21 SEP 2009 : MONDAY

Amanda has Mondays off, but she usually works most of the day charting. This Monday was no exception, although I did take her to work so that Lonan Kai would not be distracted by her. My Mom spent the day hanging out with her grandson. As did I.
Amanda and I had our third date night of the year (shocking, I know). My Mom watched the Kai. We walked to Columbia City and went to Verve Wine Bar and Cellar.

I had been only once before a long time ago with Amanda (she had also been wine tasting there with Eve), but then they were just serving crepes. They had many more things on the menu now, and since we were there early we took advantage of their Happy Hour specials… a bunch of small plates for $3 and $3 off flights of wine. I noted that everything had some sort of wine or alcohol ingredient.

Our waitress was pretty funny. For some reason I thought she was Australian.

We got:

• cheese of the day (a cherve) with tasty crispy bread things
• grilled figs with honey and cheese (I forget what)
• grilled brussell spouts
• some sort of risotto for Amanda
• rare salmon with lobster mushrooms for me
• flight of Northwest wine for me
• flight of classic French wine for Amanda

Amanda wanted to get a chocolate torte for dessert, but they were out! The chef agreed to whip something up and made a chocolate covered cheesecake thing for her with a paired port. She liked it. I got a pistachio and something bread pudding with another sweet wine that I don’t recall.

My Mom apparently had litle trouble bathing Lk and putting him to bed. I think we tried to watch a streaming Netflix movie but failed.

22 SEP 2009 : TUESDAY

Amanda worked and was on call all night. I kept the Kai home again to spend more quality time with his Lola. We just stayed at home and let him burn off energy by running about outside.

Amanda had a delivery, but managed to get back home before I took my Mom to the airport for her redeye flight back to the East Coast.

She apparently had an interesting flight. Right as they were just about to take off from Seatac, there was a loud grinding noise and the airplane lost power and all hydraulics (according to the pilot). Oops. Good thing that whatever had happened did not happen right after take off. As it was, they had to get towed back to the gate. There was another plane available for a flight next morning, so they were able to leave albeit three hours late.

23 SEP 2009 : WEDNESDAY – 25 SEP 2009 : FRIDAY

Life as usual. Amanda is all call all weekend. Friday was American Indian Day, and Amanda had the day off, but she had to go in to handle a delivery all day. But she should get the day off another time.

26 SEP 2009 : SATURDAY

I took the Kai to South 47 Farm for the annual Harvest Celebration and Farm Tour. Amanda wanted to go as well, but since she was on call she had to go into the hospital and round on patients. We have been to a lot of the farms on the tour before, but South 47 is probably the closest and is good for little progenies. We had gone last year with him as well.

This year we met up with Ann, Mike, Connor, Jackie, Jeff, and Calvin. Lonan Kai was very interested in the farm animals. He kept calling the alpacas “llamas”, but afterwards throughout the day he chanted “a-paca” at random intervals. We took a hayride around the farm. Afterwards the ride the imperious Kai started screaming about something and I had no idea what because we were surrounded by possibly interesting things. I just dropped him and he ran directly to the fresh cider donuts. How about that.

I briefly stayed for the beginning of a cooking demonstration, but then decided to get the Kai home before he passed out. As it was, me fell asleep in the car, and once home I could not get him to sleep despite trying for almost two hours. So he basically slept for perhaps 15 minutes whereas he normally sleeps for a couple of hours.
Amanda came home around 2 pm bearing gifts of banh mi. I love banh mi… who can argue with what is basically a foot long sub for under $2. Of course, I probably could’ve eaten three of them.

We went out on a adventure to Oasis Water Gardens to get a few fish for our new water feature. It was a little cold, so it was hard to tell how vigorous the fish were, but I did try to choose lively ones with all their fins intact.

I dropped LK and Amanda off at the community center at Genesse Park while I returned home to drop off our newly acquired three fishes. Piglet was outside and immediately investigated the bag that I dropped into the water barrel. I hope that does not bode ill for them.

I returned to pick up Amanda and LK and we went to El Sombrero for dinner. We had been eating out a lot, but I had some money from my Mom that she gave me for the express purpose of eating out. Thanks Mom! I think we have eaten Mexican food for the fourth time in the last seven days, but Amanda loves it. This time, they make Lonan Kai up a little plate of fish and rice and beans just for himself; usually he just scarfed up the fish from my tacos.

Afterwards, Amanda had tried to buy me a gift sneakily at the gallery next door, but I walked in on her purchase. It was a magnet that looks like Armando!

Armando has more white on his belly and a little white on his nose, but it does look like him.

We also stopped in the bookstore and got Mr. Kai a couple of used children’s books.

Now, the formerly rampaging Kai is asleep, and he did so quite easily. Through the afternoon and evening he had been saying “what? what?” and “I’m not tired!” (well, in toddlerspeak), just like the Pigeon in Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late. Funny.