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Yesterday B got motivated and started painting the other half of the living room, these walls get the color "latte" from Restoration Hardware, a nice light tan. It looks a lot better with the white trim than the white did before. While she was doing that I cleaned up our bedroom, hauled down the closet doors that have been up in the attic since we bought the place, and installed them. Our bedroom looks twice as big now, and way more white with those big ass closet doors.

A few weeks ago B had reserved some picnic tables at the nearby park for a picnic Sunday, so of course instead of the mid 80s and sunny we'd been having, it was mid 60s and rainy. The kids still had a blast, and it wasn't as boring as I'd thought it was going to be. Of course, the weather today it mid 70s and sunny again.
posted 3:35 PM | link | 0 comments

Booze Train! Wooo!

Well, it was fun, but not that fun. Yesterday we went on the Spirit of Washington dinner train, my mom had given us free Dome Car seats. It's a 3 hour train ride with a lunch, going from Renton up Lake Washington to Columbia Winery in Woodinville, then back. The dome car seats have a great view, but boy do they ever rock and sway.

The food was pretty mediocre, the salad was a bit limp, my entree was the worst monte cristo sandwich I'd ever had, but the dessert was pretty good.

The winery had 3 wines to taste, and the first two (a dry white for $26 a bottle and a cab/merlot for $24 a bottle) were both terrible, I'd be willing to drink them for $3, maybe $5 a bottle, but I'd feel ripped off if I'd paid $10. The third was a very nice riesling for $10 a bottle, with a 20% discount for a full case. We split a case with our friends.

Last night we took the kids to the Seafair Torchlight parade. It starts at 7:30pm, and we arrived at 7pm and got a pretty nice curb spot, lots of people get there at noon or earlier to stake out big sections. The kids loved it, we only stayed until 9pm but it was well worth it for the expressions on the kids' faces and their exclamations.
posted 11:51 AM | link | 0 comments

Wednesday we went to the village again for their summer concert series, this week it was Hit Explosion, who play 70s disco songs. The first time I saw them was New Years Eve in 1996, with Bridget and her sister and her friends, back when we were just friends, before we were dating.

This time we brought swimsuits for the kids and let them play in one of the fountains. They had a blast, until Harry slipped and scraped his chest. I took him and Isabel to the food tents and got them each a monster chocolate chip cookie, B wasn't exactly thrilled with that. Harry had molten chocolate all over his face.

Tonight B and her mom are going out to a girls-night-out dinner with some of B's friends tonight, so I had to feed the kids. They got fish sticks and baked beans, and I fried up some Trader Joe's potstickers and had some Ranch Style beans. Sadly, nobody else in my family likes Ranch Style beans. Philistines, the lot of them.

Ohhhh man, I SO want one of the 2008 Dodge Challengers. Holy shit I never thought I'd see a NEW car I loved so much. That car is pure sex. I should buy one, garage it, and give it to Harry when he gets to college. That plus his huge blue eyes and he'd be getting laid *constantly*.

Next subject: I would like to state that I hate Adobe.

Fuckin' Acrobat.

We just bought a brand new copy of Acrobat Standard 7.0 for Mac.

The unclefuckers at Adobe gave us a CD with version 7.0.0 on it, which is dated December 14, 2004.

2004? What the fuck?

Once you install the 400Mb motherfucker, and don't get me started on how bloated it must be to weigh in at nearly half a GIG, you have to update it to something modern, because the CD has an 18 month old version.

Oh, but do they have an updater to 7.0.8? Noooooo, that'd make sense.

First you have to update 7.0.0 to 7.0.5.

Takes freakin' forever for that 70Mb download.

THEN you have to update from 7.0.5 to 7.0.7.

FINALLY you can update to 7.0.8.

Fucking Adobus.

