Frick-a-Frack and The Cerulean Cockrell's Widow's Tumid Tootsie

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Silt and mire, the mud festival claimed another victim. Mr. (W)right charged through filth and dirt to come out the other side with tales of witch-hunting and bursting hearts. Pancakes flipped and frolicked in bourbon abandon, but not for our heroes. Maddened and hobbled time crepitated and crinkled yet again, mangling meeting plans and schedules with ruthless abandon. Many an A-plus cafe caught in the nets of quantum quandries and unmeetings sploshed far from their collaborative containers. And the cord was cut for our forty days of chocolatey Lindt goodness... only to realize we live in a wireless age and the cords are all metaphorical these days. Adella sallied forth, full of pho and  vim in her running ballgown towards the Lindt Ball Gala.

Coming up: Unfurl the disclaimers and lock the doors: mom-boss fearless leader has left the building? Will the abandoned orphans of Englettlaw survive the erumpent exigencies? Will the metaphorical kegger be tapped or merely dinted? Frick and fork on farmland friendships. Will roosters suffer psitticosis or merely psittacistic cycling confabs?  And track season takes its first token toe... will our heroine hobble on through balances and busted toesies? Will her whirlwind tryst with endless humors end well or in heartbreak. Will she survive the phantom cut-cord pains and will there be lindt balls at the end of all her toils? Time whinnies, whinges, and rears. A sacrifice of time to rescue the daylight princess! Will distemporitis finally be cured? Will schedules re-align or continue spinning into the hands of mad minor families and chimerical weather-days?

These answers and more wait in chambers for your onerous oiellades beyond the sockery beneath... 

The Mom-Boss is Outta Town! Kegger at Englettlaw* (*Subject to disclaimer* below)
*DISCLAIMER - In re the above quoted "kegger" at location, Englettlaw, said comment was delivered in the manner of frolic and banter and should not be interpreted as evidence of objective or subjective intent for (a) formation of an offer of unilateral contract, nor any offer for bi- tri- or quadrilateral agreements including but not limited to (i) pacts, (ii) treaties, (iii) detentes, (iv) commercial trade agreements, (v) train-made verbal agreements re the killing of spouses by the unknown but slightly unhinged strangers met there; (b) invitational license for entry onto the premises known as Englettlaw, (c) a statement condoning the consumption of large quantities of fermented malt beverages during working hours, (d) as extension of the "parents gone = party at their 'home' " formulation, to imply or condone underage drinking, or the potential vandalism concurrent with such drinking, (e) to condone or solicit violation of relevant fire and building codes for the aforementioned commercial space, (f) any association between the aforementioned business and approval of aforementioned non-intents, (g) solicitation of a crime including but not limited to public drinking, carousing, trespassing, arson, mail fraud, smoking pot in the stairwells (as somebody sure had to have been doing around the fourth floor yesterday judging by the overwhelming stench in the mid-morning at that locale), reckless endangerment with a speedboat, mail fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion, the unlawful discharge of a laser, littering, or black market organ dealing. The aforementioned kegger is an allusory one only... THE KEG IS A LIE!! And, given the level of cautious introversion dominating the office in our fearless leader's absence, the party is pretty much fictive as well. Enter at your own peril! **

It's the time of year in which Englettlaw gets on its madly tentative quietude in the absence of our head attorney and highly effective figurehead. My mom-boss is off to visit "the other daughter" and her beloved brood back in Jersey for several decades. Her absence has an ambivalent effect on the office: On the one hand, this absence (and our clients'/other attorneys' knowledge of her absence) often results in a momentary chilling of the routine ructions requiring her personal attention.On the other hand, when some erumpent emergency demands handling (as it always will), it's a bit of a madhouse. We at home-base make several wild and educated guesses as what Fearless Leader might want us to do, while waiting for a harried Gramma Pam to endue Attorney-Englett, put a finger in her ear and review the complicated drafts before attempting to give feedback over Falconer World War Wii Fivebazillion-and-Twenty.

I become increasingly casual about things, while Leslie becomes increasingly nervous. When asked what we should do on something I'll shrug my shoulders and say "I don't see why not..." which is a formulation she finds unconvincing. When she then asks if she should wait until we hear from Pam, I shrug again and say "eh, I don't think we really need to, but there's no hurry." This is kind of cruel of me, as I know it will eventually cause her head to implode. I don't do it on purpose. It's just my saturnine stress reaction when I'm only sort of in control. As it turns out, I'm usually spot on with what I've implied and pawed at. But I don't suppose I exude the reassuring mama-hen confidence particularly. 

An uneasy stillness precedes and subsumes these moments of decapitated poultry promenaderie. So expect an alert but restless flurry of non-posts for the next spell. It should be noted that I have plenty of work to do in her absence, so any fates that are feeling frisky could kindly pass me over if they'd be so inclined. I have a list of people with whom the fates could have waaaay more mordant merriment! I'm willing to deal!

But it's early yet and in the lindt-ball 2014 spirit, I've turned off email notifications on my phone. So ignorance remains blissful for a few more minutes.I update my first lindt ball internet experience. Yesterday I turned off 4G for two hours during lunch and associated away-from-computer times. I also turned off the phone over dinner. In between, I discovered that muting hangout notifications does not actually impair my ability to have a conversation with somebody via that medium. Instead, it allows me to set my own times for these, assuming that anything urgent will merit a less casual communique. As I use chrome a lot, I often fall to having several tabs competing for my attention (three email accounts, a court website, my music streamer, and additional research tabs). I'm experimenting with pulling the window that I am actually using out separately until I am done with my task for that window. So far, it's been helpful. 

We'll see how things fall out in day three of Home Alone 7: Office-Style (in which Macaulay Culkin finds himself, the sole temp at a large credit database firm, attempting to fend off data hacks while throwing parties and singing about pizza)... until then. Merrily we maunder into independent office management territory! Wonder what happens when I spin the steering wheel THIS WAY! WHEEEEEEE!

Happy Frickin' Friday - Oh Frick, indeed!

Back in my Majestic days (early in my ballroom life), I had an acquaintance fresh from the farm (literally, as he hailed from a dairy farm up north). One of two identical twins, he was of sturdy build, belabored & bumbling geniality, and a modest height. The height certainly grounded him for heavy lifting, but also led to some very interesting knee-in-crotch issues whenever he and I were paired for smooth dancing  (a style with technique that keeps it halitosis-frigid up top and party-in-my-pants down beneath).

