Author: Rachel

Today’s the last official day of my Technical Communications class. I’m wrapping up a Certificate in Project Management that I’ve been working on for a few quarters.

This was one of my favorite classes. My teacher (Braden) was great and this textbook was superb. I’m hanging onto it for a number of useful checklists for future writing projects. I still have to schedule my final exam but my final paper’s within minutes of being finished — then school’s out for Summer.

I’ve got one more final revision on the paper due in a few hours…

Today, the twitterverse was hopped up over the advent of Marination Mobile‘s first official day of business. Lucky me, it was in Fremont at Skillet’s usual haunt. I walked over shortly after noon, as it was advertised they were opening an hour later than usual.

The line ended up being 90 minutes long. Mr. T took one look and turned around — I discovered my friend Natala and her work team waiting in line, so I stuck it out to catch up with her and meet them.

My favorites: the pork Aloha sliders and the Kalbi Beef Tacos. I also tried the spicy pork tacos. I have to say, this was the first meal I’ve had in months that was spiced good and hot from the get-go. They knocked the socks off of Skillet’s recent offerings. I’ll be back, but no later than 11 next time.

It’s been 28 days without rain in Seattle proper. Amazing for May/June.

One of Mr. T’s 782 cousins dropped by before dinner. She updated this penny while we chatted.

Studiously avoided flowers today.

Today was not that bad. But it might’as well’ve been. I’ve had my knickers in a twist about a number of things. When we got home today, Mr. T made me a pseudo-muffuletta. We hung out in the yard and the Baron acted all zany.

I noticed these uninvited weeds (pictured above) are really taking off.

I swear I’ll find a non-vegetative subject tomorrow.

For over 2 years, my book group’s met to discuss a monthly selection. This month: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. It reaffirmed my decision to never consider medicine a viable career option.

As a child, I couldn’t take my pulse in health class, so I pretended. Too squeamish. During my honors orientation at my university — where a trip to the undergrad cadaver lab was a feature — the tour guides told me I turned light green and was on high alert for passing out. Squeamish! I turned to vegetarianism around age 18 because dealing with raw chicken freaked me out. Too squeamish. As I’ve since lopped off fish heads in the name of gourmet, I’m over this one.

Well this book was a rough one. I had it in paperback and on audio. I listened to over half in fits and starts for 2 months. Finally last week, I gave in to skimming the last third to glean discussion possibilities, then I set it aside and moved onto another memoir. All that said, I believe Mary Roach is a good writer.
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My friend Cynthia brings lovely gifts to the month’s host or hostess. She brought this token of sunshine, amongst other goodies. (Chocolate cookies!)

Seattleites have been BLESSED with the best summery weather in nearly two years. Around lunchtime, Mr. T & I went down to a local farmer’s market and picked up fresh chevre, flowers, and produce. For dinner he made salads with butter lettuce with toasted chevre. We dined al fresco, as most of our neighbors did.

You learn so much by eavesdropping on the loud talkers.

I swear, I try to take pictures of things besides flowers.

Spotted this as I was taking The Baron for a walk.

Here’s the flower I wanted to post at the top. From the neighbor’s yard, across the street:

Despite the sunshine, not so much a fan of the world today. After I got home from work, Mr. T & I walked over to our favorite neighborhood Indian restaurant for some comfort food. I spotted this on the way and decided it was a better candidate than my lunch which made me really really grumpy after I was already irritable. Why spread that negativity around when there’s stuff like this to share? (That’s probably a sign dinner & Mr. T more than made up for the crappy & long day.)

I touched on this recently, but when I look around our herb garden, I’m amazed at what comes back year after year without effort. Two years in a row, this oregano pot goes barren by Spring and just when I think it won’t come back, the whole container explodes with new life.

After work, I walked over to Adobe to attend a Color Management meeting. (I wrecked one of my MacBook color profiles last month, so the subject’s on my radar.) I spied this Lotus under the Fremont bridge. At the meeting I ran into Traca again, for the second day in a row. We enjoyed both speakers, one from Adobe & one from Foundry Interactive.

Related: I’m habitual about carrying extra camera batteries…you know, the one day I got lazy in the morning is the one day the point ‘n shoot gave out on the first shot. That’ll learn me. The G1 (Android) saved the day.

Traca organized an Americana-themed potluck tonight to honor visiting International grad students. I love any & all things Americana, foodwise, so I was all over this. When it came time to plan what to bring, I was at a loss. I knew there’d be apple pie and ribs and potato salads and so on.