Jesus wept.
posted 6:07 PM | link | 2 comments

Friday we went camping. The kids went to their Junior Explorer Nature Camp (or is it Junior Nature Explorer Camp? I don't know, but they don't either, I saw both used on their printed materials) while B packed clothes and I loaded up the camping gear. We then picked up some sushi for our lunch (the kids ate PBJs at their camp) and picked up the kids. It was crazy hot, like 90 degrees (I *so* love whining about "hot" when we're a full 25 degrees cooler than Los Angeles!) out, so I wanted to get a slurpee, and there was a 7-11 right nearby. I stopped in to get three, since I couldn't have one without the kids getting one too. They each got grape, the only non-diet non-caffiene flavor they had, and I got Frawg, a green apple caffiene flavor. A mile later B was shaking my slurpee to get it to settle better and her thumb crushed the side in, cracking it. D'oh! I stopped at the gas station a block ahead, tossed my poor sad undrank slurpee before it leaked all over the truck, and got a gatoraid as a sad second. Ah well.

We also had to stop off at the rental place leaving a letter authorizing the cable guy to put a hole in the wall for a new cable install for the new renter. Like I give a crap if someone bores a hole in the wall of that place. Geez.

The drive down to the La Wis Wis (just off Hwy 12 near Packwood, south of Mount Rainier) campground was great, not much traffic once we got off I-5, and it was a beautiful sunny day inside the air conditioned truck. Once we got there it was pretty hot, but our friends who were already there were about ready to leave. The shade had just hit a few minutes before, apparently earlier it had been ludicrously hot.

My plan of sticking the wife and kids in the back of the truck on foam pads worked out great, way faster than setting up a tent, and I just threw my old cammo tarp (that I'd bought 19 years ago when I was in the Marines) on the ground, threw a thermarest pad down, and a sleeping bag. If it rained, I'd fold the tarp over me like a HumbabaTaco.

I've been using the same White Stag (Coleman rip-off design) two-burner propane camp stove for years. Almost 10 years ago, very early our relationship, B stopped me from buying a serious 3-burner free-standing stove with griddle that was on sale at Costco, and I've wanted one like it ever since. The two burner one had a crappy griddle, and when in use that doesn't leave a burner free for coffee or heating water for dishes. The new stove is totally awesome. Three mega burners, and a big steel slab for a griddle. It worked out SO much better than in years past.

The kids had a great time while camping. We took a 2.4 mile round trip hike on Saturday to see a cool waterfall, and both kids did great. Isabel walked the whole way, and Harry only needed a lift a few times on the steeper uphill parts on the way back. They're getting to be much better hikers.

Saturday afternoon we spent a few hours down at the Blue Hole, which now has signs saying not to jump off the rocks. The river there was as cold as it always is, being fresh snow melt, so it was probably 36 degrees or something. The kids still waded in, and I was hot enough to swim across it and back. B didn't bring her bikini on purpose so she wouldn't be able to swim in it. Cold water wimp!

When we got back we took my portable awning and moved it down to the riverside and set it up as our cabana, putting our chairs inside. The cool breezes coming off the water were very very nice.

Dinner on Saturday was shashlik, which is russian for shish kabob. NotMe and his bride made it, and the recipe called for juniper berries. He couldn't think where to get some so he used a shot of gin instead. They were quite tasty, but pretty gristly since they were rib meat sans bones. NotMe made a ton of them too, it was all-you-can-meat.

Everyone was packed up and ready to roll by 9am on Sunday, which is typical of our group, so I suggested to B that we stop off at the King County Fair in Enumclaw on the way home. B had wanted to go to it, it was at the halfway point of our drive, and we didn't have anything else on our schedule for Sunday. B laughed at me for filling our day even fuller.

The Fair was fun. The kids got lemonaid, we looked at the bunnies and chickens and geese and ducks and horses and pigs and cows and llamas and alpacas and goats. Unfortunately for me, the only category they had for pigs was 'market hog', so just normal human sized pigs, not the classic Big Pig 800+ pound monster hogs that I love to see at the Puyallup Fair. Anytime anyone mentions any Fair, I always say "Big Pig!". I'm all about the big pig.

The kids had some terrible phad thai, B had a burger, and I had a lamb gyro for lunch, then they all had snow cones and I had the far superior Hawaiian Shave Ice. Mmmm, flavored snow, and brings back memories of B and my trip to the Big Island back in 1999.