A gosh-golly kinda fella - before a slip and slide through the alcoholic anomie of early twenties took a dimmer to the twinkling in his eyes and milkiness of complexion - he was averse to unvarnished imprecation. Amusing, as he spent much time with my little clique of colloquially colorful cretins, to whose obscenities he would form an earnest and stern pout, chuckle at our eventually eternal damnation, and continue on with a smile. Abstemious as he was with the formally recognized opprobrium, he certainly caught the spirit of lalochezia with his own euphemistic gusto. Between the heated gosh gollies and shoots, his go-to  intensive was frick.

Our generally foul-mouthed cadre of dance kids found this wildly entertaining, shy on our "fun words" scale only of the phrase "fork you," which was funny exclusively for the you-had-to-be-there origin story, in which one girl repeatedly poked a particularly harrassable guy with her fork several times and finally answered his whine of wtf with a maniacally drawled: "fork you"! (but which was possibly related to the joke about cutlery liking to spoon after forking...)

There's something soothingly bathetic about frick! While frickin' sounds like several other intensifying variants (friggin', freakin', fallopian' ... ok, maybe not that last one, but I bet that would have some emphatic qualities to it: gosh darnit that fallopian kid left the legos out last night again!"), FRICK has a certain fricative fanfare. Although generally said with more than a glint of the eye in our non-farm-boy group, the word took on its own power that far exceeded the dysphemism it replaced for the rest of us. 

Anyways, best I can tell, frick actually mixes two competing copulatory vulgarities rather nicely. Frig, I believe, predates fuck (or at least is contemporaneous in murky origin). From the Middle English term frygen, which means wiggle. Fuck's origin stories are all over the map, and many of them are quite likely saucy viragos' lore.  Since it stuck around, it has a lot more flexibility than the antiquated "frig," an intransitive verb often used as a meaningless intensive. I'd like to say there's some tie-in between "frig" (my suspected origin of frick) and Frigg, but that pretty little bow sits exclusively atop my brain. Enough to remember my waltzing farm boy and his rubicund ramblings. 

Whatever modifier mollies the madness, it is FRIDAY! Surreal as that might seem. I'm keeping up my lindt ball pledge a few days in. Turned the phone off entirely for an hour and a half last night, and have continued muting and/or killing notifications on my phone and computer. It's a little easier at the moment for a few reasons: (1) I'm having a mad love affair with a book. When I start reading a book, it often feels like I'm sneaking around with it and cheating on reality. The same sort of disengagement and bifurcation of mental realities tends to entrench the further into a story I tread. And the break-ups are just as bad. I suspect this is why I'm far more hostile about books that have disappointed me than movies or tv, and can tolerate some absolute visual tripe but will hold onto literary grudges for years when an author lets me down; as well as why I can moon like a twitterpated twelve year old on my old literary flames; (2) my mom is buried in a pile of young boys and running interference for their desperate mother. We may work in the same office, but we often chat/text through the day as a quick means of communication and coordination. One doesn't really have time to check in when visiting the Falconers, so our chat time goes fairly quiet around now. 

Whatever the weekend may bring, I wish you luck, pluck, and a frick of a great time!

Big Toes Don't Cry - TWT turns a trick with tumid toesies, and other hazards of stairwells

Track season is wads of weeks away, but training begins early. My approach to track-widowry-training is what you could call "in base" at the moment (nothing free about my base, nor do I slide into it head first). After one track widow training session a few months ago, it is time to increase reps and do another set (fire up the maundering soliloquy and break out the funny accents!) Last night, Andrew headed into the bowels of Seattle to crow with the roosters! The Blue Roosters, that is. Andrew's cycling team. It was their try-on party. Sounds more exciting than it is. Or not. Actually "try-on" sounds fairly prosaic unless you have my exquisitely deranged imagination and have conjured up a wild bacchanal of feathered-bespandexed cycling denizens piling a room high with all of their various closets, and then playing drunken dress-up for a solid evening with wine and cookadoodling optional. Or if you're a thirteen year old boy, in which case it doesn't matter what was said, it's "exciting" in a snickery uncomfortable way. 

A try-on party, is a chance for every one to try on (hence the name) the year's new uniform to make sure that they have ordered the proper size of superhero costume and that the cape doesn't clash with one's leg warmers. I've gone once, when Andrew was a wee pullet. That time the event happened in a high end wine basement near Fremont and/or Ballard and/or all those other parts of Seattle I don't really believe to exist. The venue was long, narrow and choked with cyclists swilling reds and whites, but nary a blue to swill in sight. My strongest memories are of the tables (wine corks under a glass finish), the crushing claustrophobia, and the zing bars (promotional sponsor nonsense - although I enjoy the name, they were not stand out energy bars for me) of which I stole several samples. It was a strange and loud event. They've since moved it to a more appropriately capacious venue, Recycled Cycles. 

While Andrew tried on his kit and got revved about pumping his high cadence tush around an eensy track with other boys in tights, I tried on a quiet single-lady night at home. I mostly accomplished just this: reading in various rooms and on various chairs throughout the evening with breaks for eating and that  leviathon physical therapy routine (ball-on-nose balancing optional but recommended).  

Most of this, again, did not interrupt or tempt my Lindt Ball challenge to melt in hand or mouth. When you're caught up in a book and have the evening entirely to yourself, the whole internet access thing becomes irrelevant. The mien is intentionally internal and the internet is Out There. So, I barely noticed that I'd left my phone off for most of the evening; and my computer was only up to play the Fall Out 3 Soundtrack (all 30's and 40's ditties that admittedly have kind of a cool creepy post-apocalyptic vibe)

But I may have pulled a slight training injury. Reading while walking down stairs in the dark is an advanced move, one not to be attempted in slippery socks until at least the second month of the actual track season. Swollen with contumely and riveted by a book's unanticipatedly erumpent plot, I might have broken that rule. In doing so, I flubbed a step and landed weirdly with my right toe curled underneath me. It was not a huge fan of this action and grumbled throughout the evening. The structural damage seems minimal and limited to a few contusions and some sloughed skin, but the confidence level has returned to cautious in regards to those pesky stairs.

Still, at the end of the day, I mounted the stairs once more to make it to the bed, and Andrew followed a few hours afterwards. Or so I assume. I remember waking up briefly in the night and knowing he was there. And he's there in bed at this moment. It looks like he remains intact so I call it a win on all counts. 

Happy Saturday. May it be a seasonably sanguine one with sunny smiles and safe stairwells!

An Hour Saved is an Hour Spurned Where's that Daylight I supposedly rescued??

