I'm going to have to rush through the first few Birth Week posts this year, if not all of them: I did so much over the weekend, even though my Birth Week kicked off on Friday—the day before yesterday—and really involved four destinations over three days, and five official "Birth Week stops," I haven't had time to even begin writing about them until now.

So, now it's late Sunday evening, and I'm telling you about Friday. I took my time getting out of the office, mentioning to Michelle in Finance that I was kicking off my Birth Week, which I had told her about the previous Friday, and she was excited to hear about. I had also recently added her to my "travelogues" email distribution lists, and forwarded her all five of my emails about the trip to Australia. This was the first chance she had to respond to them directly to me, and she really gushed about them. I'm sometimes self-conscious about how long those emails tend to be, and I never know how really interested in them someone might be. (I know multiple people who want to be on the list, but still barely tend to glance at them.) Michelle proved to be very interested, though. "You are such a good writer!" she said to me. I even wound up giving her the URL to this website so she can browse my movie reviews.

Anyway. She and I chatted for several minutes, and then I walked—not all the way home, but to the restaurant I was to meet Tracy at for dinner, the same place Jennifer and Matthew and I had brunch when they came to stay the night last October: Terra Plata. It's a restaurant with a rooftop dining area on Capitol Hill, on Pike and Melrose, across the street from the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. The place is very expensive, but the food is delicious enough to justify the price.

I still got there quite early, having made reservations at 5:30, which was actually perfect, because I had wanted to look around Melrose Market, the building for which Terra Plata is also a part of, so I lump them together. My Birth Week theme this "hidden gems," and I think Melrose Market qualifies as a hidden gem in its own right: it's like a mini mall, with maybe seven shops on either side of a small, central corridor. A few other businesses—including Terra Plata—total about ten in the building. This market has been there for many years, but I only discovered it a few years ago, as it kind of hides in plain sight, and I'm sure I'm hardly the only person on Capitol Hill who went so long not knowing it was there.

I had hoped to walk through it and take photos with Tracy, but she arrived right at the time of our reservation, and the shops were all closed after dinner ended. Thankfully, I took the extra time after I got there early just to get some photos myself, which included an empty venue down a set of stairs. The shops were all closing up even at that point.

As for Tracy's actual arrival, coming in via an Uber, her timing was impeccable. I actually tried texting her at 5:29 to see if she could give me an ETA; she then pulled up and exited the backseat, wearing a chic black and white number that she didn't even mean to coordinate with my outfit, literally two minutes later.

I had made reservations online, and someone from Terra Plata emailed me via that reservations website two different times. They said the reservation was an hour and 45 minutes, and asked if that was enough time and also whether we needed to go to a show or anything like that after. The answer to the latter question was no, or so I thought; the answer to the former question was that it was more than enough time, or so I thought. Really it turned out fine, even though they took a surprisingly long time to get our dinner orders out. But, they also stretched out our reservation to two full hours anyway.

Another email had asked if we were celebrating, and I said we were celebrating my birthday, even though it wasn't actually that day—which was true. I still wasn't expecting a menu with the header Happy Birthday Matthew! I was very impressed; Tracy was not. She was just like, "You've never seen that before?" No, I haven't!

Tracy came very hungry. So, even though I'd have been more than satiated with just my dinner order, Tracy wanted to order two appetizers to share in addition: frites, and a cheese plate. Both were fantastic. However, nothing could compare to the dinner order: Tracy had a burger she was very impressed with; I had a risotto dish—the only vegetarian option among the entrees—that was truly phenomenal. I really wanted to share half of it with Shobhit, who was at home, and I really needed to get the second half of it boxed up just so I wouldn't finish it because it was so delicious.

So. Here's a big part of my being behind on getting started on this year's Birth Week blog posts: Danielle texted me at 2:30 Saturday afternoon, Wanna go with me to a comedy show tonight on cap hill at 8?

I told her I totally would, but I had plans, and had no idea when I would be done. Initially I estimated I would have maybe a 50/50 chance of being able to join her.

But then, just as I was walking to Terra Plata from work, we exchanged some more texts. When I asked her what compelled her to get tickets to this show, she said she'd had a date who had to back out when his babysitter canceled. The comedy club tickets were already purchased, though, and he just let Danielle have them. And, Danielle could not find anyone to go with her.

Now I felt bad. I didn't want her to have to go alone. I mean, if she'd had to she would have been fine, but it wouldn't put me out to make an effort to join her—especially when it would also be a free ticket to a comedy show for me, and at Club Comedy, which is less than half a mile straight up 15th Avenue from my condo building! So, once I met up with Tracy at Terra Plata, I let her know I would be needing to head out by 7:30 at the latest.

Then, Danielle texted me she was just eating her dinner—at home! in Renton!—shortly after 7:00. Plus, I realized these shows never start on time anyway. I didn't need to push it, although it would still be better for me to get home briefly to drop off my bag, and especially the leftovers I had for Shobhit.

To my astonishment, Danielle also Ubered to our event—all the way from Renton! That cost her more than sixty bucks. She did the same back home afterward too, which cost her more than seventy. She rakes in the dough as a longtime nurse now though, so, whatever. Money is no object! She texted me that she was arriving at the club at 8:15.

This gave me plenty of time to go home first. Tracy actually paid for my dinner at Terra Plata, which was never expected but I also never feel any discomfort accepting anyone's generosity. I'm doing my best to limit my Birth Week budget this year as compared to other years—having rented a car for the weekend notwithstanding—so this really helped with that budget. And, right about 7:30, Tracy was about to call herself another Lyft or Uber, and I told her I could just walk home from there. I certainly wasn't going to ask for her to go out of her way to give me a ride home in a ride she was paying for. And, I now had enough time anyway.

This gave me about ten minutes to settle stuff at home before leaving again. And still, I wound up there by Club Comedy at about 8:05. I actually heard the show start before Danielle got there. Predictably, the headliner we were there to see—a guy named Cory Michaelis—was preceded by a couple of openers, maybe three.

Danielle arrived, and we were escorted to the sole table still empty, a two-seater well toward the back, like literally on the other side of the wall from the kitchen. It was fine. we ordered one drink each, and Danielle also added a chips and queso basket. She gave her card for holding the tab, and paid at the end, and there was never any discussion about my paying her back. She never stated she intended to, though, and even though this total bill was comparatively modest and I just a few moments ago was talking about how she's rolling in money, we're already easily connected on Venmo so I decided to send her my $22 half of the order at the end of the evening. I decided to mess with the other people on her Venmo friends list by including the note, Clandestine salacious activity.

One of the opening comics was a trans man from Everett who is very early in his transition, who went out of his way at one point in their act to say they don't care about pronouns, which was interesting. There were some good jokes in this set, but it lacked a bit of polish. The buy before her, a middle-aged guy who could easily be assumed to be straight but turned out to be gay, was pretty funny. The headliner was great, and I was surprised to learn he was also from Everett; I tend to expect headliners at these shows to be traveling comedians from elsewhere. This guy was just as good as any other headliner I've seen in a club like this though. Danielle and I both laughed a lot.

Club Comedy is very small, but they packed a pretty good crowd in there. There had to be a crowd of at least a hundred, maybe 150. Wait, found it! It seats "about 100." They're really packed in, though, and it's an effective setup. I've noticed Club Comedy there on 15th before but never invested much in looking into it. Now that I've seen a show there, I'll absolutely go back again.

After the show, I invited Danielle to come to the condo and hang out for a bit, say hi to Shobhit. She wanted a joint so we went to Ruckus, the pot shop across the street from quasi-monopolist Uncle Ike's on 15th. I can't even remember now if she lit one up while we walked. She didn't in the condo, where she accepted two cocktails, and actually made the second one herself.

It was fun to see her in this very spontaneous way, actually. This was just a bonus visit, not the official "Birth Week activity" with her—that was already scheduled for Friday, and still part of the plan. I didn't even think to take any pictures of her that night—I only took a photo of the front of the Club Comedy building while I was waiting for her to arrive. I otherwise have a dedicated photo album for Friday on Flickr with 22 shots in it.

I walked Danielle downstairs to wait with her for the Uber that came to pick her up and take her back to Renton. She felt this was all worth it, and rightly noted spending all this money on long distance ride shares was better than risking a DUI. After that, I needed to get to bed so I could prepare for the rest of my weekend as quickly as I could. Which means: I need to post this so I can start up another post about Saturday!

[posted 11:07 pm]