Hot enough for you?

Seattle (and the rest of the Pacific Northwest) is having a heat wave this week. Our drive home yesterday was in temperatures of well over 100 degrees, which I firmly expected would drop when we made it back up to Seattle with it’s abundant water and attendant winds, but no such luck. Usually after a vacation, I’m not that excited to go back to work but with temperatutes expected to be over a hundred degrees, I was excited to be in a heavily air-conditioned office.

Later in the day, one of my co-workers got the brilliant idea of trying to fry an egg on the sidewalk and asked me if I’d like to come watch. (Does she know her audience? I think so!) So without further ado, here is the great egg cooking caper of 2009. First, my lovely co-worker Jeannette showing off the hapless egg before his date with destiny:

Then, the initial cracking:

And we wait, sweating for something to happen:

But alas, nothing does. So we check it again in fifteen minutes:

The white has dried to the pavement, but the egg doesn’t appear to be cooked. I give it a final check before I leave for the day, at approximately half an hour since we started:

It appears to be slightly cooked, or maybe it’s just dried out. Since it was supposedly 103 degrees today, I’m skeptical that anyone has ever successfully pulled this off. But since one of my former co-workers managed to bake cookies in his car, I’m keeping an open mind.

Milfoil and parking follies

Tonight, M and I went to scout the swim course for this weekend’s Seafair Triathlon. Unfortunately, there was a ton of seaweed/milfoil at the beginning of the swim which triggered a huge panic attack for M, so it was not a successful swim outing. We decided to console ourselves with some thai food in Capitol Hill, since both of us were starving. We’d brought the dogs along, since Todd was out of town and they regard car trips as “doing something” and M got this great shot of me and Smokey Joe:

When we got near the thai place, parking of course was a problem. We saw a spot that looked a little on the tiny side, but M appealed to my parking vanity, so I decided to go for it. Four hundred turns later, we were in:

I knew it was tight, but Jeebus!

My title of parallel parking master remains intact!

So even if the milfoil got us down, the parking follies cheered us up…

Another year older

Today was my 39th birthday, just a whisper away from 40. I don’t really think about how old I am until my birthday rolls around. In fact, when someone asks my age, I usually have to think about it. I figure, if you don’t act your age and you don’t feel as old as you are, then it doesn’t matter. That’s this year’s theory anyway, we’ll see what happens next year when I’m staring down the barrel of a whole new decade.

My work life has been crazy busy, trying to launch three new websites, but my co-workers were still able to find time to make a fuss over me. They decorated my office with this creepy balloon:

and these pretty flowers (both of which were photographed in my dining room, because I didn’t think to bring my camera to work)

They also bought lunch and had a little sundae party for me in the afternoon. Quite an impressive amount of fuss, to be sure. Then when I got home, T picked up the birthday baton and ran with it. When I opened his present, I was presented with this:

The box is from a Tazo tea display he’d gotten from work, and when I opened the little presents, each was a playing card with a post-it note giving me a clue of where to look for my present. This is the whole group:

So, as I looked around the house for my present, T followed me around looking smug/sinister:

Finally, I found the correct clue and uncovered two awesome posters that I’d seen in a shop down the street from our house. They’re basically typographic maps of cities and he’d selected my two favorites: Brooklyn & Seattle. Here Smokey Joe is doing his best Vanna White. (Unfortunately, he sucks at it… )

Cool, right? After all of the present opening, it was time to meet up with M and J for some dinner at one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants La Carta Oaxaca. It’s quite a testament to our friendship that M was willing to put aside her dislike of mexican food to celebrate my birthday, a fact I certainly appreciate. We started off with some delicious margaritas while we waited for a patio table to open up, since it was a gorgeous evening.

