Holy shit, did I have a long day yesterday! I knocked out not one, not two, but three official Birth Week activities with different people -- and I once again have little time to write about it, as today is pretty busy too; right now I'm in between the Argosy Locks Cruise and going with Shobhit to see the Clintons speak (which you'll read about in tomorrow's post).

First, as indicated in last night's post, was the Birth Week Bike Ride with Dad -- I had driven the rest of the way to Olympia to stay the night with Dad and Sherri after dinner with Danielle in Renton. I used my key to get into the front door, thinking they were still at dinner with Matthew, but Sherri was in bed, although she was awake. I was going to go find Dad but I wound up talking with Sherri for some time before Dad even realized I was there.

She told me a bit about their first dinner with Jennifer and Matthew. Predictably, it was a bit awkward. But, at least now they've met, and perhaps Sherri will be more comfortable with Matthew being around at the next family gathering. Assuming he's still around.

The bigger news was . . . They got a new kitty! Still somewhat of a kitten, apparently a year old this month, she's still pretty tiny, at least compared to my cats. I got three pictures and one video of her, which make up the second through sixth photo in the full photo album on Flickr for my visit with Dad and Sherri, which otherwise has 39 shots in it, three of them videos.

They haven't given the cat an official name yet because they don't like what its previous owner called it ("Hoodlum," which I don't like either, even if they did call her "Hoodie" for short) and they haven't had her long enough to get a sense of her personality. She's very skittish so far, and she was under their bed when I was chatting with Sherri in their bedroom. She had apparently been in that spot the past two days, after moving around other hiding spots since being brought home last Saturday. But! She came out for me! And she even let me pet her. She slinked past me and down the hallway, and later came out from under the living room couch to let me pet her as well. She was very affectionate and sweet.

I finally made it to bed, and by yesterday mornng, Dad and I were heading out for our bike ride at roughly 10 a.m. Dad had figured we would ride for about two hours, and the roughly 18-mile, round trip actually took us closer to three hours. But, that was fine. You can see lots of pictures of it, riding the Chehalis Western Trail in the opposite direction from when we did it in August 2017, as the photo album includes 23 shots from the bike ride alone (including the brief video above).

After that, Dad and Sherri took me out to lunch, to a place I had never been to but which very much aligned with this year's nautical theme -- Tugboat Annie's. Sherri found a nice corner booth in the back where through two windows you could see the West Bay Marina, the lush greenery of Priest Point Park across the water from that, and in the other direction even the State Capitol Building in the background, which made for a nice backdrop between Dad and Sherri in this great photo of them that I took.

The place had little in the way of vegetarian options, but did have a veggie burger that was quite good; I also substituted onion rings for fries. I suppose that was kind of rude of me, since Dad covered my lunch. I told him I was perfectly willing to pay for it! He actually said it was okay; he was just surprised by the margin of upselling for their burgers, which are much higher than he has at the Shipwreck Cafe, and apparently people complain about his. (The onion rings upcharge was $2; and it was another $2 for the Swiss cheese I wanted on it. I'm 43 years old and still spoiled.)

Anyway Tugboat Annie's yielded another nine photos, many of them of boats, one of them even of a pretty large sculpture of a boat inside the restaurant, as part of the massive array of knickknacks in there. Our waiter was so inattentive at the end though that Dad had to basically say "screw it" and use the cash he had on hand that meant a much smaller tip, just so we could get out of there.

We said our goodbyes in the parking lot there, and I was headed back to Seattle by about a quarter till three. That gave me just enough time to get home by around 5:00, giving Shobhit and me roughly half an hour to get ready before we headed out again, to a wine tasting at Total Wine & More where he had signed us up -- since he's an employee, he and a plus-one could do it for free.

And thus began the three events yesterday that I combined into one photo set, as combined they all made for 26 shots: five at the wine tasting; 15 for dinner and walking the Edmonds boardwalk with Lynn, Zephyr and Nick; and six for a brief run-in with Gabriel and Lea, which will have to count as my official "Birth Week activity" with him -- but it still means his now-16-year streak remains unbroken!

Anyway the wine tasting was pretty fun, and Shobhit, all about calculating how to get enough points to become a "Grand Reserve" member who thus gets even bigger discounts (because of Shobhit's accent, I kept thinking he was saying "Grand Wizard" -- not the greatest title, that), literally bought twenty-one bottles of wine. They were all pretty reasonably priced individually but they sure added up, to the few hundred he was actually aiming for. This way we can go back there next week to use further discounts on hard liquor I need to replenish our stock.

I ate too much yesterday, what with the onion rings at lunch and the free snack spread at the wine tasting. Shobhit asked me to drive after that, as he had more wine than I did; even what little wine I had, maybe because there were so many different ones to taste, kind of left me feeling almost-sick wonky last night. I took some Aleve for a bit of a pressure headache that persisted even this morning.

