The weekend started out swell.

I woke up Saturday morning expecting rain, but was very happy to see it clear up just in time to go meet my friend Miles for breakfast at 35th Street Bistro and a bike ride.  Yay clear weather!

Miles tried to avoid being photographed, but I didn’t let that happen.

Breakfast started with tiny muffins.  All things tiny make me happy.  This will be a recurring theme in this post.

The food was very good- good enough to make up for the slightly snooty service.  This was the big winner of the meal- they called it a flambe, but let’s be honest.  It’s a tortilla (good), with lardons (very good), potatoes & carmelized onions (carbs on carbs = extra good), a fried egg (super good) and a side of olives (mega good.  all food should include olives.)  We split this and were very happy campers.

Then, because we had to work off said lardons, we hopped on our bikes and went for a ride.

Miles is a superstar rider who is doing a 150 mile ride for MS next weekend.  I am a mediocre rider whose front wheel is so bent that the local bike shop told me it would be a waste of time to try and true it.  But Miles didn’t seem to be too annoyed by my lack of power and we made decent time.  We stopped at Matthews Beach so I could pee.

There I saw this sign, which nicely sums up proper swimming ettiquette:

The fact that they even have to include a “no communicable diseases” rule makes me NEVER want to go in that water.  EVER.

Even though we had just finished a 20 mile or so ride, I was still able to ride all the way up our bitch of a hill on the way back!  Yay strong quads!  (Clarification: I rode up the slightly pussier 3rd street side of Queen Anne, not the uber-steep Queen Anne hill itself.  That’s next year’s goal.)

After I got back, I went and got my much needed haircut with Shaun at Intermezzo Salon.  I totally loved him.  I no longer look like a frog!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture until it was already dark and we were at the airport.  Here is the shit-tastic picture though for you to laugh at:

Nothing revolutionary, but i feel a lot cleaner.  I’ll go back to get my color futzed with in a couple of weeks.  Suggestions, as always, are welcome.

We spent the rest of the weekend with Mike’s dad, who flew up to visit us.  But, dear readers, these adventures deserve a post of their own, so you’ll have to hold on for that.  I will, however, leave you with pictures of carrots that made me giggle when I got them in my CSA bin.

Carrots in love:

And the consequences of their illicit carrot love:

Those are cherry tomatoes!  The baby carrot was soooooo tiny.  I squealed.

Miles, bike ride, lardons, haircut and lustful carrots summarized the high points of my weekend.

Past:

• This week exhausted me.  Really long hours thanks to always exciting usability testing, which included a fun-filled trip to Boise, where the highlight of the city is the sign you see leaving the airport.  (Warning: this is only really entertaining when you say “Boi” with a Flava Flav affectation- “Boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.”)

• Yesterday Mike and I slept until 11 and then went on what we intended to be a leisurely bike ride.  We ended up going 23 miles round trip.  I was thinking that I could handle a 100 mile ride by the end of summer, but now I think I should stick to something much shorter.  We forgot a memory card with the camera (kharmic revenge for me stealing my dad’s memory card and not mailing it back to him in time), so the only good picture I got was this, taken with my phone while laying on top of a picnic bench post our dinner at the bourgoise grocery store conveniently located just off the bike trail when we realized that we were both starving to death:

• This afternoon I sat in Olympic Sculpture Park with two of my favorite knitters, Brooke and Ange, and we knit.  I reapplied sunscreen 3 times in 2 hours and still ended up with a wicked sunburn.  Thank god for aloe vera.

Present:

• Sitting on the couch, resizing images for Handicrafte Cafe, writing this blog post, trying to figure out how to watch the season finale of “Bones” on our television because our stupid faux-tivo ate it.  Oh well, thank god for Hulu.

