Birth Week Eve
Very little to say today! Somehow I managed to spend the whole morning working and did not get any part of a draft of this post written before noon. Well, except for the html code for the photos, which I pretty much always do as soon as I get to work. Today's DLU photos are more among the many Ivan continues to send me on his travels; the top shot from Plovdiv, Bulgaria; the middle one from Sofia, Bulgaria; the bottom one from a concentration camp he visited in Niš, Serbia. He has since been to Belgrade (the place from which he probably sent the fewest photos) and this morning sent another of several batches he has now sent from Sarajevo, which really does look and sound like a wonderful place to visit. As I told him this morning, it never before now occurred to make any plan to visit Sarajevo, but judging by his photos and descriptions, whenever I might finally start doing some overseas travel, that city is definitely now on my list. They have a graffiti-covered abandoned bobsled track from the 1984 Winter Olympics! Ivan sent several photos of that and it's awesome.
Anyway! There's not much to tell about last night, anyway. Shobhit declared when I got home that he would "let" me make dinner, so I made us veggie burgers. I also picked up dry cleaning and I did laundry. Exciting stuff! We watched two episodes of Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix, which we both like very much, but can't stomach very many episodes in a row. I spent some time captioning photos from Ivan that I uploaded to Flickr; I'll send him a link on his (our) birthday of the collection of sets I created with all photos captioned with information about all the places he visited. It'll be sort of my birthday present to him.
What else can I tell you, then? How about I give you my full itinerary for this year's Birth Week! It's almost astonishing how well all my desired plans clicked into place -- no fewer than seven bona fide botanical gardens to visit, all with different people, and that doesn't even include the bike path with Dad on Sunday or the winery with Shauna the following Sunday. Anyway, here's the list, by day:
Saturday, April 28:
Birth Week Botanical Garden #1: Point Defiance Rhododendron Garden, with Gabriel and Tess
Travel on down afterwards to Jennifer's in Shelton for my annual Birth Week overnight stay with her -- complete with plenty of drinking
Sunday, April 29:
Birth Week Bike Ride with Dad (and, big maybe, also Gina and Beth?) at the Riverwalk Trail in Puyallup
Monday, April 30 (my birthday!)
Birth Week Botanical Garden #2: Roozengaarde and Tulip Town at the Tulip Festival in La Conner, with Shobhit
Birthday dinner with Shobhit at Saffron Grill
Tuesday, May 1:
Birth Week Botanical Garden #3: Streissguth Gardens on Capitol Hill with Evan, before dinner and drinks
(I may go to Magnolia in the afternoon on my own just to check out the small Parsons Gardens)
Wednesday, May 2:
Birth Week Botanical Garden #4: Bellevue Botanical Garden, with Auntie Rose and maybe Valerie I have my annual Birth Week haircut scheduled for late that afternoon
Thursday, May 3:
Birth Week brunch with Stephanie at Lola
Birth Week dinner with Lynn and Zephyr at Kizuki Ramen in Northgate
Friday, May 4:
Birth Week Botanical Garden #5: Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden, with Danielle
Birth Week Botanical Garden #6: Kubota Garden, with Claudia and Mimi
Saturday, May 5:
Birth Week Botanical Garden #7: Kruckeberg Botanic Garden in Shoreline, with Laney and maybe Shobhit
Sunday, May 6:
Free tour & tasting at Chateau St Michelle winery in Woodinville, with Shauna and maybe Shobhit
Birth Week dinner at home with Karen and Dave, and maybe Danielle
In the past I always separated Birth Week photo sets by day, but this year I may just separate them by garden (or, as the case may be, bike path, or winery). I really like this new approach I've come up with for ascribing themes to my Birth Week. I already know my theme in 2019 will be nautical -- boats! I even have a list of seven boats to get on already. But, I'll worry more about that as next year comes upon me. For now, Birth Week 2018 is about to begin!
[posted 12:41 pm]