25

So I finished off my first quarter of a century last Wednesday, and it was all great except for the allergy induced coughing asthma business. A bunch of my friend's joined me at B&O Espresso for a little late night dinner/dessert. I got some beautiful flowers, jewelery, chocolates, a stuffed animal and the all too important paper crown. The weekend before Travis took me to Monsoon for a delicious dinner, and towards the end of the month we'll be going to see a performance by the Alvin Ailey dance company. All in all, I'd say it felt pretty great.

Mt. Baker

The boy and I went skiing with 2 other couples this past weekend after our super fun Valentine's date. For Valentine's day, Travis picked me up after I finished volunteering and then we had dinner at Coastal Kitchen. It was sooo good, especially the hot fudge sundae at the end. After that we went home for a bit before going out to see Heather's new beau play in his band (Golden Robot Army). We got there for the band before them (Sarabine) and they were great, very cabaret but folky. Then Alex and his friends got up there and really gave us a show. I loved watching the bartender rock out to the cover of Crazy Train. Then we got home late, I tried to pack for the weekend and didn't get to bed until 3 a.m. The next morning we gathered everything we needed for the trip and tried to stuff it all in the car knowing that we still needed to get Claire, Ted and their toy poodle, Ralph along with all their stuff into the car. We went to Bottleworks in Wallingford to get some hard to find beers, which ended up going over well. Then we stopped at my office so I could pick up a few things and see Denise on her last day, she brought her 4 year old too, so I got to be chased around the office for a bit. Then we grabbed Claire, got Ted in Everett and met up with Paul and Pauline at the Fred Meyer off I-5. We got all of our rations and set off to the cabin. It was so pretty, It looked as if it belonged in the Swiss Alps. We unpacked the cars, stuffed 6 people in Travis' car and headed to Glacier for some dinner. We all had some great pasta and then went back to the cabin for the hot tub and some beverages. We made our way to bed at a responsible hour, so that we could get up to go skiing in the morning. I made some breakfast tacos in the morning, and after they got scarfed down we headed to the mountain. Travis and I got our skis and lessons signed up for and Ted showed us the ropes. We all thought Travis was really horrible, but then he got a new pair of boots and found out his foot was bleeding and he did much better after that. Our lesson was pretty bad, the older your ski instructor, the more they just want to talk and not actually do anything. So we ditched the end of that class and went up on the chair. Travis fell off the first time, but he stayed on his feet after that (at least on the slopes, he always seemed to fall at the end of the run.) Pauline met up with us for our last run and we met up with the other boys to end our beatiful, sunny day on the mountain. The boys downed a beer, we took some pictures and it was back home to see if Claire and Ralph survived. She did, so we all went in the hot tub and then Pauline made some awesome lasagna for all and we were ready for a night of drinking and board games. The night lasted quite a while and we were glad we'd all decided against skiing for Sunday. Since Travis wasn't feeling so hot, the rest of us left him in the cabin to go hike, build snowbabies and shoot some stuff. I demolished that packet of ramen, let me tell you. That shotgun just disintegrated it. We went back to the cabin, packed up, straightened up and left for home. I was so glad I had Monday off to recover.

Last Week

Monday: Work then ballet
Tuesday: Work then funk
Wednesday: Work, dinner, DVD, gymnastics
Thursday: Work, volunteer, dinner
Friday: Work, dinner, bake cake, see movie (Teeth)
Saturday: Brunch followed by shopping with the boys, dinner followed by performance with the girls
Sunday: Dim Sum, downtown, and then Alex's goodbye party

In short, I need another weekend.

New Year

Well, I think the holiday frenzy is officially over. Everyone is back, all visiting family is out of town and the sun's even breaking out a little today and lasting past 4:30. Work is back in full force and I just got the apartment really clean this past weekend. I think I just got the last Christmas present in the mail this weekend, though if there happened to be another straggler or two I would not be sad about it. Now the mind turns toward the next long weekend. I get to go skiing with my friend at her cousin's cabin and it should be great. Travis has this weekend off and maybe it'll be sunny and we can get out and do something fun. In the meantime, I've started back up on my two dance classes and gymnastics with the boys on Wednesdays seems to be on again. So maybe I'll get back into shape after all that holiday food. Though doubtful since I just stumbled on a recipe for chocolate sheet cake, and that got me thinking about Grandma's Texas Sheet Cake and now I have to make that very soon.

Holiday Lovely

My mom is crazy. She flew in on Thursday afternoon for a surprise weekend visit. The surprise was on her, when I wasn't answering my phone due to a meeting and she straggled around Seattle for 3 hours waiting for me. But I finally connected with her and we played some Scrabble, she gave me some presents and the weekend was off to a good start. Ron let me off Friday afternoon and I met up with Mom and Travis for some lunch. Then Mom and I went and ran some errands and then worked on some craft projects at home. She finished up my kitchen curtains for me, while I cleaned up for my party on Saturday. Saturday came around and we were in full prep mode until we decided to grab some lunch and it started snowing very constantly for a few hours. Mom, Travis and I went to Volunteer Park and had some fun in the Winter Wonderland it had become. Then it was back to the apartment to finish getting ready. I like to think the party was a great success, about 25 people showed up despite the snow and everyone seemed to have a good time. Some food and drink with some wii play and not a single picture to show for it. I realized after the party that I hadn't pulled out a single camera. Oh well, I'll remember it. Sunday was a day of shopping so that I could send my Mom home with gifts for most of the people on my list. After shopping we came home and wrapped some presents and then went to dinner at Kingfish. Though the service was slow, it was late Sunday night, the food was excellent and Mom was pleased. I dropped her at the bus to the airport Monday moring and that was it. Can't wait to see her again in May, but until then we got some webcams to close the gap.

Autumn

So there was a Halloween party on Saturday and it was gayer than gay (as all good Halloween parties should be). I went as a dead disco queen (complete with 2' radius blonde afro) and Travis bloodied himself into a zombie-tastic mess (the secret to happiness is apparently found at the bottom of a bottle of stage blood). Mindy was Jackie O (with assassination blood spatter) and the boys were a cowboy and an indian (all gay men's Halloween outfits can be summed up in a pair of underwear). The party had so many grown (yet oddly hairless) men in their underwear that it was just weird. Now don't get me wrong, I did Halloween on Cap Hill last year too, but we were at bars, not in someone's well lit apartment. Luckily it was crowded so that made it somwhat less odd. Travis and I had to turn in early, but the party later moved onto Purr, where wardrobe malfunctions occurred. Geez Jesse, just use Josue's sheriff's badge as a safety pin and call it a day! I am now looking forward to actual Halloween night and learning the hustle at a disco costume party.

In other news, I'm team leader of my volunteer group for ACE this year. Planning has begun and the first meeting is on Thursday. We'll see if anyone can actually listen to the second youngest mentor in the group.

Oh and I made Mark Bittman's no-knead bread last night and it was amazing. You would not think it possible to get such rustic bakery quality bread from your ridiculously old electric oven, but you would be wrong. I'll put pictures of stuff up soon.

What a Summer!

Quick rundown:

3 week dance intensive (20 hours/week of dance followed by 2 performances)
Mother visited to see performances and help with next item
Move to new apartment with Travis
Go to Texas for family beach vacation
Came back and attempted to rest but mainly set up new apartment
Parents came with sister for 5 days

And that all finds me right here at my desk at the office with nothing to do. The project I have been working on for a year may very well be dead because of the evil community development director who wants to kill our project because it helps homeless people. Let alone we would be building on a site where there are already homeless people living, far be it from us to try and shelter and supervise those homeless, that would be crazy. By the way there has already been a million dollars worth of design and effort put into this project and we already had funding a contractor and plans that they said were approved back in December oh and a construction start date, but whatever, it's OK.

The dance intensive was great, I've made some lovely friends through the experience and will definitely be doing it again next year. I love our new apartment with its wood floors and cute little chandeleir. I'm so glad my Mom came up to visit, she was (as always) a huge help. Texas was alright except for the stupid family drama that is inevitable with one that large. It was nice to be able to swim in warm water though. Setting up the apartment has been pretty fun, some of the curtains are made and the pictures are somewhat hung and we get our new couch and TV this week and living with Travis has been wonderful. I'm so glad it has all been working out. The family just came for a visit, we went to Vancouver and Bainbridge and had a lot of good food and good times. I got my parents to walk a lot, so that was good and they used all kinds of transit while here, I was so proud. There were planes, trains, automobiles, buses, ferries and even light rail in Canada.

So next up will be a housewarming party and then I can start having people over for dinner and I'll be so happy with that. Jesse and Josue's friends Claire and Ted just moved here and they're pretty great, so that's awesome. All is good and I'll try to put pictures somewhere.