We took the kids on the floating canoe ride they wanted, and the kids and I looked at the dogs while B got a airbrushed tattoo of three chinese characters that supposedly don't say "stupid white man" (they claim it says Goddess) on her arm. She ended up not liking it, fortunately it only lasts a week.

After that we took the kids home. On the way home we saw a huge amount of traffic on the Mercer exit to I-5, and remembered that the Bite of Seattle was this weekend, and I suggested going there for dinner, but we figured we'd pushed our luck with how much the kids can take for one weekend. They were exhausted.
posted 6:03 PM | link | 0 comments

Grape Cake!!

Yesterday I got email from WOPR:

Subject: Idea

Two words: Grape Cake

I'm not talking about real grapes here, I'm talking about purple soda grape.

-WOPR

Sounded good to me! On the way home from work I stopped at Safeway and picked up one white cake mix, one tub of white fluffy frosting, one packet of grape Koolaid, and a 12-pack of Session Lager, an excellently hopped crisp lager from Full Sail. My Safeway has a spot for Session on the beer shelf, but it's been continually empty for months, and when I saw a single halfrack I grabbed it so the spot would stay empty. You'd think *someone* would figure out that that beer is always selling out during the summer and stock more...

Isabel and I made the cake mix when I got home, and mixed the frosting with the Koolaid, then after dinner we frosted the cake and to top it off, we put purple sprinkles on it. The cake smells delicious, and the frosting tastes awesome, almost too strong, quite a grape kick. I called WOPR three times to come over and have a piece and drink beer, but WOPR switched from a landline to cell-only, and leaves his cell phone at home, turned off, so it's impossible to reach him with word of beer and yummy treats. I'll take the cake camping with us today, the 7 adults and 4 kids should be able to polish it off. Sorry WOPR! Leave your phone on someday! Too bad he doesn't like car camping.

Ugh. Yesterday I got up at 5am to take my friend and his family (the ones who live 300' away) to the airport. Their boy has some missing chromosome disease that like only 200 kids in the country have, and they're going to a convention in South Carolina with about half of those families. Anyway, driving to the airport at 5:15am is tiring but pretty easy, no traffic. Tons of traffic coming home, and the bright searing orb in the sky had cleared the skyline, so I was glad I remembered my sunglasses.

They got totally fucked by American Airlines, however. They just arrived in SC this morning (7:30 our time, 10:30 east coast time) which means it took 26 hours total instead of 9, and after spending a day in O'Hare, they had to get a hotel at their own expense since American refused to pay for fucking them. Once again, no courtesy reach-around. It was the hardest he'd ever been fucked by the airlines, and he's flown a shitload and been fucked plenty. Great travel experience with a 3 year old.
posted 7:51 AM | link | 2 comments

Last night we took the kids to the free concert at U Village. It had nothing to do with it being my turn to give the kids a shower. Nope. That was just a fortuitous coincidence.

Isabel is a dancing machine. These concerts are basically Isabelrobics. She's either dancing her heart out with her eyes basically closed, or running in circles tackling/being tackled by/wrestling with Harry.

There was another little girl by us, she wanted to dance with Isabel but Isabel was both rude and in the zone, not paying attention. Bridget eventually got the three kids playing duck duck goose with Bridget, which made B dizzy and gave her a migraine. I laughed.

The band was the Dudley Manlove Quartet", six guys playing 70s and 80s lounge music. Their FAQ is very funny. They were pretty good, but it's weird to hear songs sung by women covered by guys (such as Dancing Queen by ABBA).
posted 11:58 AM | link | 4 comments

Glub I feel like crap.

I walk to work one or two days a week, and the three-mile one-way walk generally leaves me feeling great, especially in the morning, I arrive all wide awake and ready to go. Thankfully, I'm not a very sweaty person unless it's beastly hot, which doesn't happen in the mornings.

Last Thursday I walked in, but as the walk went along I felt crappier and crappier. My limbs felt a little stiff and my knee hurt a bit, I thought I'd tweaked something. I got a ride home Thursday night. Friday morning I felt like I'd strained a muscle in my leg, and my arms ached a tiny bit. I didn't bike in.