Domestic goddess gfrancie advised: Cherries in the Snow. Brilliant reminder — I’ve wanted to make this since she first told me about it 18 months ago. It’s no-bake and simple:

Graham Cracker Crust made from graham crackers, sugar, butter
Middle layer of cream cheese, heavy whipping cream, sugar
Topped with Cherry Pie filling

Loved it and consider it the whole-food version (ha!) of another guilty pleasure: motomotoyama’s Dream Pie. (Essentially Dream Pie boxed mix in pie crust.) Traca called it no-bake cheesecake. That’s about right.

My good friend Amy organized a team to participate in Seattle Works Day, an all-day volunteer event that takes place every June. Our assignment was the Mt. Baker Ridge Viewpoint. We worked with some of the original organizers in the neighborhood, cleaning up and landscaping the whole hillside. As you might imagine, this was a filthy endeavor, so no cameras.

Seattle Works thanked its volunteers with an after-party at Seattle Center for several hundred. There was a great turnout and we made small talk with El Jefe: the mayor, who was pretty gracious for all of the hard work.

All tables came with crayons and butcher paper. This is Amy’s graffiti.

A good friend of ours (J) was rounding up friends for dinner on Saturday night, but through a series of fortunate events, switched it to tonight. Most were out of town, so dinner plans included me & Mr. T along with our friend J and his Laura (who we all adore) at a place I’ve wanted to revisit for years: La Spiga.

Turns out it was J’s birthday and we got to celebrate dinner with him followed by Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile, just around the corner from La Spiga at the Balagan Theatre.

I’m curious about the movie version now.

We’ve had a string of spectacular days. Around dusk, new weather rolled in. I remarked to the Mr. that it reminded me of Mary Poppins when the wind changed…since everything arrived at the right hour, the sunset was phenomenal. I wish I’d been closer to the water.

Cliff Mass also covered it here: a Meterologically Religious Experience.

I was torn over the photo to post. Two candidates: a) the marvelous weather or b) a colleague’s Gulpy. Dear reader, I’ve decided to share both.

We heard it was gonna be a scorcher, so our department headed to Golden Gardens to enjoy the sunshine. Brilliant day, surprisingly slow at the park. I got all shy with the camera, so only the point and shoot came out.

One colleague is WFHing it this week as he cares for his wife. He joined us at the park with his puppy (also awesome, but the dark coat kept me from capturing anything that demonstrated the cuteness). And the revelation of the kind of dog owner he is had me cracking up so much that I had to pull out my camera to share with the world. Note the Gulpy holstered on the left, the treat bag on the right.

I wouldn’t have noticed it was “hot” without everyone bringing it up. It’s 85-ish. I had a volunteer meeting tonight on the calendar but woke up to find it abruptly cancelled. This evening, I’ve taken the opportunity to putter around, continue catching up, make salsa and take care of some garden work.

One of the things I love about Spring — when you’ve been living in the same home for a while — is finding those flowers you forgot you planted. For me, gardening is an optimistic and hopeful exercise carried out when the future seems wide open and full of possibility. I like that these flowery reminders bring me back to those moments.

Mr. T’s parents came to our side of the water tonight to celebrate his birthday + 1 week at Mr. T’s favorite place: the Latona Pub. On our way home, we spotted this. The auction was so silent, we never found the source.

Remember that disappointing crawfish boil attempt in April?* Soon after, I heard a new place called Marcela’s Cookery in Pioneer Square was flying in crawfish. The option to stay in town was much more attractive than schlepping north to a place that had already let us down. I still held back on my expectiations and I was hesitant at first, since I’d heard longstanding lackluster reviews of a Louisiana place in that neighborhood. But quick research assured me this was a new & different place to try.

I RSVP’d that Mr. T & I would attend. Despite his heritage, he’s never been to a crawfish boil. I figured it was high time to introduce him. We met with about 20 other mostly-Southerners for a private party in the afternoon. Since I had a big dinner to attend in the evening, I limited myself to what you see here. The crawfish was good, but gone far too quickly. Once I got to the corn and potatoes, I began to appreciate how good it all turned out. Another guy from Baton Rouge tipped me off to the idea of ordering extra potatoes to mix with olive salad for an amazing potato salad (it’d finally be spicy enough for me!). I’ll definitely be headed back soon for more authentic Louisiana food.

*To be fair, the other place has tried to make amends by offering to have us back sometime soon on their dime. Due to all of our travel, I haven’t been able to make it back up to Snohomish County. Mr. T’s parents enjoyed their visit so much that I’m sure we’ll be there soon.

We’re still recovering from jetlag, so pictures are light since we returned.

Tonight, we met up with sprizee, her Dude, and Toad at Assaggio for Italian food before Bourdain and Batali at the Paramount. I’ve looked forward to this for months, and those boys totally delivered.

May is traditionally a big travel month in our household. I knew after the last announcement that there might be more delays due to travel, but didn’t want to broadcast to the world.

We are officially back from Greece as of today. Tons of pictures — soon!