19 days

Sunday, September 21st 2008
15:36

I was about to write about how the good weather is all over, but it's looking nice and sunny outside right now. It was super gray and dark and drizzly, if not very cold, the past three days or so.

Let's see. . .just had brunch with my Dad and Sue and MB, that was good. Sr. Moose was insanely crowded, and the Hi-Life had a line too, so we went to the Austin Cantina. Not bad. Then I showed the folks my place, as they hadn't been here for over a year, then we sat and visited for a while. Talked about politics and the world as we usually do when we get together. The rest of the day should be fairly relaxed for me, I think. MB has a guitar thing for a couple hours tonight, but that's all that's on the schedule.

We made soup yesterday - curry squash apple. An MB family recipe. That was fun. We haven't really had much of it yet, just a few tastes along the way. I'm getting hungry again so I might have some soon. It's pretty tasty. Last night, a small outing to a good pub in Wedgewood for Bob's 51st birthday. Nice company and atmosphere there. Rehearsal was good, we met at Curt's because there was something going on at FAAC that preempted us.

The first show of the new season was Thursday night. It was very good. I felt like I played better than I usually do, we played Cultivating the Beat and that went well, and there were 23 people inthe audience so most of the seats were occupied. The only really weird bit was a woman sitting behind me, drawing sketches in her notebook of the players! Drawing is one thing, but the incessant "sshhht sshhht sshhht" of the pencil was ridiculous. She just had absolutely no idea that she was making noise, apparently. It was audible to players on the other side of the circle during otherwise silent moments. And she was just staring at whoever she was drawing. So, we need to somehow add a house rule - no sketching, please? ugh.

Last weekend. . .went to game night at D&D's Saturday night. That was good, a large-ish crowd and we had lots of fun. Sunday morning, went with MB to join the crew doing some cleanup at FAAC. We cleaned the performance space, and also put some work into the kitchen and the green room. Then we had pho for lunch, which was really yummy as always. MB went to a "salon" (of the living-room-discussion variety) while I chilled at home and bought some CDs. She brought back yummy ice cream on the way home!

The weekend before that. . .MB's friend / old roommate Eddie was in town. On Friday we (just me and MB) went to a tango thing. That was interesting! we actually went out and "danced" for a song or two, then mostly watched the other folks (most of whom are from the same school). One of the guys introduced himself and asked MB to dance, that was good she had some fun dancing with somebody who knew what he was doing! Before hand we had some time to kill so we went to an Italian place nearby, and had dessert and some drinks. MB got wine, I had some grappa which was pretty tasty.

On Saturday, we hung out with Eddie as his flight had been cancelled. We got some sushi, then watched Gross Pointe Blank. Sunday we went to the mall, searching for a new gig shirt for me. No luck - it's not easy to find a simple, well-made, good-fitting black shirt with long sleeves, no pockets, and no collar. MB got some new unmentionables at the VS though. Then we had dinner at Lombardi's, that was good.

Whatember

Tuesday, September 2 2008
22:32

Well, the weather is back to something more closely resembling summer in Seattle. Not hot by any means, but fairly nice.

Had a very good weekend. Got to sleep in on Saturday while MB did guitar things. Then, we went on a bike ride. Down the road a few blocks, then onto the Burke-Gilman. I'd never ridden the part between here and Gasworks before. It's some of the best. The stretch along the canal in Fremont is awesome. It was totally beautiful. The weather was a little chilly but that wasn't much of a problem. We rode to University Village, with a couple stops along the way. There, we got some green tea smoothies that were pretty good, and hung out for a bit watching people. Then we rode back. All in all, 8 or 9 miles I think, at a pretty leisurely pace. We had dinner at Kabul, which was very good. Lots of yogurt, garlic, mint, garlic, and yogurt involved. The veggies were great and we also had some sort of homemade ravioli-type thing. Blackberry ice cream for dessert.

Sunday was another lazy morning for me, MB off to yoga. Later we went down to Golden Gardens. I'd never been there before - I'd pictured something a bit different. It was relatively crowded but not a zoo or anything, given the mostly nice (but chilly again) weather, on Labor Day weekend. We walked the beach a bit, looking at the seaweed washed up (there was a ton of it in the water right at the shore) and dead crabs, and the ducks on the pond. We walked the other direction down to the pier, where a few guys were fishing. One caught some sort of small fish. Hoping that the sunny weather would hold, I drove to Alki. It was still nice when we got there. MB was impressed by the city view. We walked for a bit, but it was pretty cold, so we just took the slow drive around the point. I remembered that one of the Chow Foods places was neaby - Endoline Joe's - so we stopped there for dinner. That was pretty good. They didn't have many vegetarian options but what they did have was tasty. Oh, well the split pea soup with ham that I got didn't quite count. I had a coconut hot fudge sundae for dessert, MB had a fruit tart. Then we came home, and watched Dune. I'd talked enough about it, MB had to see what it was all about. The movie has plenty of flaws and quirks, but a lot going for it as well. I stopped it about every 10 or 15 minutes to explain who the people were and what was going on - there's just so much left out of the actual movie.

Monday, worked from home in the morning. MB spent some time making her signature spanikopita thingies and mac and cheese. We did some housework. Then, over to Travis and Igor's for Chris's birthday party. Had a very good time. Lots of good company, food, and drink. I brought a bottle of 1937 colheita port that I bought on a whim - it didn't cost as much as something that old should, and that was because it was just OK. Interesting though. We left there around 9:30 I think, came home and finished up the household chores before heading to bed.

Today - work as usual. Getting back into practicing guitar, fell a little bit behind with my tasks here, during the break. Of the three new pieces, I've got one "learnt" but needing practice, another I've probably got about 1/3rd memorized, and the third I spent some time with tonight re-learning as the parts changed (but they're much easier in the new arrangement). Thursday is our first rehearsal for the new season.