By Saturday all my muscles felt like crap, and B had the same, so I knew I had some kind of flu. No trouble whatsoever with my head, breathing, or GI tract except the tiniest bit of sore throat.

Felt like crap on Sunday as well as Monday. Monday I stayed home and slept most of the day, but felt mostly the same on Tuesday. WOPR figured it must be leukemia. I figured the odds that both B and I would come down with leukemia the same weekend seemed a bit odd... heh. B had mostly the same symptoms, but her sore throat was much much worse than mine.

Today we went to the doctor, who did a strep swab on B to confirm she doesn't have strep. He figures we just have a viral infection that's been going around and our regime of treating it with ibuprofen was the right course.

Not that I've been sitting still, despite my aches and weakness. Friday night we took the kids and Peggy and went to a dinner wedding reception for B's closest Peace Corps friend, who lived in our basement for years. She'd eloped in Cabo San Lucas last April, the week before we'd been there. The event was at a Greek restaurant (she's greek) and the food and service was excellent. They had a live belly dancer, the first I've ever seen with a firm ripped belly, not a big flabby one. Isabel was fancinated (great....) and Harry thought it must not be safe to dance with a sword on one's head. We sent the kids home with Grandma so we could stay until the party ended. Amazingly, the waitress helped co-mingle all the remaining bottles of wine, stuffed corks into them, and put them in "to go" bags for us.

On Saturday morning we went to the Children's Museum down at Seattle Center with B's sister and kids, who were still staying with us. They have a new room sponsered by Dunn Lumber with lots of big plastic panels and wood pieces with holes in them, bolts, and wingnuts. Isabel and Harry wanted me to build them a house. I said "sure" and got cracking. Harry left before the first wall was assembled, but Isabel learned the difference between a bolt and a wingnut, and how to spin the wingnut to tighten it. We built a little house about 3' square with two sloping pieces for a roof, and the kids could see out the sides of the roof. Afterwards I heard that other dads were NOT happy to have the bar set so high, since their kids were saying "no dad, it's got to be like *that* one!" Ha ha!

When we got home Annie and her kids left to drive back to Spokane, and B and I went to Luau, a hawaiian-themed restaurant near Greenlake. It's on this weird 1 block business district that is totally surrounded by residential side streets, so that nobody would know it's there. Our friend who had tongue cancer last year was having a surprise party thrown by his wife, it was lots of fun. They served buckets of Coronitas, little 7oz beers, as well as a punch bowl of Mai Tais. I am not sure why you'd ever make a 7oz beer, but I sure can drink a lot of them.

Saturday night we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I didn't even the the common human courtesy of a reach-around. I've already beefed about that.

On Sunday B's closest college friend came to visit with her husband and kids. They're moving back from 10 years in Denver since apparently the IT market there dried up.

Sunday afternoon we were going boating with our friends who have a big 30' boat, but the guy's wife accidentally scratched his cornea while cutting his hair so they had to go to the ER instead. D'oh!
posted 6:08 PM | link | 4 comments

Grrr. I'm pissed off. Last night we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but that's only because I was completely unaware it's only half a movie, with the second half due next summer. Those unclefuckers end this movie with absolutely nothing resolved.

To add insult to injury, I finished the third of Naomi Novak's Temeraire series, which was release in back-to-back months as a trilogy. Of course, it's just left open as a series with no conclusion, so I got fucked twice now.

I seriously doubt I'll see the third Pirates movie now, nor read anything else by Novak, just because I'm so pissed at being raped. I can't give consent if I'm not informed beforehand. Pigfuckers.
posted 9:59 AM | link | 6 comments

You know, most aspects of my childhood I can remember with enough detail to find it on the web somehow, but there was one case were I didn't have enough to go on.

Years ago growing up in Spokane, every year my younger brother and I would anxiously await the Game Faire, the annual spring 3-day gaming convention held at the Spokane Falls Community College student union building. It was typical of the genre, dealer booths, dudes dressed up in armor, wargamers with lead tanks on giant sand tables, a game auction, tons of tables of D&D and variants, a computer game section (this was early 1980s, so Atari 800s, Apple IIes, some TRS-80s, etc).