We drove from Total Wine up to Edmonds to meet Lynn and Zephyr for dinner, at a place called Demitris Woodstone Taverna, which I suggested both because it's on the waterfront and therefore the next-best thing to managing actually to get on a boat with Lynn, and it's all of about three miles from where she lives. Presumably I-5 and Highway 99 were both too clogged with traffic, so the GPS on my phone guided us all the way up on side streets. I had never gone all the way up to Edmonds without using a freeway or highway before. It still took us only about forty minutes or so.

They had never eaten at this restaurant, and I get the sense they will never feel the need to again. But whatever, it worked for this one time! Shobhit and I split a beet salad that I found delicious aside from the beets, which I rolled down the plate for Shobhit to eat; and a pasta dish. I barely had time to register how good it was because Zephyr asked what all else I had been doing for my Birth Week and it took me a good long while to get through it all.

And then, at Lynn's suggestion, we walked a bit down the Edmonds boardwalk at sunset. She warned us it would be chilly, and she wasn't kidding, but as I said to her on our way back from the long pier we walked out on (and got the above group selfie), it wasn't miserable. Now, through much of this, I got the occasional text from Gabriel, who said he was in the U District for a "science and comedy" show just like the one where he first saw her as a guest academic last fall, which eventually led to him asking her own a couple of months later. He thought this could be our Birth Week activity.

The viability of that plan sort of vacillated. Oh I forgot, when he first brought it up, he called me on the phone while I was at that wine tasting. And I told him I had dinner plans at 7:30. In the end, though, Lynn and Zephyr as well as Shobhit and I managed to get to the restaurant right around 7:00 instead, which made meeting up with Gabriel more of a maybe. And then, when I got a text from Gabriel that Lea would be onstage in another 30 minutes, I had to text him back that I didn't think we would make it.

And for a while I just resigned myself to it not happening, as I did not want to try rushing our rather lovely walk on the boardwalk and pier. That walk made for some very nice photos, such as this one of me inside a sculpture of a boat along with three sculpted kids sailing it through the sand. Fantastic! An official "Birth Week Boat" with Lynn! I rarely manage anything besides dinner with Lynn and thus have little hope of getting her time with me aligned with the Birth Week theme of the year, but I did get that nice little surprised. She also suggested she might even manage to get a day off work next year for a weekday visit to a state park (as next year will be a state parks tour).

And then, once time with Lynn and Zephyr (and her youngest, now 18(!), Nick) naturally wound down and we all promised to try getting together more often like he always do -- the plan now is for next time we'll have dinner at their place -- it was right around 9:00.

And I should give Shobhit some credit here, because in spite of being super tired and really not wanting to go out anywhere else, he went along with little complaint when I decided to try and go catch Gabriel and Lea at Laughs Comedy Club in the U District.

It was a 22-minute drive, and the main portion of the show was winding down when we arrived. The lady representing the venue, who was sitting at the empty bar outside the show room when we came in, said if it were up to her she would let us in, but this show was organized by someone else, who was onstage at the moment, and it was up to him.

But just a few minutes later Gabriel came out to find us waiting in the bar, Shobhit nursing a tonic water he ordered just so we wouldn't be loitering. Gabriel convinced the venue woman to let him take us in through the back door of the show room, saying, "I'm with ... the talent, and if there's any problem, I'll take the hit."

Gabriel had been siting in the very back, and when Shobhit and I came in, the two comedians, one of them the host of the show (Shane Mauss, who also hosted last fall's event and apparently does these "science and comedy" shows all over the country) , were back onstage for a Q&A with the two academics, one of them Lea. Lea did not get to speak quite as much during this portion, as the other woman, who did sound very fascinating just based on what I heard her say here, had spoken about gender differences, which is a bit of a lightning rod issue so there was a lot of questions, from the host and the audience alike.

It took a bit of time, because there was the Q&A session and then people standing in line to speak to the guest academics (exactly what Gabriel had tried to do with Lea last fall but the line had been too long; he later connected with her on Facebook -- it's a whole story that I won't share here because that's not my life and I'd get details wrong and irritate the shit out of Gabriel in the process anyway), but finally Lea came back to greet us all. The other guest academic (I would use her name but I have no idea what it was) came to speak to Lea for several minutes, and there was even some brief conversation between Shane Mauss and Gabriel and Shobhit.

Once everyone was ready to leave, Gabriel asked if we wanted to get a quick drink somewhere else nearby. We couldn't get this to work for all of us; Shobhit was too tired and suggested they swing by our place -- we had 21 bottles of wine in our trunk, after all. But, Gabriel had much left to do at home in Tacoma still, and felt the only thing he could do was a quick drink somewhere nearby.

So, we all just said our goodbyes, and that was it. But not before we took some pictures up on the stage! Including one of Gabriel and me with the Laughs Comedy Club sign as the backdrop, as if we were a comedy duo. I like the group selfie I took of the four of us up there with just the "wall clouds" backdrop, as it looks like a sitcom promotional still. And after that, Shobhit and I went home.

If nothing else, I managed to see Gabriel for my Birth Week, which he has often accused me of using to bilk people out of spending money on me, and he didn't have to spend anything for it. So he should appreciate that, at least!

Hmm. I guess this post wasn't that short, was it? Story of my life!

[posted 5:19 pm]