Twelve Hours for Fun
I kidnapped Chris yesterday and took him out for the day. Now that he's feeling better, and since we're Kate-free this weekend, it just seemed right not to let him spend the entire day mired in work. Of course, as is usually the way, not everything worked out in practice as well as it had worked out in my mind.
The first hurdle was that Flexcar was switching cars over to their new technology this weekend, and as part of that every car in downtown Seattle or in my own neighborhood was unavailable but for one. I snagged that one car, but couldn't find the entrance to the parking structure and couldn't get more precise directions from the Flexcar operator, so it literally took us walking around the entire building, trying multiple locked doors, walking down into the parking garage from the auto ramp and eventually stumbling across the car just as I was about to give up as we had literally walked the entire block before finding it. Not an auspicious start.
Heading back south, I thought I was driving us off to try Sweet and Savory but instead ended up at Mioposto (purely from my own sloppy computer skills...I got the Google Map for the wrong restaurant, I confirmed this morning). We improvised and had coffee and scones there, but it was not what I wanted and the second strike against my planned day. Additionally, it was raining. That shouldn't be a surprise, it's Seattle after all, but roaming around in strange neighborhoods is more fun when the weather is nicer (as it had been during the week).
We set off again, this time to find the Crashing the Gate event that was happening in Marymoor Park. Of course, again my google-mapping skills failed us, this time because (although I'd cut and pasted the address) I got directions for SE Lake Sammamish Parkway instead of NE Lake Sammamish Parkway, and so ended up in Issaquah instead of Redmond. After driving completely around Lake Sammamish, we did finally end up at Marymoor Park, but there was no sign of where the Crashing the Gate event might have been. No signs, no obvious group of people. Oh, and I did mention that it was raining, right? We drove every inch of Marymoor park, walked in the rain to try our luck at locked and empty buildings, and in the end all we got out of the deal was a scenic drive around Lake Sammamish and wet shoes. Bah.
Deflated, but not willing to give up entirely, we decided to try lunching at Vios. Finally success! A mere six blocks from our frequent hang-out with R&C, we quickly found parking and entered the friendly, bustling little restaurant. Special of the day: leg of lamb sandwich on fresh baguette with arugula pesto, roasted tomatoes and caramelized onions. Yes, please! Chris got the seared albacore tuna sandwich which was similarly wonderful, and we split an order of the octopus salad (cumin, chick peas, roasted carrots and tender, delicious pieces of octopus...oh my, SO delicious). Lunch washed away the disappointments of the early part of the day.
As we were in the neighborhood, we met up with R&C and watched Layer Cake on The Beast. I remember hearing about Layer Cake after last year's film festival and enjoyed it quite a bit. I like a good caper movie and paid special attention to Daniel Craig for signs of what he may be like as the new James Bond.
Chris and I had already gotten tickets to last night's performance of Great Men of Genius: Nikola Tesla by Mike Daisey. Mr. and Mrs. Grubbstreet had been at Thursday night's version Great Men of Genius: Bertolt Brecht, and I heard rumor that on Friday night mention of a certain recent bachelorette party made its way into the P. T. Barnum monologue, to the slight embarrassment of one or more attendees in the audience. Somewhat sadly, Saturday night was the only night Pramas and I could make it, but I'm not too disappointed because it was Tesla I wanted to hear anyway. Mike did his usual good job and despite this being the premier performance of this particular monologue, I thought it was tighter all the way through than the good but somewhat uneven performance of 21 Dog Years we saw in 2003. He is becoming ever better in his craft and it's great fun to watch.
Ended the night with a late dinner at Elysian Brewing Company with a satisfying plate of mushroom stroganoff and a pint of Avatar Jasmine that was out of this world. Christine gave me a sip of hers and I immediately abandoned what I was drinking and ordered one for myself. Bliss.
All told we packed all of that into almost exactly twelve hours. Not bad at all.
The first hurdle was that Flexcar was switching cars over to their new technology this weekend, and as part of that every car in downtown Seattle or in my own neighborhood was unavailable but for one. I snagged that one car, but couldn't find the entrance to the parking structure and couldn't get more precise directions from the Flexcar operator, so it literally took us walking around the entire building, trying multiple locked doors, walking down into the parking garage from the auto ramp and eventually stumbling across the car just as I was about to give up as we had literally walked the entire block before finding it. Not an auspicious start.
Heading back south, I thought I was driving us off to try Sweet and Savory but instead ended up at Mioposto (purely from my own sloppy computer skills...I got the Google Map for the wrong restaurant, I confirmed this morning). We improvised and had coffee and scones there, but it was not what I wanted and the second strike against my planned day. Additionally, it was raining. That shouldn't be a surprise, it's Seattle after all, but roaming around in strange neighborhoods is more fun when the weather is nicer (as it had been during the week).
We set off again, this time to find the Crashing the Gate event that was happening in Marymoor Park. Of course, again my google-mapping skills failed us, this time because (although I'd cut and pasted the address) I got directions for SE Lake Sammamish Parkway instead of NE Lake Sammamish Parkway, and so ended up in Issaquah instead of Redmond. After driving completely around Lake Sammamish, we did finally end up at Marymoor Park, but there was no sign of where the Crashing the Gate event might have been. No signs, no obvious group of people. Oh, and I did mention that it was raining, right? We drove every inch of Marymoor park, walked in the rain to try our luck at locked and empty buildings, and in the end all we got out of the deal was a scenic drive around Lake Sammamish and wet shoes. Bah.
Deflated, but not willing to give up entirely, we decided to try lunching at Vios. Finally success! A mere six blocks from our frequent hang-out with R&C, we quickly found parking and entered the friendly, bustling little restaurant. Special of the day: leg of lamb sandwich on fresh baguette with arugula pesto, roasted tomatoes and caramelized onions. Yes, please! Chris got the seared albacore tuna sandwich which was similarly wonderful, and we split an order of the octopus salad (cumin, chick peas, roasted carrots and tender, delicious pieces of octopus...oh my, SO delicious). Lunch washed away the disappointments of the early part of the day.
As we were in the neighborhood, we met up with R&C and watched Layer Cake on The Beast. I remember hearing about Layer Cake after last year's film festival and enjoyed it quite a bit. I like a good caper movie and paid special attention to Daniel Craig for signs of what he may be like as the new James Bond.
Chris and I had already gotten tickets to last night's performance of Great Men of Genius: Nikola Tesla by Mike Daisey. Mr. and Mrs. Grubbstreet had been at Thursday night's version Great Men of Genius: Bertolt Brecht, and I heard rumor that on Friday night mention of a certain recent bachelorette party made its way into the P. T. Barnum monologue, to the slight embarrassment of one or more attendees in the audience. Somewhat sadly, Saturday night was the only night Pramas and I could make it, but I'm not too disappointed because it was Tesla I wanted to hear anyway. Mike did his usual good job and despite this being the premier performance of this particular monologue, I thought it was tighter all the way through than the good but somewhat uneven performance of 21 Dog Years we saw in 2003. He is becoming ever better in his craft and it's great fun to watch.
Ended the night with a late dinner at Elysian Brewing Company with a satisfying plate of mushroom stroganoff and a pint of Avatar Jasmine that was out of this world. Christine gave me a sip of hers and I immediately abandoned what I was drinking and ordered one for myself. Bliss.
All told we packed all of that into almost exactly twelve hours. Not bad at all.
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