My Last Night(er, Nights) in Baltimore

I chose August 21 as the day I was going to move so the Friday before would be my last night. I had so many errands to do, many people to see before I leave. I started off with all the mundane shit we all like to put off. I just plowed through the packing of all the boxes and the requisite cleaning. I had bags of clothes I wanted to donate so I went to the Basilica to inquire about it. Now I lived close to the Basilica for years and never have set foot in the building. I know that Baltimore is very proud of it - I really could care less about it....Until I saw the interior. Gorgeous and not over the top llike some other churches I've seen. Supposedly, they're getting rid of the stained glass windows in the name of authenticity. The church originally had plain glass. Glass would allow too much light into the chruch and ruin the ambience.

On my last night, I wanted to go to one of my favorite restaurants in Baltimore: Abacrombie, Boccaccio, Helmand, Blue Agave, Tapas Teatro, Shogun. Boccaccio and Abacrombie were eliminated due to price. After conferring with friends, we chose Blue Agave. One friend who has had bad experiences there was reluctant to go. Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied by our drinks and food, especially the reluctant one.

On a side note, I did end up stopping by Abacrombie since I still had a uniform for them. I talked to everyone I know and got to try some wine that the chef is trying to work into their next wine dinner. What a great group of people.

I then went to An Die Musik for a jazz show. A friend of mine I haven't seen in a while runs these shows and it was nice of him to get me a ticket on my last night in town. The show featured Jon Hicks and Al Maniscolco. The drummer was Eric Kennedy, someone I haven't seen in a long time - I forgot how good he is. He is one of those musicians who will change the way you think about that instrument - he's that good. It's been a long time since I've seena show that good.

And now, it was on to drinking! My mechanic has been giving me moonshine. I've been afraid of the stuff so I've been giving it away. I finally had the courage to try it. Much to our surprise, it's pretty damn good. Strong but quite smooth. Kinda like a nice grape brandy. We passed it around and warned everyone not to smell it first. "Its bark is bigger than its bite", as one friend quipped. I saw a vast majority of the people I wanted to see.

I was pretty drunk but didn't get overly sentimental about leaving. Others were sadder than I was. I knew that I have many ties to Baltimore and will come back to visit every once in a while.