Future:

• Tomorrow: going with the knitters to help find an elopement dress for somebody sane enough to NOT plan a wedding.  Then coming home to get cooking prepped for the week- turkey pesto meatballs, grilled vegetable and pesto salad (me), pasta salad with some grilled vegetables thrown in for kicks (Mike), Chicken and Spring Vegetable Gratin, and a bastardized version of Banana Blueberry muffins that use oatmeal and quinoa instead of flour.  I am very well aware that this last item may taste like total crap- it’s an experiment.
• Next week: Promises to be grueling, but at least it’s only 4 days long.  Happy dance!
• Next weekend: Kate‘s getting married!  Super happy dance!  Now I just have to find something to wear.
• Next next weekend: Our two year anniversary is June 2!  Mike told me to take Thursday and Friday off, but he won’t tell me what we’re actually doing.  Much like the quinoa-hippie muffins, this could be great (like the surprise trip to NYC for my 25th birthday) or it could be a disaster (like our trip to Monterrey in 1999 when we ended up sleeping in a motel in Salinas that came complete with bars on the window).

YAY: Saturday I successfully slept in almost as late as Mike.  This is a major accomplishment for my unable to sit still self.

BOO: We didn’t get out of the house until 1:00 pm, which means we wasted half of what is probably one of the last really nice weekends of summer here.  We suck.

YAY: We made it to the grand opening of the Colonnade Mountain Bike Skills Park.  (I think they should have called it a “Skillz” park.  ::groan::).  It was really cool- well built, much bigger than I would have ever imagined, and only 2 miles from our house.

BOO: Mike’s bike is still broken from his last trip to Mammoth.  Something tells me that will get fixed soon.

YAY: The mountain bike park has an off-leash dog park!!

BOO: I still don’t have a dog because my husband doesn’t really love me.

YAY: We found a really awesome Thai restaurant down the hill from our house.  Yum.

BOO: We have to walk back up the hill after we eat there.

YAY: Mike actually went to the farmer’s Market with me in Ballard Sunday morning.  Total food Pr0n + somebody to help me carry stuff.

YAY: I made a ton of progress on a lace scarf I am knitting.  I just started this on Tuesday:

BOO: My stupid wrist is still hurting when I knit or bike or lift things.  I think I’m going to end up having to do physical therapy.

YAY: We saw Burn After Reading on Sunday night.  It was pointless and self-mocking and it entertained me so much that I actually stayed awake through the whole thing- yeah, that’s right Ben, I stayed awake during an entire MOVIE!

BOO: Mike got so frustrated trying to park downtown before the movie that he ended up driving to a mall outside the city to see it.  We both agreed that it’s time to conquer our deep-rooted Orange County-born-and-raised fear of public transportation and start using the bus system.

YAY: All the new TV shows are **this close** to actually starting full-force.  Gossip Girl and Bones have already come back to us (squeeee) along with a handful of new shows: 90210 2.0 (eh), Fringe (has some definately nerdy X-Files-ish potential) and Privileged (I don’t think Mike has seen this yet, but it might end up being cute).  I know it’s lame and low-brow, but I love TV.  Mike and I are the best at lying around and watching TV.  We would totally medal if watching television while knitting (me) and looking at car forums (Mike) was an Olympic team sport.

BOO: TV definately limits productivity.  But I love it anyways.

BOO THE SEQUEL: Speaking of Gossip Girl, Blair is putting out an album:

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::

I’ll be honest, we are getting a little bored waiting for all of our stuff to arrive. There is not really anywhere to sit (besides the floor) and I spend a lot of time (in my head of course) lamenting how much unpacking I’ll be doing next week. Thank goodness we have a) our air mattress and b) internet. The combination of these two things has allowed us to comfortable get fully caught up on this season of “America’s Best Dance Crew.” Thank God we can get one vitally important task checked off the to-do list.

Even with the siren song of spending all weekend rehashing dance-themed television calling to us, we have managed to get out and explore the city a bit. Today, we went to Gasworks Park to check out a bicycle festival called “Tour de Fat.”

We felt a little lame driving to the Tour de Fat, since it was only 2 miles from our house and it’s main goal is to encourage people to bike more and drive less. Well, thanks to the lack of physical possession of any of our bikes and my infamous robot arm, we sucked it up and drove. Next year we’ll ride, I promise.

Once we got there, we didn’t feel so bad though. There were quite a few cars, even though many were a bit more colorful than our 4-door Ford Fusion (it’s a rental and Microsoft pays for the gas. Eh.)

But there were definitely a lot of bikes, too:

We really dug some of the more… creative bikes we saw:

But probably the coolest thing (and the thing that really made me really hate the robot arm more than usual today) was a special area where you could test ride some very special modified bikes:

Mike’s favorite was this guy: