Day 257

Went to the Evergreen State Fair with Ferretnick and Hotness. Had a great time and a LOT of fried food. Bought nifty lotion.

Had dinner with Angie at Ixtapa. I'm pitiful and miss her already and it hasn't even been one work day yet.

Watched Psych at the dog-sitting house.

Got a little more painting in.

Finished Pillars of the Earth.

Day 256

Woke up nice and early and bought paint. Got first and some second coats on some of the walls. painting is stinky and exhausting, more so when it is your walls being painted.

Read more Pillars of the Earth. Finally picking up storywise.

Day 255

Very busy day. Moved into Gargoyle Toe's cube. Missed my appt to pick up my orthotics. Started dog sitting for Riley and Sammi, and ran home to let them out before joining the girls at Claim Jumper to celebrate Angie's last day at work. Relaxed at dogsitting house.

Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 254

Gargoyle Toe's last day. Pretty busy at work and I was stoked to get out of there, especially with GT being weirdly emotional.

Read more Pillars.

Day 253

Went to work early to help out with a project. Left early.

Read more Pillars. Read some comics.

Day 252

Dropped by The Stop. Had dinner with Paul and Jim at Billy McHales. Had a nice conversation after with Paul.

Watched some TV. Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 251

I have no idea what I did this day.... If I was hanging out with you, let me know. Sorry about the sucking and whatnot.

Day 250

Ran around collecting things for Gargoyle Toe's retirement shindig. Attended shindig. Made small talk and felt very mature.

Came home and witnessed a hit and run. Then chased down the runner and turned her in to the police like the stool pigeon I am.

Laid around exhaustedly and watched TV.

Had an annoying conversation with Grandma in which there was much repetition and no excitement about my Kitchen Aid. *sigh*

Watched Dexter and the season finale of Venture Bros. [Hey, make more episodes so I can have a story arc. A whole one. KTHX]

Read more Pillars of the Earth. Guess what. The bad things in the book, there are now more of those type things. This is the most depressing book ever. It would be cool if a good thing would happen. Please. I'll finish this because Stephanie said it was good. But isn't real life dismal enough?

Day 249

Cleaned house. Drove Rachel out to Mon’s in-laws for her bridal shower, which was only sort of awful.

Dropped by Everett Mall then went to my awesome b-day BBQ. Had pizza instead of BBQ. The Jasons, Paul, Jim, George, 2.0 + new lady, Todd + Stephanie, Tom + Hotness, the Columbo’s, and Rachel in attendance. I got a host of awesome stuff including a musical toothbrush and a new Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Was very shocked at the awesomeness of the Kitchen Aid. Almost speechless.

Read more Pillars of the Earth. Stayed up way too late.

Today was very damp, but pretty much awesome.

Day 248

Made breakfast with Jim. Jim and I picked up Sean and the Jasons and helped Paul move his stuff back into the house. Had lunch at Roundtable.

Dropped Sean off. Tidied the house. Jim and I went out shopping and he bought a nice bedroom set.

Picked up Czar and went to game night at The Stop and saw the debut of Kirby Krackle.

Dropped Czar off at home.

Day 247

Had lunch with Mon, Katie, and the kids.

Frosted the cake in a hurry and scurried to Kieran's b-day BBQ at Lynn's. Lynn, Michael, Diane, Kevin, Angie, Melody, Jack, and Leni in attendance.

Picked up Jim and went game night at the Sluss' with Steve and Addy. Very nice.

Today was busy but good.

Day 246

Baked a yellow cake with blueberries for Kieran’s b-day BBQ.

Splashed around in water aerobics with Jill and Sheena.

Attempted to tidy.

Read comics.

Day 245

Returned bin to Freddy's and got new bins. Ran by Target to buy Mon's wedding presents. Stopped in at The Stop to say hey and ended having dinner with Jim and Paul.

Came home and destroyed the damn house by trying to go through my stuff and get rid of things/put them in plastic bins for storage. Watched Primeval and Dexter with Jim.

Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 244

Fetched Czabrina and went to Brix for dinner and cocktails. We went to Fred Meyer to find printer paper and found that plastic bins were on sale. Had a run-in with a crazy.

Went to Staples for paper, then over to Café Ladro for coffee and cookies.

Back to Czabrina’s to chat.

Made a huge mess of my room, then went to bed feeling ill. Reflux was out of control and made it impossible to sleep.

Day 243

Super hard to get out of bed an hour early. Helped with a huge meeting. Pulled a muscle in my ass. This was not good.

Steve fetched me from home and we had dinner at Zak’s in Ballard, and then had coffee and cupcakes at Cupcake Royale. Very sad to learn Sweet Posie’s hours have become even more stupid.

Helped Steve with his haircut and checked in on Addy.

Watched Primeval with Jim. I am on the fence about this show.

Ridiculous heartburn today. My own stupid fault.

Day 242

Packed up and left the dogsitting house. Returned home and ate a big breakfast. Watched TMNT:FF, DS, CR, and a British mystery. Made dark chocolate raspberry ice cream (from The Perfect Scoop.) Delicious but very rich.

Had pasta at FSD, all present and Frank was over as well. Came home and watched John Adams with Jim and had ice cream

Stayed up far too late reading Pillars of the Earth.

Day 241

Got up early and met Kim down at the farmers market in Edmonds. She showed me my birthday present, a Dalek cross stitch. Genius. Bought berries and cherries. Dropped in at Starbucks and headed home to make blueberry buttermilk pancakes with Jim. Froze the remaining berries.

Watched TV and finished The Red Paperclip.

Blew off my tenth HS reunion, because I'm a jerk.

Had dinner and went to bed. Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 240

Met up with Melody for a super pj fun night. Rented In Bruges (good, but could have liked more funny) and dropped in at the liquor store. Bought tequila, blueberry vodka, and Starbucks liquer (all in mini bottles). Was tempted by, but ultimately did not buy any Patron. Had dinner at a Chinese place in Woodway. It was pretty good.

Watched the movie and drank heavily. FYI- Blueberry vodka is delicious.

At 11:30 two ambulances pulled up next door to the dogsitting house. I was worried and they did ultimately take someone away. Without their lights and with no urgency. This seemed ominous.

Pretty much a nice way to end the week. (Let the dog sleep on the bed tho, and in hindsight this was a mistake. Oh well. Having one's spleen trampled is not the worst fate.)

Day 239

Watched Colbert Report and Daily Show whilst sipping delicious strawberry Crush.

Checked my slug traps. It was a blood (slime?) bath. GROSS.

Ran to Alderwood Mall with the roomy to check out some furniture and dropped in at Coach for some leather cleaner and conditioner. (Guess what I’m doing this weekend! Good times.)

Also went to Cost Plus (bought candy) then Target for new plastic bins. I only need ohhhhhhh, 8 or 9 more.

Checked in on George at The Stop to pick up Walking Dead. SO GOOD.

Had yummy Ixtapa for dinner.

Repacked my crafting boxes and secret gift stash box into bins. Chatted with Paul. Watched a few more episodes of Californacation. Which has me actually giving a damn. I am very excited to watch the last 2 episodes of the season.

Read more Red Paperclip yadda yadda. Really intend to finish it tonight, Saturday at the latest and then get back to Pillars of the Earth, which was also starting to warm up nicely.

Day 238

Ran to Walgreens (didn't have what I wanted), then Safeway (made a huge mess), Joann's (alienated an elderly lady). Then blew off going to the comic book store as I was too scared to put my friends in danger by lurking about with my bad ju ju.

Watched Daily Show/Colbert Report (Mostly. Getting tired of the campaign that will not die.) then sewed up the Plush bean bag chair liner while watching Californication (which took a while to get interesting. It was all Mulder banging chicks for like 4 episodes before something happened of interest.)

Forgot to mention that I started reading One Red Paperclip yesterday and read some more today. It is fine. I hope to finish it tomorrow and return it to my aunt so I can complete the numerous books in my to read pile.

Spoke with Mother and it looks like Canada says she's eh O.K. to become a citizen next month. Very exciting. (That pun would be more awesome if more than 3 people read this blog. Three readers: that joke was for you. My gift. Free of charge.)

Day 237

Watched the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Went to the Seattle Premium Outlet Stores with Jim, Jason, and Deuce. Picked up some Barefoot Contessa coconut cake mix and a gift for someone else. Had snacks at Bob's.

Read and crashed.

Day 236

Scarfed leftovers and watched Venture Bros.

Met with Jeremy, Andrew, Andy, Jennifer and Chris at DBS. (Apparently 80’s Night.)

Chatted with the roommate and crashed.

Day 235

Had cinnamon rolls for breakfast then headed over to Ballard for some shopping. Had lunch at Snoose Junction with Czar, Czabrina, and Ron. (Snoose Junction took forever and their pizza was not very good.)

Ran to the grocery store to load up on Swedish Fish, Pop Tarts and PB Captain Crunch for Mom.

Had Auntie and Mel’s Birthday celebration (with pot roast and ice cream cake). Played a few games.

Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 234

After a frustrating phone conversation I met with Mom and Grandma at Café Ladro in Bothell and then Mom and I drove out to La Conner. We had lunch at Calico Cupboard (and picked up cinnamon rolls for later) and then went shopping in town. I picked up a few gifts and we made it back to the car before it started raining.

Ran over to Alderwood Mall and looked for a new skirt for Mom, but her heart wasn’t in it so we returned home.

Later we met with Steve and Addy for dinner at Taste of India. Afterwards Mom and I watched Broken Flowers, which was very good.

Day 233

Went shopping with Jim and had dinner at Spaghetti Factory. (Yay spumoni!)

Found a new tower entertainment center-y thing and watched Jim put it together. Finished up Ultraviolet (the BBC series, which should have been a long running series, darn it).

Read some comics.

Day 232

Had to work at the branch office stupid early this morning. Stupid working in the field.

Met up with Steve and ran around looking for Halloween costumes and birthday gifts and didn't have a ton of luck.

We had really great dinner at Las Margaritas, then sat around at Richmond Beach. Finally we went back to visit with Addy and had root beer floats with Falanna and the kids.

Read some comics.

Today was a good day.

Day 231

Left work a tad early and picked Czar up for a comic book adventure. Met up with a bunch of folks at The Stop. Had dinner with Ferretnick, Hotness, Jim, Czar and George at Red Robin. Ron and Czabrina met us there and everyone came back to our place to chat and whatnot.

Read some comics.

Day 230

Picked up Sean and did some shopping for presents. Had Panda. Watched some TV. Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Today was a good day.

Day 229

Work at branch office at 7:20. Not so much with the fun. Especially since I got no sleep on account of how comfortable my bed is. Oh bed, bed, bed, bed, bed. And yet no sleep.

Came home and watched some TV. Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 228

4:30 am, a squirrel attacked my uncle. Delicious revenge.

Drove home and mostly slept.

Went with Mel and Jess to pick up Thai. Ate Thai with the fam. Returned home for laundry and TV.

Day 227

Got up at the ass crack of dawn to drive 3 hours (one of which was on a dangerous unpaved curvy cliff side road) to go on a jet boat trip. Auntie has nerves of steel.

Jet Boat Trip Summary:

Eavesdropped on moron ranger who knows nothing, while waiting for the very late boat.

Sat on nice boat and saw bald eagles and mountain goats.

Had delicious lunch.

Got on other boat.

Passed wreck of other boat.

Saw dam.

Started really cold raining.

Then hailing.

Thought angry ungrateful thoughts.

Went through very cold rapids.

More mean thoughts.

Drove to Dog Bark Park Hotel.

Drove back to Hells Gate State Park.

Shorter Summary:

It was Hell's Gate.

Had pizza.

Read more Pillars of the Earth.

Day 226

Brad's back went out, so the rest of us took a beautiful scenic drive out to the Emerald Creek Garnet Area. We traveled up and up and up and entered what is called the Palouse. It was like finding the Teletubby land there at the top of the world. It was gorgeous. If you have to live up at 7% grade 25 mile road in BFE nowhere, at least you can leave in verdant weirdly regularly hilled countryside. But I don't think that they have a grocery store.

We dug buckets of dirt and screened them for star garnets, and I found a few. It was kind of crowded and pretty hot. And full of rednecks. Anyway, we had lunch at the campground and Auntie was so excited at the old water pump.

On the way home we stopped at a produce store in Moscow for ice cream. I had blackberry swirl and it was AMAZING. Best ice cream of the trip.

Played board games and made a weird photo tableau with my Santos.

Started Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. It is pretty good so far.