1st bar of my quest: Wed. night.

So, on Wed. I met my one friend who used to deliver singing telegrams after she got out of her waitress job gig, and we went for drinks at this place a couple doors down from her restaurant.

I had walked past this bar a few times - it's like right by the subway stop - and I had always wanted to go there, but I never had. It's a very mysterious place, with this door that opens into an alcove so you can't see in, and the window on the street is full of those window-glass panes that are opaque so you can't see in that way either, and the bar looks very dingy from its dirty wood siding out front and dirty dark brown-painted door.

Inside, however, the place was a miracle: the door opened up into this 40s-ish lounge, with a curved bar, and soft soft lighting, and a big white statue behind the bar over a fountain, and a laminated sign advertising $3 margaritas.

"I thought you'd like it," my one friend who used to deliver singing telegrams said.

She thoroughly endorsed my plan to go to all the bars in the city.

"I love bars!", she was like, and she said she always wants to go in every interesting bar she sees.

She asked me if I was going to rate them or take notes, and when I said maybe notes, she said I should maybe put down my favorite thing about each place, and then we both agreed that the soft lighting was the best part of the bar we were in.

Later, she was reminiscing about playing Ophelia when she was with a travelling repertory theater based out of Omaha, Nebraska, and about how they'd do Hamlet in the morning, then Robin Hood for kids in the afternoon, and a Cole Porter revue at night. There were too many set pieces and so the cast revolted to cut it down...

She also remembers how in one place where they played for a couple nights in a row the balloons that got let off at one point in the Cole Porter revue the previous night started drifting down from the ceiling during the middle of the Robin Hood show, and Little John (this 6'3" huge guy) had to lean out over the fake forest and catch balloons from backstage so they wouldn't hit the actors.