Asian fusion spot in Pasadena. His wish? My command.

It being a Friday night and all, I, like any clearminded person would have, called to make reservations. They had one opening left and I informed the very cheerful lady at the other end of the line that "Yes, 8:15 is great for us." Now, what she said next is where our evening took a turn for the funner. She said: "Are you celebrating anything?" I said: "Whaa?" I couldn't exactly hear her over all the hustle and bustle in the background, you see. Also, a cold has had me living in a diving bell for about one and a half weeks. Luckily, she repeated: "C e l e b r a t i n g something? A special occasion?" My hearing finally kicked into gear and I exclaimed: "Oh, yes! We're celebrating my husband being awesome!"
"OH," she said. "THAT'S SO GREAT!" And then we both laughed and said: "See you later, then!"

Evan was happy. I was too.

About an hour and a half later, we arrived at "Roy's." A splendid magnificent monolith with torches outside and red-leather booths on the inside. It was crawling with people. Happy people. This was obviously where Pasadeneans go to get a special evening, without having to be intimidated by the "on-ness" of Hollywood or other scenester places. Quite frankly, it was cozy as hell.

We walked up to declare our arrival with a: "Katz, 8:15." The smiling hostess checked the screen in front of her and exclaimed: "OH!" and then directed her gaze toward Evan and said:

 "CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING AWESOME!"

That, my friends, wins points in my book. Big time.

Then, we were escorted to a lovely table, and - quelle surprise - there's photographic evidence:

E + MM @ Roy's

Immediately thereafter, a waiter came over to introduce himself and to present us with a complimentary celebratory appetizer. Pretty impressed, I was, that they seemed to keep it going! "Good evening," he said. "What are we celebrating tonight?" Now, this guy, as opposed to the 22-year-old hostess, was a 40-something, slightly serious-looking dude, so for a brief moment I contemplated making up something more, eh, what shall we say, legitimate. But before I could stop myself, I had already blurted out: "My husband being awesome...ehehe." For a flicker of a moment, he looked confused...or at the very least surprised...but then he simply smiled and carried on with introducing the menu. Phew. We were in the clear. We could still celebrate without feeling like two big slices of ham-pie (though I'm fairly certain that is exactly what we were).

The next 45 minutes were spent in lavish, gastronomic delight. I'm serious, all you gastro-snobs, the food was great. And if any of you have ever met Evan, you'll know that if you feed him good food, he will be a very happy man.

Proof.

But, folks, it doesn't end here. After our delicious din-din, our waiter came over with another treat: Brownies on the house, fellas! With a candle and everything! And here comes the kicker: They had, in chocolate, written across the heavenly dish:

 "Congratulations on being awesome!" 

Look!

Neat. Way, way neat.

 The Awesome Sire and Cake.

Still not over. Half way through dessert, a framed picture (taken by our waiter, earlier on) was placed in front of us. It was the most splendidly tacky framed picture, you'll ever see. And we loved it. That framed picture is so being framed.

All in all, I gotta say, when you take somebody out to celebrate their awesomeness, this is a pretty great version of how that could go. Well played, "Roy's," well played.