Amanda, Lonan Kai, and I had dinner with Jane last night. David was going to come as well, but he had to go to some work meeting. We picked up Jane from Harborview and then discussed where we wanted to go; we ended up going to Coastal Kitchen. We managed to score rock star parking right outside the restaurant, which was good since I messed up my back picking up LK earlier in the morning. I was actually a bit drugged up and was considering staying home to sleep.
Dinner was good. LK was fussy, though, and spent much time flinging food about. He is attempting to use silverware, but he has not mastered the concept yet.
Back at home I passed out. Whatever Amanda had prescribed me (some muscle relaxant) finally overwhelmed me and I slept for twelve hours or so. Clearly I should have paid heed to the avoid alcohol stickers as I had a beer with dinner.
This morning I dropped off Lonan Kai and Amanda and then took the car to the shop. Conveniently, it is only a couple of blocks from us by the taco truck on Rainier. It was pretty painless; apparently the other person’s insurance is taking care of everything and even got us a rental car. Hopefully, everything will be fixed quickly with a minimum of bureaucratic hassle. And because I do not want LK dribbling food and whatnot all over the rental car long term.
As usual when driving other cars, I kept jack-rabbit-starting the rental; the Prius has a much gentler acceleration curve than non-hybrids.
I will pick up Amanda around 1pm. She has a class this evening on Swedish’s electronic medical record, so she will miss LK’s evening routine. Her clinic does deliveries and shares some inpatient duties with the family medicine residency at Swedish.
My back still hurts like hell. Getting old sucks.

I had a Parent’s Night Out evening with some other members of our parenting group last Tuesday. Previous incarnations had been Mothers/Fathers nights out, but it is easier to coordinate when the parent it not specified. Amanda was going to go, but decided that I needed to get out of the house (which I don’t much since I have worked a lot from home for years).
The night out was at 611 Supreme, a bar and restaurant that specializes in crepes in Capitol Hill. I had walked by in many times when we lived in our old apartment, but I had never been inside. I also had not been to the area in quite a while; a huge section of a nearby block had been torn down. It is currently a parking lot, and will be for a while since I doubt there is any funding available to the mixed use building(s) that had been planned.
Moneta, Bethany, Pam, Shannon, and Julia were there. It would have been a Mother’s Night Out if Amanda had attended. Shannon said that it was good that I was there as otherwise everyone might be tempted to merely talk about all their spouses.
It was fun. I had not been out at a bar without Amanda in a long long time. The last time might have been when Jesse was in town way before Lonan Kai was born… we had gone to Shorty’s in Belltown. The last time Amanda and I had been out without LK was our anniversary last July 3rd. Crazy.
Aside: Moneta and Ethan’s anniversary is the same as ours. I believe they got married a year later.
I had a very alcoholic drink at the bar, and then had a mushroom crepe with wine. And then an cappuccino. I should have sampled one of their dessert crepes. They looked pretty good.
All in all, the food was good, although I am not really all that into crepes. The night ended before 10pm, though so we did not paint the town red, although we were joking about heading down to Belltown or Pioneer Square.
Sunday, we went to Little Mel’s first birthday party. It was at a community center up on Beacon Hill (which I had always thought was part of the golf course up there, but I guess not). Mel and Bethany had rented out the room because they had invited a lot of people and obviously there house could not hold everyone. It was fun, too. Little Mel did not seem to be having much fun, perhaps because he had just woken up, but he was enjoying himself more as the party went on.
Today, someone hit the car in Trader Joe’s parking garage. I had been talking to a possible client on the phone when I got a email message about a claim on our insurance (what?), but a bit later Amanda called and said that someone had hit her and she had called to report it. We have an appointment for the car placed near our house tomorrow. I don’t know how all the insurance stuff is handled in Washington state, but I guess I will find out shortly.

I have gotten very erratic on my entries, undoubtedly because I have been distracted by the economy and whatnot. Life is as it normally is, I imagine.
I did not go the the gym at all last week. Oops.
There was an earthquake whose epicenter was a mere 14 miles away on the other side of Eliot Bay. It was only rated at 4.5, so it was mild. I slept through it since it occurred at 4:30am or somesuch.
We did go to a superbowl party on Sunday (although not for the whole game). It was at a coworker of Ann’s place whom we had not met until then. He had a very big HDTV. Impressive. Lonan Kai was not much into the game or ads but was amused nonetheless.
A house was on fire on Beacon Hill this morning…. quite close to us really. There was a lot of smoke and an circling helicopter.
Amanda was planning on going out to lunch with Carrie, but she might be busying interviewing people for pharmacy residency openings.

We celebrated MLK day by eating lunch at IKEA… probably not the most thoughtful way of recognizing the holiday. Otherwise, the week was a typical week. All of us our healthy now, though; Lonan Kai has finally got his ravenous appetite back and also has started drinking a lot of water.
We went to the aquarium on Saturday (“free” since we are members) and met up with one of Amanda’s coworkers Laura who brought her 2+ year old. Laura had given us a lot of hand-me-down $30-$40 baby/toddler shoes which was very nice of her. Her kid (Ben?) was quite the walker/runner and basically sprinted everywhere. I like the aquarium much more now that we are members.
I finally acquired Rock Band II; it is on a FedEx truck right now for delivery today. It was “free” in the sense that I used the rewards points from my credit card to buy it and a bunch of accessories. I still need to accomplish things today before indulging, though.

I walked into Lonan Kai’s room last night and he was damp and crusty again; yet another unfortunate vomiting episode. Fortunately, though, he seemed much better during the day and has regained his appetite.
Amanda seems to have fully recovered, while I was actually able to start eating again. Since Monday I have lost over ten pounds. I can get a six pack as a bonus from this virus! I probably have lost more as I checked my weight today with my hair very wet from the shower and with jeans and sweatshirt on. Amanda was alarmed at my abrupt shrunken look.
It probably was a virus (as opposed to food poisoning) due to the varying times we fell ill. Mike and Ann thought it was the tiramisu at their party, but we did not have any. They got sick as well, so perhaps it was something at the restaurant.
We saw them, as well as Pam and Annabel at Moneta and Ethan and Adina’s place today for a playgroup; we had deemed all of us non-contagious. I hope no one there gets ill anyway. We were going to have a PEPS+ meeting, but Jackie and Jeff and Calvin were still sick (probably from Mike’s party as well!). It was great to see everyone. I drank a beer. Woo.
It is now the evening and Lonan Kai is asleep. Armando is sleeping beside me on the desk. Piglet is scratching angrily at the door. Amanda is talking on the phone to Carrie upstairs. I am starving, but paradoxically don’t feel like eating. I predict a movie or documentary in our future tonight. I know, who would have guessed.