obligatory actual content: I think I will adjust my twitter feed to update every week instead of everyday. Everyday seems a little overkill, and actually increases the likelihood of me not writing an actual entry.

I had started another entry covering the past couple weeks, but let’s forget that now and talk about today in order to not fall completely behind in weblog updating.

Tammie, an old friend from Ithaca, was in the area this weekend. She was primarily here for a wedding outside of Portland, and she and her mother spent the weekend seeing the sights between Seattle and Oregon. She had worked with Amanda at a daycare in Ithaca (this was after Amanda had graduated from Cornell but before she started medical school). Around the time Amanda started med school, Tammie moved down to Washington, DC to become a paralegal; we had not seen her since then. Now she is married, about to have a kid of her own, and is attending law school while still working full-time.

We met up with her this afternoon. We picked her up outside of Pike Place Market, walked around the Seattle Center, went up the Space Needle, went to the Olympic Sculpture Park, had dinner at Mioposto, visited the garden, and relaxed at home. Amanda is taking her to the airport right now for her redeye flight back to the East Coast. It was great to catch up with her.

Here is a picture of Tammie and Amanda from the winter of 2001. The view is looking west from the highest point on the Abbot Loop in Danby State Forest.

Amanda’s 30th (!) birthday was last Wednesday. We are now in the same decade again, which has not happened in a while. She had to work in the morning, but we went out for a rare celebratory dinner in the evening. I picked up Amanda’s mom earlier in the day from the airport; she is in town visiting for a few weeks plus take her nursing boards.

After considering various options, I made reservations for La Medusa mainly because it is very close by and it is good to support businesses in the neighborhood. I believe we went there last year for her birthday as well, but I don’t think I mentioned it in the weblog. Before dinner, Amanda had a “renewal experience” with her mom at the student Aveda place in Capitol Hill. I met up with them and Lonan Kai at the Farmer’s market. Lonan Kai and his grandmother went home while Amanda and I walked to La Medusa.

Amanda had the prixe fixe Market Menu, which is a three course deal made with stuff from the nearby farmer’s market. It was a asparagus and other things salad, a pasta with a garlicky white wine sauce (the ear-type pasta), and strawberry shortcake. I got their salt cod fritters (yummy) and the fish-of-the-day which turned out to be halibut with a clam and wine sauce and some other veggies that I am forgetting. They were both very good and things I would completely not make at home. I actually had Amanda’s strawberry shortcake for dessert and she ordered some chocolate-y thing.

And we had wine. A couple of carafes of their house red.
Dinner was lovely. I did not take any pictures, but here is one from last year:

It looks like we got some olives and almonds. Hmm, maybe we got them this year as well. And an actual bottle of wine. I am wearing a MEC sweater so it was a lot cooler then.

Otherwise, life has been as the usual. Gardening, running about with Lonan Kai, etc. We had record breaking temperatures last week in the low 90s, but it was cooled off to more normal 70s now. We have been eating a lot of asparagus from the market and lettuce and spinach from our garden.

Last week I planted tomatoes. I did the expedient thing and just went to Lowe’s and picked up some starts: the reliable Early Girl, the yellow Golden Jubilee, and another hybrid whose name I an forgetting but it gets really big in around 70 days. Around here one should not plant outside until around mid-May, but I had acquired some heat sink-type things to surround the cold-adverse plants.

The picture shows the tomato surrounded by a plastic thing which is basically filled with water. Theoretically, one can plant even at 32F if it is sunny enough I imagine. Last year a couple fellow gardeners used them, and I was amazed at the difference they made.

Otherwise, Amanda got sick Monday night (fever, chills, etc.). It did not seem like it would last that long, but she had to skip work on Wednesday morning. Thursday, she did go in, and then someone was able to cover Friday afternoon for her. As it turned out, she lost her voice Thursday evening, and primary care is not really going to happen without her being able to talk. I ended up picking her up a little bit after dropping her off at work on Friday.

I got sick on Wednesday, but did not feel really bad until Thursday. I had more of the sore throat and coughing, but later morphed into the fever and chills. Amanda got the coughing later. The illness was old in that it seemed to get better in both of us, but then it would come back. And now, over a week later, both of us are still sick, although again it seems we are getting better. Maybe I should be taking my echinacea.

Lonan Kai seemed to avoid the bug, but today he was very grumpy when picked up from school, and he had a very noticeable temperature. He got better quickly over the evening after a dose of medicinals.

The illnesses sapped our energy for the weekend. We did venture off to a bigger playground in the Central District on Saturday, and Lonan Kai demonstrated his walking abilities to us. I noted that new modern playground equipment is quite different than what existed when I grew up. That is, a lot nicer. The new stuff also seemed quite more dangerous than I would have expected from our sue-happy society; the bigger pieces seemed to invite kids to do foolish things when they are very high up off the ground.

Sunday we had our P-Patch year kickoff meeting. Amanda and I did not do much gardening work. Lonan Kai ran around and ate dirt. We cleaned up the Food Bank Plot, but we did not plant anything there.

We have been trying to watch a nature documentary on the ecosystems around ocean tides (which is really very interesting), but Amanda and I have had trouble staying awake during the whole thing (I have had less trouble). Tonight, on perhaps our fifth try, Amanda finally made it to the end. I made it to the end yesterday.