Perhaps now time will settle down and stop spewing in starts and stutters all over every one's nice little schedule. After thoroughly reviewing the informed consent video/document/comic-book explanations/FAQs/etc. (and ok nobody actually understands of reviews any of that, but we thumbed through the one with pictures and laughed at the cartoon bunny) and signing the forms and authorizations, we as a nation have agreed to the surgical procedure necessary to save daylight.

You're welcome, world. My loss of an hour is for your continued daylight. Or something. I'm told that doing this whole "let's pretend it's an hour later than it really is" thing does have measurable correlation to a decrease in traffic accidents and energy use, but an increased correlation to cardiac strain. Monday, the first day that our new schedule becomes truly tangible may as well be called Myopathy Monday from all I can tell. Apparently our circadian rhythms are not hip to the jive of this abrupt 2 a.m. bound. 

As I say, I hope this little schedule jig placates an ornery and obstreperous time-beast that has been perpetually frisky with my 2014 schedule. If not, perhaps it's time to start sacrificing chickens. Or, being a vegetarian perhaps I can get a waiver to sacrifice Morningstar Chick'n patties. 

Coming time shift ahead, Andrew prepared in advance by getting horrible sleep on Friday night. This actually worked to our advantage, allowing him to be just tired enough not to fight the "ok, well I'm calling it bedtime now even if the sun still is setting" sweeping clock reset and earlier retreat. This was even after the nap that he was going to take whether he chose to or not. In between, we had a Chinese themed afternoon with Shaolin Soccer and a follow up "well, it may be 5:30 on your timeline, but I'm calling it 6:30" dinner at Panda Palace. 

Since my toe was still swollen, we switched gym days to today, making tomorrow just that bit more disorienting as Andrew did many of his Sunday activities yesterday. Now we'll have to wait until noon (erst-while 11:00 a.m. before 2:00 a.m. this morning when 2:00 a.m. refused to stick around and skipped forward like a broken record) to get our glow on. I'm still on the fence about trammeling my ever-beleaguered foot with its bruised big-piggy on top of the tender arch. I swear I'm waiting on that new foot from my engineer-boyfrianceband. 

But whatever time brings (hopefully eventually the sunrise again), I am ready to take it as it comes and do that little tai qi gong fu shaolin thingy to spin it right back towards the other goal. Or to stay home and read. There's always that option. 

Zaftig Tyr's Day and the Ashen Dromedary Go Green for King-Cake

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Oyster Margarita not-so-happy hour colonized the land with a guttural ooooze. Papa T suffered the liabilities of his fanatical zoeticism, going under knife and needle to isolate the lachrymose rippage in his rotator cuff. A long and anesthetically forgotten battle was waged and won with wounds a plenty. Our heroes hied to the Ice-Castle, ladles a-blazin', for a burn in the incalescent cherub's-dorm. Socks went green for the pro agro-bellicosity march.  And time, that wanton wastrel, threatened to cast the mornings back into the murky void. 


Coming up:  Mud monsters and slush-demons rap at doors and windows, slurring out a seeping siren song. Will Mr. (W)right resist the voluptuary silten slog? Will all that mud takes years off his life or simply his face? Treadmills rev and ramble for a routine reverie. Will minor families again flummox the time-space continuum or will chromatic specs rise above the anomie and rally for toning tyranny? Shake, rattle and rolly-poley all those bonne temps, as the pancakes go marching by with barrels of bourbon and bonhomie. Will the International House survive the nationalistic deluge of carb-starved celebrants? Will camels roll in ashes, the pho-fed couple endue their lindt-ball finery for forty days of block-and-silence. Will Adella resist temptations in the information-desert, or will she throw herself with mad abandon off buildings far and tall for a good 4G signal and a flock of Angels with wireless access? 

Grab your flasks, and pad on the pancakes, dear reader, to roll right into the answers to these queurelous curiosities and more!

Snow-Capped Slush and Muddy Mountain Maunders -Saturday gets back to the Dinkmobile

Whatever peculiarities the heavens may fling at us, the bike-and-chain and I have our routines. Not ruts, per se, but pleasant habitual practices that fill the foundation for whatever deviations may be appropriate. Little rituals that gain new meaning for being missed on an extraordinary day. The unpernicious side of "comfort" that establishes a sense of "home" Our weekends begin with this basic template. One I like. I started writing it out, but the the list only bears meaning for us (also, fifth amendment rights and liability issues... I mean, as a lawyer there are just some things - routine or no - I'm not going to put down in writing anything attributable to my own personage!!)

But of course, after our (highly classified) morning rituals (with an extra emphasis on the weather checking, rechecking, analysis paralysis followed by more checking and the occasional glance outside) we made it to the gym.

 Perhaps the most riveting and shocking event of the day: Marion of the chimerical effulgent frames made his appointment! Andrew and I were practicing our tandem treadmill and suddenly (only four minutes past the scheduled hour - which I know because I had only just commented on the time, and further know because I have almost always just commented on the time either aloud or internally) there was Personal Trainer Man! In the flesh if not frames.With aplomb and jollity to spare, Marion then dragged the bike-and-chain through a "toning workout." Andrew is uncertain what "toning workout" means, exactly, but apparently it involves doing pretty standard sets of reps, mostly on machines. I can't say that the session was so game-changing that it was worth the several rounds of calendar conga, but Andrew 'sposes it "mixed things up"... "...so that's good." In future, he may pursue training with personal trainer who (1) specializes in cycling, (2) is capable of using basic English, a telephone, and a watch. 

I trained myself. And you know what they say about a self who has a self for a trainer? Not much, actually, outside of muscle building forums and maybe some perennially syndicated FitSugar Article, probably mixed in with advice to either inject pure whey protein into one's toes or to wear yoga pants with tummy control panels. Either way, I haven't read it, so I continue my "self-training" (i.e. "mucking about") with impunity.

I did once again utilize my new mince-step approach to running. I jest. It's not a drastically shortened stride, but learning to get an ear for the new running rhythm does have moments where I feel a bit like I'm running in a long skirt. Not a hobble skirt or anything, but not a particularly flowing skirt either. New marketing idea for the fitness conscious: we've had enough neon minimalism, it is time for running gowns. For the formal runner who doesn't need "equipment" to help her run faster and who cares enough not to want to look like "just some yoga mom" in the usual running ensemble. 

After Andrew hopped on his bike for a post-workout gruel, and I dragged my convalescing father to the eschatological end-time of a Fred-Meyers on weekend afternoon, we struggled through some financial planning forms my adviser had given me. Basically, our goals for retirement, our risk profiles, and our current assets/liabilities. It's not easy predicting what the hell we'll want to do in thirty to forty years. The list of monies we might want to spend and our various priorities were highly theoretical.