One alcove one year had a game where you take an adventurer through a maze made up of cards, each one having a cave segment drawn on it. The start card had the stairs up as well as openings north south east and west. You decide to go one way, and draw a card, matching one of it's openings with the current one. You basically explore until all you have left are dead ends. There were monster cards to fight, and treasure cards. It was a lot of fun, and could be played solo, which was a big draw. My little brother bought it, as I recall it was just cards in a ziplock baggie. I did later see it for sale at Merlyn's, Spokane's big D&D hobby game store.

Anyway, with no idea what it was called, all I really had to go on was a vague description and the fact that the backgrounds on the cards were orange.

Last night I was in Wikipedia, reading about Star Fleet Battles, and Star Trek: The Animated Series, and that got me thinking about other games I played as a kid. Today at lunch I tried "Dungeon!", a TSR boardgame version of D&D which was a ton of fun, we played it for hundreds of hours as kids. That led to a link on boardgamegeek.com to Dungeon!, which had a list of dunegon-crawl games. Holy Moly! There it is, The Sorcerer's Cave". Coooool!

I checked eBay, no listings, not even completed listings, so it hasn't been for sale in at least a month. However, I found the author's web page, and he made a Windows 3.1 shareware version of it back in the mid 1990s, and it's now freeware, and runs just fine in WinXP. Sweet! Of course, it's not nearly as much fun as the physical game was...
posted 4:45 PM | link | 2 comments

B's sister and kids are in town staying with us for a few days while her brother-in-law is off traveling to Chicago for work. Her little boy is 3 and woke up at the crack of dawn, so he was dead tired by dinner time. B and I took our 15 month old niece with us and the kids to the University Village mall for the first of their free summer concert series. The band was the Beatniks, a cover band that plays 60s, 70s, and 80s music.

Isabel and Faith were dancing fools, it was very cute to watch. I would certainly prefer less pelvic thrusting, sigh.

While we were there we ran into NotMe, who was shopping and when he saw the concert, he thought that I should be there, and next thing he sees is us. Heh.

Poker was fun, I won a ton of money then lost it all to end up exactly even.
posted 3:45 PM | link | 0 comments

The other day I was playing World of Warcraft and was picking herbs in the Swamp of Sorrows. Isabel and Harry were watching, and Isabel kept up a running chatter. "Do you see that panther, Harry? Panthers are in the cat family. So are tigers, lions, and cougars, they're all in the cat family. Do you see that giant spider, Harry? Spiders are in the creepy-crawly family. So are bugs and milipedes, they're all in the creepy-crawly family."

Needless to say, I was laughing my ass off.

Speaking of laughing my ass off, my iPod finally played Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" for the first time since I saw the Christopher Walken "More cowbell" Saturday Night Live skit. I don't know that I'd ever noticed the cowbell in that song, but sure enough, it's there, and I'm quite sure I'll never be able to hear that song again without picturing Will Ferrell whaling away on that cowbell.
posted 7:56 AM | link | 1 comment

Saturday we had dinner over at my sister-in-law and not-brother-in-law's place. My not-brother-in-law and I planned it when we were drinkin' at the bar earlier in the day, and like Homer Simpson, we instantly settled on "steak" as what we wanted for dinner. Mmmm, steak.

On sunday I normally get to sleep in but I got up with the kids since B didn't get to sleep in on Saturday. My sleeping-in muscle is seriously broken anyway, so it's not a huge sacrifice to take one for the team.

Once B finally woke up I spent some time in the garage, unloading all the crap from the back of the truck that had been in my sister-in-law's garage for nine months. I found some things that made me laugh, like a ton of important camping gear we'll need in two weeks, the speakers to B's stereo, my hiking boots and tevas, and our stand fans, which would have been mega useful when it was 85F the other week. I also pulled the battery out of the Vista Cruiser, it's as near dead as to not matter and in need of replacement.

After I fried up some Trader Joes pork potstickers for the kids' lunch we loaded up the van and went to Seattle Center, stopping on the way to pick up some Migralief tablets for B. They are a supplement that is magnesium, some B vitamin, and feverfew which is an herb. Supposedly lack of some or all of these can contribute to migraines, and it seems to be helping reduce B's migraines.

At Seattle Center we took the kids to the Pacific Science Center since we're members. It's another deal where it was like $40 to get 4 people in, or $50 for an annual membership. The kids had fun playing with lots of the exhibits there, I would have liked to spend some time in their visiting exhibit about video games but I didn't want to pay $2 each with the kids since it would have only been a tease for me since I'd have to watch the kids. Another time, maybe.

After we left the science center we took the kids to the Fun Forest, the mini amusement park/carneval rides they have there. I bought a block of 20 tickets and took Isabel on the kiddie roller coaster, and told B to have Harry watch one go-around, I was sure it would scare the crap out of him. He said he wanted to go so she tried to take him, fortunately the ride was full at that point. Isabel had a blast on it, but Harry saw it and was NOT happy with it, just like I predicted. We next went to a kiddie car ride that had nice soft rubber tires and no jerking or bouncing, and Harry loved that. Our last tickets got us a ride on the Ferris wheel, which also was a lot of fun. Harry was a little scared but held on to me and was fine.

After leaving the fun forest we wanted some little snack so we went into the Center House where they have a big food court. B took the kids to get raspberry sherbet cups and I went to Steamers to get a pound of steamed manila clams and a pint of Deschutes Twilight Ale. After finishing my snack the kids were still eating so I went over to Seattle Fudge and got a pound of various flavors of saltwater taffy. Mmmm.

I was eating taffy for the next hour, nearly making myself sick. Ugga. When we got home B made some pizza dough and we let it rise while we went down the street to a neighbor's house. They were having what they called a BBQ (pizza and spaghetti) and had two live bands playing, "The Nods of Recognition" and "Dreamdate", both up from Oakland or LA or something, but most/all of them grew up in the area. We talked with people and listened to the Nods play, it was pretty fun, but most of the songs were about people we didn't know anything about, like the singer's second grade teacher or some kid from high school. One was about Ghengis Khan, basically every song was mostly about a person except one about the eventuallity of death and wondering what the afterlife would entail. Both bands are openers at a rock club in town tonight, "El Corazon".

B got the evite out for our Century Party this August 26th. Our house was built in 1906, so it's 100 years old this year, and if that's not a great excuse for a party then you obviously don't like parties! Woooooo! B wants to get 100 people to show up, I'd be amazed if we got half that. Still, there will be lots of food, booze, non-booze, and good times, so if you read this, didn't get an evite, and are going to be around then and want to attend, let me know.
posted 3:22 PM | link | 3 comments

Hahahahahaha! The world's least-watchable sport once again ends their world f'ing championship with a 1-1 tie, decided by a coin toss. Geez, it'd still be mind-bogglingly boring if they used sudden death OT, but at least they'd be able to claim someone actually won it.

Ha ha, I just checked and ice soccer (aka hockey) is just as stupid, using a "shootout" to decide ties. Man up and play sudden death!
posted 8:23 PM | link | 8 comments

Last night we went to my monthly work kegger, they had Deschutes Mirror Pond and Hale's Mongoose IPA. They were grilling up burgers, so we did that for dinner. B and the kids met a german woman and her 3 year old boy, her husband is a visiting scientist.

When we got home the kids got in their jammies and B's best friend from Peace Corps came over to babysit. We were going out drinking with a mom friend of B's and her husband. (His mom is staying with them for the summer so they have babysitting as well). We played pool, darts, drank beer, ate nachos and onion rings, and had a great time.

After we got home we watched the 3rd episode of West Wing and went to bed.

This morning we got up early, got the kids dressed, and went to the rental house to finish things up. B painted the master bathroom, I installed the last smoke detector, swept the basement and garage, poisoned the yellowjackets' nest, swept the deck, poisoned a bunch of weeds, used weed-n-feed on the lawn, and went to Home Depot to return the defective CO detector and buy a toilet plunger for the basement toilet which was plugged.

The new tenant showed up at 10am, we got him through the move-in condition sheet, the lead paint disclaimer, and the other various forms we're legally required to use. As of now that place is DONE for the next year at least.

After that we went to the farmer's market, got some cheese curds, went home, and while B and the kids went to the mall to buy tap shoes for Isabel (she's got dance camp this week) I drove to my buddy's house, stopping off for a pina colada slurpee since it's so hot today. Him and another buddy were renting a big chipper/shredder that handles 6" diameter branches to kill a cherry tree and finish up a pine tree that fell last winter at the other guy's house. Unfortunately, they were already gone to the other house, so I drove over to my not-brother-in-law's house, loaded the last of my stuff out of his garage, and then we walked to the Wedgewood Ale house, where I had a delicious pint of Elysian Dragonstooth Stout, a pint of Alpine Pilsner, and a pint of Old Seattle Lager along with an awesome bacon-swiss cheeseburger and onion rings.

When I got home B was napping on the couch so I mowed the back lawn then we went to the beach with the kids. The water was a tad chilly, but the weather was awesome and the kids had a blast.
posted 4:55 PM | link | 3 comments

Saturday we left the kids with my mother-in-law while we went to our rental house. After four years our tenants had moved out, and we did the final checkout. They'd left the place in pretty good shape, everything easily fit under "reasonable wear and tear" for four years.

Saturday evening we went to our friend's house for a BBQ. Their kids (the ones that B watches) have birthdays on the 28th and 31st of December, and their mom feels that means they were cheated since their birthday was so close to christmas, so they have a "half" birthday celebration instead. One of my brothers was born on Dec 23rd, and another on Jan 6th, and neither of them ever had a complaint, but they're not my kids.

The BBQ wasn't much of a kid's party, but they all fun, the "birthday" kids opening presents and the rest of them running around like mad playing. The host had bought steaks for the guys who'd actually bothered to RSVP, but there were hot dogs, bratwursts, chicken satays with peanut sauce, shrimp skewers with mango salsa, and plenty of other things to eat. Mmmm, juicy ribeye steaks.

When the host finally got done grilling, he sat down to eat his steak. Part way into it, his temporary crown broke loose, exposing his tooth to severe pain. He had a crown installed about a year ago, but never liked it, and bitched enough to our dentist that the dentist agreed to replace it. This was Saturday night, and he figured nobody would be open on Monday, so he'd have to wait until Wednesday to get it repaired. He tried a swig of beer to see if he could survive and visably winced in pain.

He went in, called our dentist's office, and it gave an after-hours emergency number. Turns out that number is the cell phone of our densist, who told him to meet him at the dentist's office in an hour. I was totally amazed, I figured the emergency number would be some all-hours dental clinic.

On Sunday we took the kids with us and went to Home Depot, bought a bunch of stuff for the rental house like new linoleum for the main bathroom, trim for that, new smoke detectors, a new carbon monoxide detector, new door locks, etc.

Sunday afternoon the weather was awesome so B took the kids to the beach at Magnuson park near our house while I went to the store to buy something for dinner. I still had ribeye on the brain from the night before so I bought some beautiful ribeyes, corn on the cob, artichokes, and baguette. Mmm, steak dinner two nights in a row! It turned out that peggy and the kids shared one of the ribeyes, leaving an entire spare steak for me to have for lunch on Monday. Mmmm, steak three days in a row!

On the Fourth B had to take her mom to the airport to fly to spokane, then we took the kids and went to the rental house. The kids were set up in one bedroom to watch a DVD on the portable DVD player, while B and I worked on installing that linoleum, washing the deck, organizing the storeroom a bit, fixing the basement sliding glass door, installing smoke detectors, changing the door locks, etc. I also applied Roundup with vigor to various weeds.

Afterwards we went to a friend's house for a BBQ. They live close to the Lake Union fireworks display, and we considered staying to see it but it started to rain (several weeks of mid 70s-low 80s weather ended) so we just went home and put the kids to bed. Before we left we borrowed the first two seasons of The West Wing on DVD from them.

