Sunday and Monday looked like this:

Ugh.  We tried our best to be good Seattle-ites and brave the rain anyways.  We spent Sunday with our friend B-

He joined us for a day in the International District, where we explored the Uwajimaya Market (which is a lot like Furiwa in Costa Mesa, but at least twice the size), ate noodles and delicious crepes, and saw cool stuff like this:

Even with all this to keep us entertained, the rain was still a bit annoying.  Even locals were a bit surprised by the strength of the storm- I’ve had plenty of true Seattle-ites try and reassure me that this is unusual for August.  I’m hoping that they are right and we get a (mostly) sunny September.

In the meantime though, I won’t let the rainy week get to me.  This will be really easy because I’m leaving tonight to go here:

I’ll be spending 5 days with two of my best friends ever, Mary and Scott, plus Mary’s look-alike sister, Deborah, here.  Deborah is embarking on Semester at Sea, so Scott and I are going to help send her off proper.  It should be 5 wonderful days of floating around giant waterslides, hitting the casinos (or at least watching Scott gamble like a madman), sipping on umbrella-laden fruity drinks, and trying not to get too sunburnt.

That is, unless Gustav comes to ruin our fun!  (The latest weather reports say we should be fine, aside from some intermittent rain and clouds.  Eh, it’s still good times in the Bahahams).

I do feel a little bit guilty leaving Mike behind, but the truth is, he’ll probably appreciate the peace and quiet.  I did do a little baking yesterday and made sure that the fridge was stocked with food while I’m gone, so at least he won’t starve to death.  Besides, we are definately a couple that enjoys our “alone time.”

So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, now you know why.  Hopefully Mike takes the opportunity to share some of the blogging duties while I’m gone.

Today, it’s raining 

But yesterday was sunny and warm and gorgeous, so we took advantage of it by going for a bike ride.  This was the first time I’d been back on a bike since I broke my wrist at the end of June, and it still hurts to put too much pressure on it, so we ended up going on a leisurely ride exploring our neighborhood.  There were no jerseys, padded bike shorts or screams of “keep the pace!” involved (like our usual rides).  Instead, we meandered around and took some pictures of the prettier sights that are so close to our new home.

Some views of the city and Elliot Bay from Kerry Park:

Betty Bowen Viewpoint:

Also, Queen Anne is famous for having some of the most beautiful houses in Seattle.  Just on this short ride, we pass everything from tiny Craftsman-style bungalows to sprawling Victorian mansions to ultra-modern loft-style homes.  We took pictures of some of our favorites- you know, just in case we win the lottery:

These super modern examples jumped out at us right away:

This one was more classic than what we usually like, but we both decided that this was our favorite house of the day:

You can’t see it in the picture, but this house had the most breathtaking view of Elliot Bay.

::sigh::

On Friday, while running some errands to get ready for my trip to the Bahamas next week (yay!), I came face to face with one of the greatest fears…  well, besides clowns and white foods…

PARALLEL PARKING!

I will freely admit that I’m not the greatest driver in the world, but I’m passable.  However, when it comes to parking, I’m a disaster.  However, having lived in super suburbia for the overwhelming majority of my life, I’ve usually been able to avoid actually dealing with the problem.  But now that we living in an actual city, complete with crappy parking, I am being forced to face this deficiency head on.

So yesterday, when I did this, totally unassisted, I was rather thrilled with myself:

I know that I’m 27 years old and this is something that I should have figured out a long time ago.  I know that this isn’t even a particularly tight parking spot and that many people wouldn’t even consider this to really be an example of parallel parking.  I know that you can barely see the back bumper of the red car in front of me, but I swear to God it’s there and I had to do the whole “drive up to the mirror of the car in front of you, back into the space, straighten out, blah blah blah” thing.  I was so excited that I took a picture of it and am now writing a blog post about my accomplishment.

Thank you for sharing this with me, and please refrain from mocking as much as possible.

show me yours!

Dear Bela Karolyi,

Thank you for being my absolute favorite part of the Olympics this year.  I mean, yeah, there have been a lot of cool things about the Olympics this year- the whole Michael Phelps thing was pretty cool, everybody has been wearing that cool tape that makes their body look like a mysterious alien landing field, Amanda Beard didn’t make the finals in any of her events (I know, I’m going to hell), Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson rocked it out in the women’s all around, and I find Usain Bolt to be endlessly entertaining, even if he does seem to be a little full of himself.

But Bela, really, none of that compares to the glory that is your gymnastics commentary.  While most sports commentators put me to sleep with their even-keeled sense of self control, as soon as you pop up on the screen next to Bob Costas, I’m all ears.  Your undeniable passion for the sport, your willingness to openly criticize any judge or rulemaker you dsiagree with, your slight case of logorrhoea and the fact that you always look like you are about to cry or just finished doing so have officially made you my favorite person in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Somebody give this man a talk show.

[dailymotion id= k56sasm5E41KYEJiFX]

(i had trouble embedding this video, so click here if that isn’t working yet)

Update:

This video will actually embed.  It’s juvenile, but entertaining.  And I actually remember watching this video in Mr. Jundanian’s AP Bio class:

Hi!  It’s me!

I haven’t posted in 3 days and I’m sure that anybody who knows me assumes that I just got bored with this blogging thing.  But no, I promise, my short attention span is not responsible for the lack of recent posting.  The blame for my virtual absence lies entirely with another one of my (many) flaws: my infamous clumsiness.

We had high hopes for the weekend: finish getting the house in order Friday and Saturday, then spend Sunday exploring more of the city.  We made our 3rd trip to Ikea since moving here Friday evening, but after returning one pair of desks, we found out that we couldn’t fit the desks we did want in either of our cars, so we left, extremely dejected.  We were mightily cheered up though by our first taste of Pagliacci’s Pizza, which is pretty much iconic in Seattle, and deservedly so.  Delicious pizza, pasta salad and blackberry gelato restored us to our normal, jovial selves.