As it stands now, our retired life looks pretty sweet. Season tickets to the ballet and the odd movie and play, a decent amount of medium-budget travel, maybe a new car... and then we'll die. Andrew thought we should plan to live to 100. I thought that was probably far-fetched and at the very least we wouldn't want to be travelling and going to the PNB, but longevity runs in some side of his family. Of course, I'm not sure longevity is any match for Andrew's atavistic urges to fling himself down mountains. Then again, medical technology advances weigh against total climate disaster on the other side. So, we just went ahead and threw some numbers against a wall (they stuck for a second and then started to succumb to gravity in a slow slide back onto the stove). 

And, hey, in the meantime, we actually figured out exactly what our assets were and how far Andrew had gotten on his student loan. As a family law attorney who routinely needs this kind of information from clients, I'm entertained at how much difficulty I had pinning it down. I could likely fill out my side of a financial declaration, but some of these questions were just big old blanks. 

Financial drudgery conquered, we retreated to our separate corners for a few hours before a zip-zap dinnery recharge. Thank goodness we had dinner to revive our vim before a hearty PT/stretching session and an episode of Psych. 

Our routine life, as you can see, is quite the go-go-go lifestyle here! And there's more to come today. In a little while, I'll wake the Andrew-beast. We'll comment obsessively on the weather, perhaps, while sipping coffee (the weather forecast has been a protean little doomsday slurry of alerts and advisories, but appears to be migrating from snowy to rainy as of this moment in time right now and no other time before or likely after). And then... well as I say, attorneys know the times to practice discretion in their prolixity... 

Mud-Month Strikes Back: Return of the Drizzle

Having sallied with hibernal hijinx, the Pacific Northwest has returned to its roots, going unplugged and Coke Classic on us with our characteristic seeping precipitation. There was a bit of a transition to endure yesterday. Or "wintry mix" of snow, sleet and freezing rain, had a nice little mazurka of the nasties outside, and turned the land yet again into 7-11's failed Slurpee Land sans splashy syrup. 

It was bad enough when we awoke yesterday that Andrew didn't even want to go mountain biking, citing the "too gross" nature of the day and conditions. This presented a dilemma, seeing as his Byzantine biblical training calendar demanded a three hour "effort" that day.

The idea of three hours indoors on the cycling trainer (paragon of ceaselessly tedious grueling cardio-hell, and loud kitchen rumbling noise) probably gave us both chills. With impeccable lunatic logic, Andrew decided that in lieu of attempting to mountain bike in said "gross" conditions, he would instead hop on a last minute registration for the Lake Padden Mudfest run - a six mile race up and down the typically sodden mountain bike trails at the eponymous park. He now understands what trails shoes are for (answer: lunatics who think that pumping their hearts to bursting on oozing paths with slick gradients and a plethora of surreptitious roots and brambles while it is 31 degrees out and drizzling). 

I did not attend. In body or spirit. It was really, truly gross out there. Not even my astral projections could risk the mildew! Instead I dropped in on Papa T, who continues to recover at a good clip, and then stormed Castle Tasanasanta with a faux King Cake for early Mardi Gras/friendly drop-in on my bestest buddies. They were indulging in a far more rational desultory pajama-loll when I arrived. Dylan showed me his newly de-braced dentia, and Emma showed me her new variation on the twerk, which I'd call the Syncho-Squat. She'll be the next Isadora Duncan by the time she can say "plie". 

When I returned in the early afternoon, I was heartened to note that Andrew had survived what he termed "one of the more ridiculous things I've done" and was celebrating by a few moments of internet staring before (naturally) hopping on the trainer for another few hours, celebrating having wrecked himself by further wrecking himself. I mean, the race really was only an hour long!

Feeling the looby lady pills resurge after switching back to the estrogen-only part of this sysiphean anovulatory cycle thing, I had no will to do any of the potentially productive things on my weekend list. Instead I continued my maundering, with a fair shot of reading through a twenty five page footnote in Infinite Jest (plot, redolence of sweet savory plot just tickling my nonolfactories!). 

Andrew's ride must have been quite the doozy, judging by his in-depth oratorio (PhD level stuff here) about Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Which is apparently a far deeper and more complex movie than one might have previously imagined.  He's not calling it Truffaut here (probably because he's not entirely what a truffaut is but it does sound awfully much like a truffle and truffles, the chocolate kind anyways, are fantastic), but it has a lot more to teach us than we might anticipate. Like witches can be good, but only if they're beautiful. And all witches care more for personal hygiene than village-people (something worth parallelling to persecution and stigmatization of Jewish populations in the dark ages, incidentally). Also, Hansel is kind of useless other than being strong, and has a "clever" Achilles kidney in a steam-punkish version of Type-II diabetes. I subsequently have read that Gretel was supposed to have an eating disorder as a result of the candy house of their youth, but this was edited out. 

I'll take his word on the movie, since I am not sure the-guy-who-thought-a-last-minute-gelid-"mudfest-would-be-the-perfect-Sunday-morning-activity is my go-to man for advice on entertainment. Then again at less than 90 minutes, I heartily approve of this film on principle. 

Anyways, the boss-lady will be abandoning us mid-week to visit my sis and pals in New Jersey. There will be a doubtless mad-rush to get things in place before she goes and then the unknown typhoon of her absence. Going to be an interesting day to hunker down and soak up the damp!

Don't Call Tuesday Fat! - It's just big boned and likes its pancakes

Well shrive me timbers, is it Mardis Gras already? I confess (har har) that it took me a touch by surprise, despite having already delivered my faux king cake to Tasanasanta fortress this weekend. Well, crack open the bourbon and laisez les bons temps rouler! Ok, maybe just crack open the pancake mix and find some cheap beads to wear, while considering if the seasonal theme of Lent would be a good excuse for some mindful minimalizing... 

But then again, bourbon! Yesterday may have been enhanced with a few more (read: any) sheets to the wind, all considered. My optimistic forecasts for a future without snow-day or distemporitis were perhaps premature. Rainy Mondays may have their own juju (probably only dehexed by a painful helping of Kenny G on one-oh-something-point-something smoooooooth-soft-furry-cappuccino-cuddles-rock FM!

In fairness, I had a statistically higher accomplishment rate of pre-ordained plans, so I give it that. The down side was that it was a high turbulence desultory ramshackle of a "making it through my schedule" sort of day. From yesterday morning, right through to my return on the evening, something was just a little different, and thus more difficult. Despite getting up exactly on time, I was running late by the time I stirred the loris (not a dirty euphemism, I swear - just my way of saying "walked back to the bedroom to scream 'chirp chirp chirp' at my husband while proffering coffee). In my hurry, I left on several lights and the humidifier, all of which I routinely handle during my morning rousing. This turned out to be fine, but the house was maybe a lot more moist than usual on my return home. 

After a brief comestibles-break from fluster, I was flying back to get to the office "on time" (a relative and meaningless concept as I set my own hours; but I have a time and it makes me physically anxious to run behind it). After a non-threatening case status meeting, I had a post-prandial walk to clear my head and forestall my chronic earliness for my WCP Board meeting. Apparently I was so effectively not-early, that I even ended up arriving to the meeting last. This is unheard of. Usually, even my best efforts to arrive late cause me to be there precisely on time, which would translate as "egregiously early" in the English to WCP Board lexicon. When I say "last", I should clarify that one of our officers neglected to show at all, so I demand a recount!

I was, at the very least, timely in departing from this meeting. Although I am the secretary -  if a meeting occurs in the woods and no secretary is there to record it, does it make a meeting? - I have a strict policy about end-times. This is because there is never a natural winding-down in WCP-land. It's enough that our actual group meetings are an excruciatingly eternal hour and a half in a steambath of a conference room. I draw the line at exceeding the hour mark for our board meetings in the equally incalescent dry sauna of a conference room. In collaborative argot, I like to take ownership of the process and hold the container (Collaborative law's success in quelling conflict and increasing client creativity depends heavily on a carefully delineated step-ladder structure, which we like to call the "container" with bonus gentle gesticulations, and which falls to the professionals to "hold," which is code for "keep everyone on track and away from the temporal landmines of moving too quickly or too sluggishly).

I also technically managed to make my afternoon "mediation brainstorming" meeting with my tango-teaching partner/mediator/poet/financial planner/Civil War Reenactor/yaddayaddayadda/how-much-ritalin-would-it-take-to-get-me-through-half-that-list?? acquaintance and (theoretically) another local mediator. While the former frenetic fella (we'll call him "TBB", which stands for his self-styled "tango bad boy"), is somebody with whom I've already discussed "mediation possibilities" in florid but functionally formless ways, I was very much looking forward to speaking with the second local mediator. Perhaps there's a theme of mediator-types doing several other jobs as well, but she has a fairly fascinating resume that starts with a J.D., involves several board and non-profit positions, and which currently balances a successful mediation practice against a thriving art and community-professorial career.  I am Jack's yawning exhaustion! I have one job and I'm tired by the middle of the day!

But yes, TBB has wanted us to all three "meet up" and "brainstorm" for some time. Though his grandiose visions have previously had an otiosity about them in practice, he has long wanted to build some form of non-binding alliance between mediators of farraginous backgrounds and skillsets for comediation opportunities. This core concept is a good one, so I've stuck with it tentatively and with the proliferant caveat that I have few resources available for this project. With this second mediator expressing interest, my own curiosity has been piqued. Of course getting three people together is virtually impossible and we have been emailing about logistics for several months now.

Finally, we agreed to a time and a place. I even suggested the place: Avellino's Coffee Shop in downtown Bellingham. Despite suggesting Avellino's  and despite TBB having confirmed Avellino's, both TBB and I went to Adagio's, a cafe on the same street, instead! My excuse is that I had realized on my way to the cafe that I was light a wallet, and had to rush home to retrieve it from beneath the couch (phew) before rushing back and "making it" (other than "it" being the wrong coffee shop) exactly on time instead of obscenely early. 

We spent a good hour pensively wondering what maelstrom of a mediation had kept our third compatriot from attending. Well, in between musings, TBB recited some poetry, gave a few self-styled encomiums on the jouissance of a good tango, and detailed his distaste for all the parties involved in his most recent mediation. And we sipped some good coffee. I don't know about Avellino's, but Adagio makes a damned fine "Italian" cappuccino (yes, you can choose between Italian and American style, but the American style was bigger and gave more options, and I don't like having to figure out options on the fly). The other mediator was apparently more on the ball than both of us combined and spent what I hope was a pleasant hour for her sipping hot cocoa at Avellino's. We shall try again. 

Upon my release from failed networking meetings, I rushed home to start dinner for my husband, who had naturally gotten off earlier than usual. Since I also had some morning mayhem to fix up, and my own chores to handle, it was a bit of a headless chicken cha-cha until the final ooze into six o'clock and boyfriancaband's heralded homecoming. I'm relieved to report that things mellowed marvelously after this. But it was certainly an "interesting" scamper to scheduling sanguinity. 

So those bons temps... they can roll however they like today. I'm blessedly unstructured (phew) and ready for some bourbon pancakes. I don't even love bourbon, necessarily, but it does just burble off the labials doesn't it? Brrrrrrrrbun!

Happy Shrove/Pancake/Zaftig Tuesday to y'all!!

Lindt Is Here: And my chocolate truffles are giving up their foil wrappers for the Lenten season

A solemn Ash Wednesday to y'all. Hope those of you who feted Big-Boned-Zaftig-Tuesday are not feeling the overhang of too much white flour and dark grog. Andrew and I tried, I admit, to indulge in a pancake bacchanalia by going to the IHOP (International House of Pancakes, because we're multicultural like that) in the hinterlands of Bellingham. Unfortunately, IHOP has surreptitiously co-opted Pancake Tuesday and turned it into "(not inter-)National Pancake Day" a butyraceous tradition going back as far as 2006 and somehow involving pancakes and donations to Children's Hospitals. We Amuricuhns love it when our excessive consumption can be done in the name of either charity or nationalism, so the parking lot alone was nearly impenetrable. We ended up eating at a Vietnamese place instead. Amuricuhns apparently don't love eating Pho on national pastry holidays, and we had the place virtually to ourselves. 

So, hangover of any kind forestalled, I'm still ready to delve into the Lenten Season. I'm not somebody who took the traditional Lenten "giving something up" all that seriously most of my life. My family was a liberal farrago of christian traditions, and my mother did sometimes fast during Lent. I was brought up to understand Lent as a time of contemplation, prayer, and simplicity in preparation for the big-shebang of Easter. It surprised me how many of my secular friends took advantage of the tradition to test their own habits and desires. But I like it. 

As I've opined on several holidays, yes it is arbitrary to set these particular (and roving) forty days to "give something up" (which can also be arbitrary), but it would be a lost opportunity not to take advantage of human cognitive vagaries. 

 We're intrinsically wired to enure to the status quo, one of those lingering evolutionary tricks that allows us not to freeze up eternally and be eaten by predators. We depend on muscle memory and habits, tendencies which propel us forward but can also consume us.  It's easy (as it should be to a point) to take things for granted. It's easy to benightedly indulge our inattentional blindness. And despite Manichean binaries to the contrary, cognition is rarely rational in any strict sense.  Finally will power is an exhaustible resource despite our contumelious contra-asseverations. So bring on the artificial assistance. 

So, I don't usually "give something up" for Lent, but I do think of it as a time for tentatively incorporating a practice that eliminates a small distraction. Abstention itself can become its own addiction, so I try to practice this carefully. I do note that Lent lasts exactly the period of time most people think is required to form a habit (40 days). 

One of my expanding goals in the last few years is to rein in the reticulate interdependence I have with my e-devices and the world-wide-webs. I'm not a full proponent of the slow internet movement (mostly because I just am not able to bring myself to go that nuclear), but it resonates with me. Relative to most people, I'm good at multi-tasking. As a highly sensitive introvert, I'm particularly wired to notice minor changes around me, and have a stressfully high level of situational awareness. That said, I suck at multi-tasking. Or it sucks it out of me, anyways. I find myself getting exponentially stressed and annoyed when I hear the chat notification in the midst of a good paragraph in my book, or a good chopping of some cabbage. I also know that I am particularly primed to notice those little notification indicators. Sometimes if somebody else's phone starts blinking a mile away, I am caught in its tractor beam until I have to comment "your phone wants  you" lest I wrest the phone from that person and clear the notification myself. 

I've also talked about my re-resolution to set up a few wireless times. These so far have included weekend mornings with my loris, date nights, a once a week lunch out and dinner with my folks (about 50% of the time). It is funny, but despite the constant habitual reaching for the eidolon of phone and its infinite access to the sludge of the world, it's also something of a relief to be abandoned in the present moment. One less thing to tend to. It allows me to focus fully on my environment, my colloquitor, and occasionally my own boredom (the gateway to creativity for me).

So my lindt ball 2014 (tell me that there is a huge Lindt & Sprungli sponsored Gala by that name!) exercise is to utilize the block function and my silent app on phones and so forth to (1) minimize my notifications through-out the day, and (2) add an extra hour a day of wireless time. Of course the wireless time won't be at work, since that's intrinsically computerized. I'm thinking perhaps that first hour after work, or possibly every dinner time hour. If I can, I'm going to minimize my maniacal tab usage on chrome as well. But my main goal is an extra hour a day. If that works I may try to bump it up an eensy bit, but only if it works for a good week or two first. 

Anyways, happy Ashen Dromedary Day all! I'm off for another humiliating session with the PT. I'm pretty sure she'll help modify my PT routine to add balancing a stack of juggling balls on my nose to my one-legged arch rises on unstable ground routine!

Facebook Detox Status (har har) Report and What I do not Miss at All

So - the facebook detoxing has not been as complete as I may have liked. After agreeing to cohost a regular milonga and be included as a nominal member of the "faculty" in the loosely formed Tango Popolare (this is mostly my previous teaching partner and his handful of regular lessons and other teaching partners around NW Washington), I offered to maintain a facebook fan page in the hopes of getting the larger Bellingham community more involved:

Yeah, I stole that from here, but it's out user pic because I like it. 

 It seems to me that although the community can have redundancies, there are distinct Bellingham barrios developing. Perhaps this is an inevitable and even good thing, but since this leads to scheduling conflicts and many missed connections with my favorite dancers who may have fractionalized slightly differently than other favorite dancers... well for selfish reasons, I'd like to at least encourage *my* favorite dancers to be at events I know I'll be attending because I've agreed to teach/dj/etc. Anyways, this has been a muddied experience to say the least. In hindsight, I probably should have created a "group" which allows you to add anyone without prior notification or consent... annoying when I have been added, but if this doesn't pan out after a month, I may have to switch before giving up altogether.

Creating a page is fairly simple, but getting people to "like" (and thus receive updates in their feed) it has proven to be more trouble than it's likely worth. I seem to recall a time where you would get an "invite" to "like" (er, actually I guess "fan" a page - I assume the same syntax applied) a page that showed up in notifications and was fairly easy to find, identify and act upon.. The co-teacher, whom I added as an admin on the page, managed to confuse himself into adding about thirty more friends to his personal profile while attempting to invite people to "like" the page. I also attempted to simply post the page from my profile and asked people to "like" it, which inevitably led to more people liking the post where I ask people to "like" the page than actually "liking" the page, despite my added comment that this would not be effective. So... 8 friends and one of the admins doesn't even "like" the page.

Can I just say that by now I miss the days where painfully redundant use of the word "like" was confined to Valley Girl speak and that delightfully dippy intonations accompanying such patter. Give me the days of Clueless over stupid cluttered FB verboddities (yes, as previously established, I can and shall create new words whenever I so choose).

So, like, I'm suppose, like like some like page or something
As if! I like totally don't DO computers except
to coordinate my wardrobe. 

 Although I think I am missing out on announcements and funny comments from which I've always derived value, there are many things that I can solidly swear I do not miss:

1. Obsessive Schadenfreudes over sundry stupidities, and morbid fascinations with that love-to-hate urge. I have a few "friends" whose status updates I've watched largely for the opportunity to snicker and tsk in absentee condescension. There's a morbid fascination with some people's trainwrecks of a life and facebook can provide our own personalized Jersey Shore or Starz Magazine. Of particular fascination are the stupid on-again-off-again relationships that were obviously doomed from the begining and bear watching for the inevitable blow ups and subsequent blissful reunions; the insane narcissists who seem unaware of just how conceited and deluded their self-serving posts read and thus make great fodder for reading aloud; the passive-aggressive "you know who you are" types who make equally great fodder and tip one off to all kinds of interesting gossip; the exes for whom I technically bear no ill will (usually even think well enough of to maintain the occasional "how's it going?" contact), and yet get a little surge of fascinated cruelty in following their subsequent romantic endeavors, which I guess is a sort of see it wasn't me, it was YOU! kind of thing.

2. The mindless reload loop. So you're on facebook and *nothing* is happening, but you know if you leave, *something* will happen. So you feel like you have to stay on there, whether you do so actively or just have it up in the background and "occasionally" refresh on the theory that maybe the automatic refresh isn't working as effectively as it should be. And you enter this incredible state of watchfulness as you wait for whatever "something" there may be to happen. Because it's so easy, this leads into rescanning your feed, looking up friends you haven't seen much from in a while (good way to stumble on delightful news like maybe you've been blocked, etc., but usually just kind of a boring confirmation that you haven't heard much because they haven't done much and/or maybe they commented on somebody else's page and it was kind of boring, but hey why didn't they comment on your page??), going back, clicking reload, switching feed options to change the order... and suddenly that sixty minutes of free time you could have spent reading a book, writing an email or taking a walk is gone.

3. The petty jealousies. Ok, in admitting these roil a bit in my head from time to time I am not admitting that I give great heed to them, but there is a little voice in the back of my head  who disturbs my inner-elevator music with its spiteful reactions to things that fall into the ignorance is bliss category. For instance, facebook may tell me my bestest friends are going to an event with some acquaintances or see that they've had a long love-fest in comments on their wall with another person... While in ordinary circumstances I understand that friends actually have other friends and are allowed to have other friends, it can a similar sort of thing as recognizing that my significant others will and do find other people attractive and probably have some feelings for others overriden by their better instincts. As neither truths likely impact me from a practical standpoint and do send my mind places I'd rather avoid, I don't need to know about it. Facebook begs to differ.

4. Similar to 3, facebook as a relationship metric. Sometimes - and again we speak of small twinges - there is a little something in seeing the more effusive facebook behavior of another friend's significant other that causes me to pause in considering my own. Or maybe, I start comparing how often and in what way I refer to my significant other to how often and in what way he refers to me.  I don't suggest doing this, but I dare you to try not to. Don't get me started on the leery tussle of "relationship status" that occurs at the begining of a relationship.

5. Lest we forget, the birthday pettiness. Why some people post on my wall to wish me happy birthday and others do not is a complete mystery. Some of my very close friends ignore it and some people I've barely seen post extremely detailed and personalized comments on my wall. I generally have appreciated the ritual for reminding me of dormant relationships and how much I appreciate people who aren't as active in my life now, but I also can't avoid at least some calculating about who said what and who did not say anything.

6. Notification addiction. I'm usually an introvert, but I also enjoy affirmation and - as an introvert - I tend to take any sign of rejection including being ignored far more harshly than extroverts. So there is always a hook to posting comments/events/etc. and a deep hope that people will respond and recognize just waiting to be dashed. This feeds desperately into the mindless reload loop. Also, every time somebody comments or likes a post, it makes me feel like I've "accomplished" something, and this feeling can substitute for actual accomplishments. And since this is a tiny bite of a post, it usually is not the same kind of "I made you think or laugh" accomplishment of anything of substance.

7. Oh and the privacy issue. I'm very protective of my time and space. I am - as previously harped upon - an introvert, so having the ability to vanish for a while is a good thing. Sometimes this means that I need a friend to not hear back from me for a brief period of time while I'm mulling on something or otherwise to protect myself and my schedule with a brief wall of vagueness. Not that one can't control for these things, but with passive sharing and a little forgetfulness, frequently friends know what I'm up to when I wish they didn't or that I'm currently on the computer when I'd just as soon they didn't. It goes without saying that I've turned off chat. I can't tell you how much the uninvited conversations stressed me out (introvert with a sense of social obligation to respond to people requesting communication needs mental preparation!)

8. And of course the unfriending issue. I may have mentioned this before, but I feel like in the past, relationships took work to continue as such, or it would simply fade away.. There are friend breakups in the real world, I know, but ordinarily the less cataclysmic end has been that gradual drift. With unfriending, you can stay "friends" far longer than you otherwise would have if it required effort, but ending takes an affirmative act...And since facebook has the mentality of a highschool mean-girl (maybe there is a reason that it's so enamored of the word "like" after all!), you will stumble upon a number of old "friends" whom you have unfriended or who have unfriended you in the "people you may know" area. In fact, it will even suggest your exes, despite knowing that you were in a relationship on facebook and broke up on facebook and maybe said a lot of nasty and indiscreet things that ended you up on lame book together. That just seems cruel.

9.  On the flipside, it means hanging onto people longer and this can interfere with letting go. I have a few of what I term "ghost friends" on facebook. These are people whose posts are hidden from my feed and who are blocked in my privacy settings from seeing mine. This arrangement is most common when I'm recovering from a break up as a way of getting the space I need, but allowing a seamless reintegration of the person into my acquaintanceship when sufficient time has passed. I generally think that's pretty ok, since again I tend to like most of my exes and don't mind the semi-annual "how's it goin?" kind of message. That said, I also have had some others in the ghost status largely because the relationship itself remains in limbo. Ordinarily, the fade away process would be sad, but mend over time. This way, occasionally the ghost re-emerges through facebook flubs or just going through the friends list and never has the same resolved feeling that past friends might have or the urgency to take action to end the limbo either way.

10. The political/religious/etc. vitriol. I have friends on both sides of the aisle of many issues who equally bother me by presenting their views in as confrontational and snyde a manner as possible. I don't care what you believe on the issues, but the belief that it is alright to imply in a public forum that any one who disagrees with you is (1) an idiot (2) a jerk (3) doesn't deserve a similar level of reflective respect that invites open conversation really gets under my skin. I try to expose myself to different view points, because I think it's important to be aware of my cognitive biases and try not to let them completely define my actions, but when these beliefs are packaged so aggressively, it is very hard not to fall back into entrenchment and defensiveness even if they were not presented to me directly. This in turn has the opposite effect of what I desire, because it pushes me furhter into my knee-jerk biases and I don't appreciate that. It's worse, if somebody presents an idea I agree with in that manner, because it associates my belief with that level of irrationality and of course shuts down possibility for rational discourse just a little more. 

Anyways, that's just an impromptu list. There's probably more.

It's autumn and that means it's almost...

Ridiculously adorable sea creature season!!! No wait, I mean pumpkin pie season. I am very limited in my pumpkin pie window - October through November, with a possibility of some Christmas related pumpkin pie consumption. I took to making a very simple pumpkin custardy type thing last year and might revert to that once the cans of pumpkin puree come out in full force. Now that I live with a food processor (my roommate has a staggering amount of high quality cook-ware, which is both staggeringly impressive and a little intimidating as I remain the steadfast microwave gourmand), I'm tempted to try a real pumpkin out for my pie making attempts, but the cans are so convenient and I'm terrifically lazy. Oh, also, I always like a little deadly hormone interrupting chemicals in my food and I hear canned food is good for that extra zing!

Anyways, between all the nifty winter squashes (I run to the "local squash" section of my grocery store and feel like a kid in a very odd candy store) and PUMPKIN (which I recognize is a squash, but it's also PUMPKIN!!), I am pretty satisfied with fall so far. Speaking of squash, did you know you can eat the skin of delicata squash? At least I hope so, since I've been doing so regularly. I also have become more comfortable with the idea of microwaving squash, something I used to shun. I find that keeping squash at the office is a little weird, but it's really convenient. If it's small enough, I cut it in half, put it upside down in a bowl with some water, cover with another bowl to make a weird oblong container, put it in the microwave for five minutes, help the seeds fall right out, cut in half and split with my mom. Makes a nice afternoon snack for my tastes.