I ordinarily don’t like to be one of those people snapping pictures in restaurants, but tonight I made an exception. (I blame the margarita) Here’s M being silly:

and cute, while T picks up the silly…

And here’s T, drinking my “pink margarita” after disparaging it:

And a few shots of J & M, please note the couple behind them who were engaged in a fight on what turned out to be his birthday. (I didn’t hear about this until they’d left. My favorite quote: “I hear that, BUT… “)

One of the perks of hanging out with a talented photographer type is that you get super-awesome pictures to put on your blog. Here’s M’s picture of my margarita and appetizer:

And a shot of me:

The food was delicious, as always. I had the chicken mole, which was superb:

And I loved the final bill, it really says it all, doesn’t it?

After dinner, we stopped off to grab some more food for M, since she didn’t really like her dinner. While we were waiting, she snapped these pics of T & I goofing around:

What can I say, we’re silly people. We finished the evening with cupcakes and RockBand. All in all, it was an awesome birthday and a fabulous way to kick off my 39th year.

Road trip

Usually Memorial Day weekend is the first Yuppie Camping trip of the year, but this year M & I were doing something different. My friend Erin and her friend Timmion had won a weekend at the Gunn Ranch in a silent auction. They were kind enough to invite a group of us to share it with them. The husbands weren’t able to come along, so it was M & I embarking on a road trip. M came and picked me up at my office, ready to hit the road: (Photo Courtesy of M)

M & I are very road trip compatible. We both like to stop at fun little places along the way, like this cute little farmstand:

They had served homemade ice cream, so naturally we had to partake:

It was a nice little spot to stop, very picturesque:

But we had places to go, so we hit the road. A little while later, we both needed a potty stop and happened upon the Information Center at this little town, where the proprietor was rocking this fabulous ensemble:

Too hard to see in this photo? Lucky for you, he started flying a kite:

Why yes, that is a red plaid shirt and camoflage pants. (I can’t make this stuff up, folks!) The route was long but really beautiful. I shot this from the car window:

Ridiculous, right?

Adventures in science

We arrived in SF without incident and my brother Erik was nice enough to come pick us up at the airport. After the obligatory “man hug” we hit the road.

We met up with my sister-in-law Nerissa and had an excellent dinner in Palo Alto. The next morning, we decided to head down to the California Academy of Sciences, which T was really eager to see, having read about their green initatives and impressive renovation.

The building is definitely impressive, with fancy automated vents and green roof:

Inside, there’s a big glass atrium dome with a huge rainforest display:

We started with the rainforest display, which was amazing. There are tons of butterflys and birds flying all around. At the bottom is an aquarium with some narly fish in it, that covers a glass walkway. It was pretty cool to see people walking around under the gross fish. I tried to get a picture, but it’s hard to see:

You learn all kinds of things about the rainforest. That nature is gross…

weird…

cute…

and beautiful:

We had a great time. There were some wacky hijinks:

There was a very preachy global warming exhibit that had a suggestion board. Buried amongst the sanctimonious advice was this little nugget:

So, Erik decided to add his own to the mix:

Yes, I am in fact 12 years old. My one critique of the museum was that throughout our visit they would take random pictures of us, which is fine but then as you’re leaving they had actually printed them out vs. just showing them on the screen. I did take a picture of one of them, because it was hilarious, but still not so green:

We finished the day with a snack in Cole Valley. I had an unbelievable goat cheese & pear tart:

The fog was just coming over the hill, which I loved so much when I lived here:

What a great way to start a vacation…

Office pranks

My co-worker Kris is one of those people who always has crazy stuff happen to her. So, when her flight turned back to the gate to evacuate the sick passenger seated right in front of her at the height of the swine flu panic, we pretty much assumed she’d get the swine flu. But after a few days of not contracting the virus, we decided a prank was in order. (You can’t prank someone when they have the swine flu, that’s just bad manners… )

So we ‘quarantined’ her cubicle by wrapping it in plastic tarps and caution tape:

It’s hard to see from this pic, but the top right sign says “how you get the swine flu” with this picture on it:

Gross, but funny…

Luckily, Kris is a really good sport and thought it was hilarious:

A very enjoyable way to start the week…

April fool

Well, apparently I am easily fooled. Two people (or more accurately, a person and a huge company) got me. My friend Erin changed her Facebook status to engaged, so I joined the legions of people who congratulated her on her wall. Good job, Erin, you got me! Then I fell for Google’s very excellent CADIE prank. From anyone else, that would be too far-fetched, but one never knows what Google can pull off. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

Urban windfall

So, last night as we’re driving home we get a call from M. Apparently, her neighbor is moving and has a washer/dryer combo machine for free in the front yard. For those of you who aren’t city dwellers, this is one of the perks of urban living – when people get sick or things or don’t want to move them, they often just drag them to the curb and put a sign saying “Free” on them. It’s a pretty sweet deal for everyone – people get stuff/people get rid of stuff, win/win.

I was especially excited because I’d been really missing our in-apartment laundry facilities. We have a coin operated washer & dryer downstairs, which works pretty well, but there’s nothing quite as nice as being able to just throw a load in when you want and not have to find quarters, put shoes on, hope no one else is doing laundry, etc, etc, etc. We were excited that it was still there when we arrived and we set about figuring out how to get it home.

After some impressive maneuvering from T, we managed to wrestle it into the Saturn:

M was kind enough to drive me home and with the promise of Rock Band, we also talked her husband J into helping us carry it up the stairs.

The boys managed to muscle it up the stairs and into our little storage closet with laundry hookups. We need to pick up a hose to connect it to the water supply before we can officially test it, but it powered up and the dryer spun when we tested that, so I’m hopeful that we will soon have a functional washer/dryer in our apartment. Here’s our new baby in it’s new home, I can’t wait to fill it with sweaty running clothes!

Flavor trippin’

Happy New Year, everyone! We ushered in the new year, hanging out with friends and being low key. Some friends of M&J/Graham & Sarah were in town, so we met up at Graham & Sarah’s place for an evening of dinner/RockBand. The visiting friends (henceforth nicknamed “the Spoons”) were in town from Geneva, Switzerland and they made a really delicious French dish that involved kale, milk, stale bread and Gruyere cheese all baked in a dutch oven. If I track down the recipe (or even the name of the recipe) I promise to post it here.

Graham’s dad had given him these for Christmas:

Supposedly, they tweak the taste receptors in your tongue so that sour things taste sweet. So, we tried them out. I stupidly forgot to bring my camera, but I’ll post pics if I get them from the people who did have cameras. We had cut up limes, lemons, grapefruit, tequila, balsalmic vinegar, onion and tabasco sauce. I tried everything but the tabasco sauce and I have to say it was pretty cool. My favorite was the grapefruit, because you could taste the other flavors punctuated by the sweet – the hint of bitter, for example. The lemons and the limes just tasted like candy. The onion and the tequila didn’t taste that different to me and the balsalmic was sweet on the tongue but the same vinegary feel in the throat – very odd. You can read more about the whole thing here.

I wanna rock!

Whew, Saturday was a busy day. After getting our tree and having cupcakes with the ladies, T and I were scheduled to join our friends M and J at our other friends Graham and Sarah’s house for an evening of pizza and Rockband. And not delivery pizza either, real homemade pizza – enough to feed an army:

And nothing goes with pizza better than a box of wine.

So, while M and Graham modeled her camera “Crappy D”

Sarah got into the pizza-making action:

So, thanks pizza-master J:

Your pizza rocks:

So, speaking of rocking, it was time to get down to business… Time to Rock!

Even though it’s sort of silly in theory (an air guitar video game) Rock Band is really, really fun. I like to do the singing the best (all of those long road trips signing along to the radio really paid off!) Which works for everyone else since they seem to like to  do the drums, guitar and bass. (Or maybe they’re too polite to tell me, but that seems unlikely with this crew) We had great fun playing all sorts of songs, both awesome and not so much (I’m looking at you Disturbed’s Down With the Sickness… ) I hope Graham and Sarah didn’t mind us invading their home, I certainly appreciate their hospitality!