I know I have an active and somewhat twisted imagination, but in this case, you cannot pay me to make this stuff up. What I am about to tell you is a true and sober recount of Valentine’s Day dinner 2010, at Ruggles Grill 5115 Restaurant at Saks Fifth Avenue in the Galleria, Houston, TX circa 7:15 p.m.

Glenn and I have this new agreement. He plans one evening, I craft the next. His job was to plan Valentine’s day dinner and he smartly chose this quaint, quiet, and retro modernist restaurant where they excel at personal attention and at white chocolate bread pudding. An entertaining cocktail style pianist named Michelangelo going from table to table taking requests fulfilled my need for a little pseudo art.

As we walked into the restaurant we heard an all familiar tune. A tune you hear at most Bar-Mitzvah’s, Bat-Mitzvah’s, Jewish weddings, celebrations, and any fiddler and the roof-esque type event, courtesy of Michelangelo oompa-ing on the piano. A very drunk guy pulls me and Glenn into a dancing frenzy and we join in. After all, it is something that smells very familiar to us.

The smell is that of a drunk but sweet Jewish man in his mid 50s, dancing with his wife who he calls a “goyishe shiksa,” a somewhat endearing and derogatory term meaning gentile woman. He proceeds to encourage us to sing Hava Nagila. We are told by the Michael, a gentle gay restaurant manager that they have been there since 1 p.m., eating, drinking, being raucous and celebrating their love.

Although some people in the restaurant found it annoying, their joy was contagious and made us smile. We were led to our table on the other side of the restaurant, as far away that we could possibly be from the joyous debauchery. We ordered and I suggested Glenn to talk to the man. After all, we danced, sang, laughed awkwardly already, just like a first date. We might as well know his name and history.

I could hear the conversation “loud” and clear from the other side of the restaurant Turns out he is a builder. He lost his wife years ago and remarried.  He was beyond drunk, was cut off hours ago and was still going strong. When he asked Glenn if he was here with his wife, Glenn proceeded to break the news.

The following takes place between 7:40 and 7:50.

He, (Ron) proceeded to scream “YOU ARE GAY JEWS!?!?” and embraced us as “his boys.” I am not sure how many times this was repeated. He then tried to sell me a home. We danced a little more, repeating “gay jews” over and over again and introducing us to the manager as he was also family. I was laughing hysterically at this point with tears running down my face. My stomach hurt.

We retired to our dinner and tickled beyond words at the experience. Although I know some in the restaurant were annoyed by their not so quiet romantic evening being sprinkled with jew-isms and loudness, I was amazed that they spent over 7 hours in the same place enjoying each others company while eating and drinking.

We received free deserts from Michel and some Rachmaninoff from Michelangelo. All and all, not a bad Valentine’s Day. .