SaturDAY was good.  We slept in, went back to Ikea (4th trip- damn you Ikea!), found a desk solution we could live with, and then went to Bed Bath and Beyond, where, thanks to one of those fabulous 20% off coupons and the culmination of YEARS of whining, we finally got a Dyson:

Seriously, he was soooooo happy.  The boy loves vacuuming.  Which is good for me, but bad for our finances- we already have a Roomba, a handheld Dyson and a Swiffer Vac thing.  Not to mention the fact that we left a Shop-Vac and and older non-Dyson upright vacuum in Anaheim for the boys.  ::shaking head::

Anyways, at approximately 8:30 pm, disaster struck.

This is the staircase that I dropped my beloved 4 year old Dell Inspiron laptop.  Stupidly, I had rested it on the banister while I was cleaning, so me knocking it down was inevitable.  You would think that I would know better, but no, I don’t.

This was the physical damage:

Obviously, it would no longer turn on.

At this point I went a little catatonic.  Mike spent 5 minutes trying to reassure me that the hard drive was fine and it wasn’t really a big deal, but then quickly remembered that I’m totally unreasonable (true) and let me sulk while we set up the office.  At some point I took a Xanax and went to sleep.

By noon on Sunday, we were at the Sony store buying a replacement.  Then we drove to Renton and visited Fry’s (talk about feeling like we were home again) to get whatever Mike needed to rescue the contents of my poor hard drive.  While we were in the ‘burbs, we called our friend B, who met us at Ratcha Thai for a late lunch.  The food was a little “eh,” but dessert more than made up for it:

Oh tart yogurt, how I love you, and how I miss your excessive availability back home.  ::sigh::

We came home.  I turned on my new laptop.  It worked.  I squealed.  Mike restored everything from my old hard drive in about 10 minutes.  I squealed louder and danced a little.  He told me to stop.

All in all, everything is back to normal at our house.

(I know you’re looking at this extremely flattering picture and thinking, ‘God, Mike is a lucky, lucky man.’  You’re right.  He is.)

Today I went to the Queen Anne Farmer’s Market. This is one of the things that I really like about Seattle- there are farmer’s markets every day of the week (each in a different neighborhood) during the summer. I loaded up on cherries ($3 / lb for organic Ranier Cherries!!), zucchinis, summer squash, peaches and lettuce. Now that I can lift things with my arm, have access to my pots and pans, and have some free time, i’m starting to get my cooking mojo backand I’m loving the fresh, affordable produce all around (the term “cooking mojo” is on loan from Zona).

Oh, and because I’m easily amused, I bought this onion just because it was HUGE! And it reminded me of my friend Kris, who loves onions more than any other human I’ve ever met.

I have no idea what to do with this much onion though now. Any ideas?

It all started with an Outlook meeting invite at work requesting everyone on my team to meet on the second level of building 17 (my building) to meet “The Man”. My first thought was “oh crap” we are going to go meet Steve Ballmer and discuss Microsoft’s web strategy. So I headed out to atrium to meet the team and Jay head of special research says “let’s car pool.” So we divide up and headed off.

To my surprise “The Man” was not what I thought he was. The man turned out to be a BBQ sauce so potent, the devil himself fears it. Co-workers describe it as gasoline or some sort of atomic fuel. Served at a local BBQ joint named Dixie’s BBQ and is known for its long lines and killing people alive. 

Dixie’s BBQ is located in a old beaten down car repair junk yard turned restaurant. The story is Dixie’s husband ran the place as a automotive service shop while she made BBQ in the back corner. People started to come there for her BBQ instead of car fixing and so the Dixie’s BBQ shop was born. Dixie sits in a corner taking orders as her mom (old and tired she almost falls face first into the bucket of BBQ with each scoop) slops some pork or beef brisket BBQ on a hot link sausage all in a french roll and a white kid with corn rolls dishes out either cornbread or beans. Classic. After you get your order and sit next to some broken down cars and wooden tables, “The Man” sauce is served to those who are willing with a toothpick to control the amount applied and reduce the risk of convulsion.

Dixie’s BBQ

So what do people say about the sauce?

What’s in “The Man?” Heat.
How many people actually like it? Nobody likes it. The record is 9 spoonfuls.
Do you like it? Nope. I don’t touch it. I ain’t stupid.

So your wondering what did I have? Well I had the Dixie’s Special which was beef brisket BBQ slop on top of a sausage hot-link all in a french roll with potato salad as my side. I chickened out and passed on the man. I’m not stupid.

- Michael

Slowly but surely, we are working through the boxes and trying to make our house look less like a total disaster zone.  Unwrapping and setting out Mike’s beloved super shaggy rug made such a big difference that both of us paused to comment on the improvement.

(And yes, that IS Mike being totally captivated by the awesomeness that is Olympic swimming.  Because swimming is the best sport ever, no matter how much trash he talks on it.)

It is no great surprise that I am not the most kid-friendly person in the world. I’m not necessarily opposed to procreation, but it’s just not something that I get all squishy about inside. Pregnancy seems rather involved to me. Babies don’t talk enough for my taste. Watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 just makes me anxious.

However, there are exceptions to every rule. My friends Zona and Jeff have a 5 year old daughter named Gigi and Mike and I ADORE her. She is everything awesome about little girls- she dresses up in costumes to go to the grocery store, she blames her imaginary friends when she gets in trouble, and her favorite word is “fancy.” So awesome.

Plus, she does stuff like this:

Love.

Congratulations, Zona and Jeff, on your new home! I’m jealous that you are already unpacked and I can’t wait to come back and visit you again!