On Wednesday B after I got home B went to the rental house to paint one of the bedrooms and I took the kids to the store to get some shopping done. Afterwards I had poker and NotMe showed up for the first time in over 3 months, winning nicely. WOPR got cleaned out for the second week in a row, blowing the huge stake he'd won two weeks earlier.

Since WOPR got cleaned out early poker ended early, which gave B and I time to watch the pilot to "The West Wing". I watched the show regularly starting somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd season (I'm not sure exactly) but never really watched any reruns, so I have never seen the first season. The pilot was very odd for someone who's seen most of the series, but worthy.

Earlier in the day B had met with the maid service crew who put 8 hours into deep cleaning the rental house.

Yesterday I had to take Isabel to her densist to get a filling while B met with the carpet cleaner at the rental house. Isabel is an amazing dental patient, for some freaky reason she likes it. Anyway, the dentist and her assistant loved Isabel, and the procedure was over very quickly. Isabel got to pick *two* toys from the basket for being so cooperative. Such a cutie.

Last night B and I watched "About Last Night", the 1986 movie with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, written by David Mamet. It's pretty good and pretty funny. Afterwards we watched the second episode of The West Wing. It's quite strange to see a main character that I'd never heard of before (Mandy), and strange to see Mrs Landingham again.
posted 1:20 PM | link | 2 comments

Last night was funny. B has a bunch of mom friends from the kids preschool, and one of them is big into holding sales parties. You know, like Tupperwear parties, scented candle parties, etc. A bunch of women get together, eat tasty food, drink some or a lot, and some "party consultant" hawks the product de jour.

Well, the group decided that B needed to host one, but she said no fucking way was she having a tupperwear party. She found someone who knew a "passion party" consultant, and thus she threw a passion party, aka sex toy party.

The party started at 7:30, so at 7pm I went upstairs with the kids, set them up watching some dog show on Animal Planet in Peggy's parlour, and went to my den to play World of Warcraft. One of my friends help me escort my lvl 34 mage through the library in Scarlet Monestary to get a book to complete the second of two quests to get a really kick-ass fire wand. Yeah, I know, I'm a geek. Like you didn't know that already.

Anyhoo, at 8pm I brushed the kids teeth, made them go potty, jammied them, read them this week's library books, put them to bed, and sang them their songs. They complained that it was too noisy downstairs and they were too hot to possibly sleep, and 10 minutes later they were both passed out cold.

As soon as they did I called up WOPR to come get me, and snuck down the stairs, through the kitchen, grabbed my shoes, and was out the back door, over the fence, and I was outta there. We went to the Wedgewood Ale House, my preferred pub, and sat around talking and quaffing until around 11pm. I had a pint of Big Time's Bhagwan's Best IPA, a pint of Snoqualmie's Steam Train Porter, and a pint of Elysian's Dragonstooth Stout.

When WOPR dropped me off the party was mostly wound down, just 3 guests and the coordinator lady left. The demo table was covered in various dildoes and vibrators and oils and such, and one of the guests grabbed me, sat me down, and told me to put my finger into this rubber masturbatory sleeve. She wanted to know if I liked it so she could buy one for her husband. Apparently they think I'm uninhibited. I was laughing pretty hard.

It was a little weird and I told them so, so she slathered it up with lube then put it back on my finger and asked how I liked it. I told her that if *she* was holding it then I'd like it just fine. She laughed and said, "Ok, I won't bother getting one". I am guessing he owes me one.

There was a crazy $150 vibrator with rotating beads in the middle, a "rabbit" attachment that had not one, not two, but THREE vibrating dangly bits, and I shit you not but it had party lights that ran up and down the control panel. The control panel would have made the set designers for a Sci Fi show proud, with a zillion ways to control every aspect. The women seemed to agree that with one of those a guy was irrelevant.

B said the party was a blast, people apparently were shockingly open about preferences and things. I just can't see that working with guys, but then guys don't need help figuring out how to get themselves off.

It sounded like everyone had a great time. B said normally at one of the "parties", people have a glass or two of wine. At this one, people drank quite a bit more.
posted 7:32 AM | link | 3 comments