peopling and puttering
When last we left our heroine, she had just made it through Monday's jaunt to Costco. Afterwards, I went to the No Safewords writers group, down at the Center. An interesting group, and I will probably go back at the end of the month. (I will allow myself one snark, though, regarding one of the members: if your MFA is really not important, then you shouldn't need to mention it more than once during the evening, and definitely not eight times in two hours.) I got home, and watched Groundhog Day with Soren and Jane; I'd never seen it before, and it was a pleasant, funny story.
Tuesday was a quiet puttery day in the neighborhood: library, picking up some of Soren's meds, walking around and admiring the hyacinths, which are emerging like whoa around this neighborhood. I roasted the lamb, and we had it with potatoes, mushrooms sauteed with scallions in sherry and butter, and peas; then we had a discussion about household finances and plans.
Wednesday, I ate about a pound and a half (maybe two pounds?) of leftover potatoes during the course of the day...
...Potatoes seem to be one of my weaknesses. I can go for weeks, even a month or two, without eating them at all, and then I want to EAT ALL OF THE POTATOES ON THE PLANET, preferably baked or boiled with sour cream and butter and fresh ground pepper. French fries don't have that effect on me, nor scalloped potatoes -- but once I've had one good potato with its skin still on, it's down the slippery slope to potatoes for every meal. (And I bought a ten pound bag of them, and they're in the kitchen, calling to me....)
Oh, right -- Wednesday. I went down to The White Rabbit in Fremont to explore their karaoke. A minor glitch with one cable causes the sound to be odd for a while, and the club was pretty empty, which meant that I got to sing eight songs in three hours and change, including "Unexpected Song" (which, to my surprise, few karaoke places out here seem to have).
Thursday...ah, Thursday I got to meet
who_is_she for the first time. She's just as mindful and wise in person, with a soft voice, a steady gaze, and awesome hair. (I really want to see her hair in sunlight, to get a good sense of all the shades of copper and gold in it.) After talking for not nearly long enough, she went off to work, and I went to the library again, then home to work on various projects, before going off to Changes for karaoke, and meeting a young man who works on cruise ships -- and who might be a link to piano-bar-type activities out here.
(who_is_she has asked some of her local friends in another online community about piano bars and their ilk, and I've gotten some tips from them. I may start with jazz vocal jams over in Ballard, and see what happens.)
Yesterday was another traveling day: first to Artist & Craftman, to buy a cutting mat (and a few other items), then up and down University Avenue, in search of a wine bar -- I really had a craving to sit with my journal sipping a vinho verde somewhere -- to no avail. (All the beer I could have wanted, but nothing that looked like a wine bar.) So I hopped a bus down to Lower Queen Anne, and went to Toulouse Petit...
...the last/first time I was there, I had their chicken and duck liver pate, a Vieux Carre, and Hanne Blank's book Inappropriate Crush, and it was the perfect combination of rich food, carefully constructed drink, and rich, carefully constructed prose. This time, I was writing myself, so the prose was not as good, but the wine was excellent, and I even tried the fried okra with remoulade, and discovered that in the hands of the right cook, okra is indeed edible, actually tasty.
I moseyed home, and we watched a couple of episodes of News Radio, which Jane has never watched, but which is one of my favorite ensemble sitcoms. Afterwards, Soren retreated to the bedroom, and I watched Ken Russell's Tommy for the first time in years.
Ooooof.
Excess, awkwardness, continuity errors, and general... well, it's a period piece. Hysterical, in several senses of the word, I think, would describe it. Fortunately, none of it appeared in my dreams last night.
This evening, Soren and I are going to have dinner with my old friend Eric, who is in town this week, playing at the Moisture Festival. It will be good to sit and catch up with him for a while: his life has been full and complex lately, in very different ways from ours, but the love and friendship is still there and still strong.
Before that, though, I shall start building the next journal book, and mulling over time. It's been almost a year since we got on the train to come out here. Wow.
Tuesday was a quiet puttery day in the neighborhood: library, picking up some of Soren's meds, walking around and admiring the hyacinths, which are emerging like whoa around this neighborhood. I roasted the lamb, and we had it with potatoes, mushrooms sauteed with scallions in sherry and butter, and peas; then we had a discussion about household finances and plans.
Wednesday, I ate about a pound and a half (maybe two pounds?) of leftover potatoes during the course of the day...
...Potatoes seem to be one of my weaknesses. I can go for weeks, even a month or two, without eating them at all, and then I want to EAT ALL OF THE POTATOES ON THE PLANET, preferably baked or boiled with sour cream and butter and fresh ground pepper. French fries don't have that effect on me, nor scalloped potatoes -- but once I've had one good potato with its skin still on, it's down the slippery slope to potatoes for every meal. (And I bought a ten pound bag of them, and they're in the kitchen, calling to me....)
Oh, right -- Wednesday. I went down to The White Rabbit in Fremont to explore their karaoke. A minor glitch with one cable causes the sound to be odd for a while, and the club was pretty empty, which meant that I got to sing eight songs in three hours and change, including "Unexpected Song" (which, to my surprise, few karaoke places out here seem to have).
Thursday...ah, Thursday I got to meet
who_is_she for the first time. She's just as mindful and wise in person, with a soft voice, a steady gaze, and awesome hair. (I really want to see her hair in sunlight, to get a good sense of all the shades of copper and gold in it.) After talking for not nearly long enough, she went off to work, and I went to the library again, then home to work on various projects, before going off to Changes for karaoke, and meeting a young man who works on cruise ships -- and who might be a link to piano-bar-type activities out here.(
who_is_she has asked some of her local friends in another online community about piano bars and their ilk, and I've gotten some tips from them. I may start with jazz vocal jams over in Ballard, and see what happens.)Yesterday was another traveling day: first to Artist & Craftman, to buy a cutting mat (and a few other items), then up and down University Avenue, in search of a wine bar -- I really had a craving to sit with my journal sipping a vinho verde somewhere -- to no avail. (All the beer I could have wanted, but nothing that looked like a wine bar.) So I hopped a bus down to Lower Queen Anne, and went to Toulouse Petit...
...the last/first time I was there, I had their chicken and duck liver pate, a Vieux Carre, and Hanne Blank's book Inappropriate Crush, and it was the perfect combination of rich food, carefully constructed drink, and rich, carefully constructed prose. This time, I was writing myself, so the prose was not as good, but the wine was excellent, and I even tried the fried okra with remoulade, and discovered that in the hands of the right cook, okra is indeed edible, actually tasty.
I moseyed home, and we watched a couple of episodes of News Radio, which Jane has never watched, but which is one of my favorite ensemble sitcoms. Afterwards, Soren retreated to the bedroom, and I watched Ken Russell's Tommy for the first time in years.
Ooooof.
Excess, awkwardness, continuity errors, and general... well, it's a period piece. Hysterical, in several senses of the word, I think, would describe it. Fortunately, none of it appeared in my dreams last night.
This evening, Soren and I are going to have dinner with my old friend Eric, who is in town this week, playing at the Moisture Festival. It will be good to sit and catch up with him for a while: his life has been full and complex lately, in very different ways from ours, but the love and friendship is still there and still strong.
Before that, though, I shall start building the next journal book, and mulling over time. It's been almost a year since we got on the train to come out here. Wow.