It is also officially - mostly ... and finally - fall weather. This weekend was a bit on the fence, but we had a few delicious rainstorms and quite the wind tunnel going on yesterday. I ordinarily meet up with some friends to go walking around Padden on Mondays. This week though we opted for our reserved winter activity which involves about as much driving as physical activity (Sudden Valley may be a valley but it's as little less sudden then one might like!), but I never really did it for the work out. But our winter workout activity is the ever awesome Julie and Jaana Core Rhythms, so totally worth it.

In other news, it is almost October. In about two weeks I'm going to my collaborative law training, the third major step towards becoming a collaborative lawyer. The week after that, I hear about the bar finally. I am not nervous yet, but I'm rather seriously dreading that week and all that it means. It's kind of terrifying all around: either I didn't pass and I have to go through bar-exam hell again (which I really could do without), or I did pass and I have to be a lawyer! And having done a lot of shadowing and training this last month, the prospect of that kind of responsibility with the gaping maw of potential life-destroying flubs I can make in my fiduciary capacity... scarier (almost) than another three days of bar hell and the utter exhaustion of telling everyone who's breezily been telling me "oh of course you passed" that I didn't pass.

In other news, after a bit of mulling, I've decided to disengage from facebook. I feel like their model increasingly encourages passive socialization over conscious interaction. As an introvert who can initially come across as standoffish or not as friendly, I do appreciate that social networking has allowed me to show another side of my personality and arrange social activities outside of facebook in a less threatening manner. But increasingly I've felt that it has encouraged a sheer superficiality in what may otherwise have been closer friendships. (And maybe sometimes it's hard to have that ghost eye view of some people's lives)

It's easier just to watch and make elevator-appropriate comments than to email or call  I no longer have penpalships with the five or six people I used to, which is at least partially attributable to the shift to social media. It's always been strange to me that people who have previously emailed me now choose to use the facebook. 

I also feel wary that the default is to share EVERYTHING. It feels impersonal  In person, each interaction is conscious, and while that can be intimidating to an introvert, it's also more meaningful.

This - so far - is what I like about google plus - you have to choose consciously which people to share with and what to share... the default is essentially not sharing. It makes the sharing more interesting and more conscious. Also is no wall that you can "stalk" for individuals. There's only what they've specifically chosen to share with you. It saves a lot of idle skulking, which of course i would NEVER do on Facebook. Ever. Never whipping out the spanish to english dictionaries to translate a conversation in somebody's comments or anything like that... 

I am still not quite ready to delete my profile and cut off access to all that contact information for the 300 odd people I may not keep in active contact with but want to keep tabs on... but, I'm getting closer.

Until then, I have more free time not filled by mindless skulking, so I may need to crack a new book soon!

The ULTIMATE U-District Restaurant Redemption

Due to our mutually insane schedules, Andrew and I seem to have settled on a bit of a date night on Tuesday evenings. This is the one week-night that google calendar has allowed us to meet. We both rely on google calendar and would possibly be lost without it, so when it tells us to do something, we tend to willingly comply (there's a lot of fear surrounding the consequences of insubordination - I mean, this is google we're talking about). Which is good, because left to our own devices, we may never see each other. We both have our nutso schedules to balance with our on "quirks" about schedule management: his maybe involving some hyperbolic discounting about transitions between one task and the next, and mine being that I'm crazy! To elaborate, I'm obsessed with planning out at least one mutually acceptable schedule and perhaps two or three alternates, meaning that I both need to know what's going on with anyone else involved at all times, that if something isn't working according to schedule, I will scrap it and go with another alternately planned schedule and that I will inflate the predicted amount of time to do anything by about 40% "just to be safe," largely in order to maintain the small smidgen of highly valued down time (alone time recharging my introvert batteries). 

Google calendars is our friend, because it tells us to be somewhere and we will be there. Without it, I would be "somewhere" two hours early, Andrew would be there about two hours late... and we just might miss each other. Plus it satisfies my planning itch and allows me quick and easy access to all relevant schedules that need balancing. I scour my mind for restaurants before setting up a google invitation (and yes, I've threatened that one day when we're a busy yuppie couple, I will start making google events for days in the future that say things like "sexual intercourse" and send him an invite from my android to his blackberry as we sit in separate corners of the room doing at-home work that is no longer homework).

This week, I had to buy this particular kind of tofu that only Trader Joe's (and only the TJ's in the U district) seems to sell (yuppie-in-training, leave me alone!), so I thought I would scour in that area and decided on a place I'd passed many times while walking from his house to school:

The Ultimate Indian Food Experience! I mean, I'm not sure if that's attractive or terrifying, but it's definitely intriguing. Does it mean our last food experience due to poisins in the food? Is the food so exquisite that we will never be able to eat imitators again? Hopefully at least there will be bollywood music and those ever so delightful indian spices (I really feel that indian culture has pretty much the final word in how to spice food and nobody will come close). Will we be invaded by Mongols and live under the Moghul Empire? Will there be tigers??? It's intriguing enough.

Bombay Grill is a few blocks down in a bit of a rundown area surrounded by vacant lots, used-bookstores, and expensive car shops. In terms of providing a pleasant dining experience Bombay Grill had its work cut out for it. Andrew was tired after working on Monday Night RAW (yes, this is the coolest thing ever) before a regular schoolday and I was a walking midol commercial. I would say, based on my particularized tastes, that it completely came through for me and is ascending the "awesome restaurants of Seattle" mental list pretty quickly. It is totally awesome in that slightly off way that only totally awesome restaurants can ever be.

The atmosphere is a little bit of everything. The place looks a touch like an abandoned church, a touch like a cheap tourist hotel I might have stayed in while in Morocco and a little more like a lounge you might go to early in the an evening of vacation-related drinking. There are fake palm trees, little wood detailings, lanterns, flea sale paintings, and a HUGE amount of excess capacity.
Our waiter was super nice and attentive and they gave us hot towels at the end of the meal, which made me feel like I was on a Transatlantic flight. The prices were decent. My meal came in at around 7 dollars, anyways. Oh and since nobody was in there, we were left with the lulling tones of a bollywood cover of Besame Mucho, which definitely enhances the claim of Ultimate Indian Dining somewhat! No tigers and no death, but definitely lifted the mood a bit and sparked me up with some of those spicy stars.