Here are three pictures I took yesterday. I have no reason for posting them; I just like them. The first two are puppy pics of Cowboy and his #1 girlfriend Tilly (yes, he's a player -- he's got more than one girlfriend). The third is a picture I took while I was walking back to my car after opera rehearsal. It's a view of the Space Needle through the McCaw Hall promenade. Stay tuned for more pics later this weekend -- Chris and I are off to prom tonight!
I love sunny days. In November, I'm excited to see the first snow, but in April, I'm ready for the snow to go away. I can't wait to pack away my boots and break out my Chacos, which is exactly what I did this weekend. I spent Saturday at Discovery Park with Cowboy, where I enjoyed the sun, mountains and water while Cowboy was oblivious of everything but the grass he was trying to eat. That evening, I dragged Chris on a bike ride to map out my route to work so that I can start bicycle commuting. I think it will be relatively easy to get to work but very painful to get home. Why do we live so far uphill?
My friend Joel was in town from Colorado, so we met him for brunch at Cafe Flora on Sunday morning. It was great to catch up and find out what he and Kendra have been up to, as well as to reminisce about life off the beaten track in Norcal. Now I'm craving Sushi on Main and bluegrass music at the San Gregorio General Store. Thanks, Joel. :)
After brunch, Chris, Cowboy and I headed to the mountains for a hike. We decided to do Pratt Lake in hopes that it wouldn't be too far into the snow line. We were wrong -- we hit snow about halfway up the trail. (Remember above, where I said that I packed away my boots? I regretted it.) Once again, we ended up off trail by following the footprints of the hikers ahead of us. The goal was to hike to a saddle from which we'd have a view of Pratt Lake, but we think we hiked all the way around the basin of the lake and ended up with a totally different view, perhaps not even of the same lake. Regardless, it was a beautiful view of an Alpine lake (Pratt? Talapus? Olallie? Mason? Melakwa?) with Mt. Rainier in the background.
After taking in the view while perched precariously on a steep snowy slope, we headed back home so that Chris could perch precariously on our roof to drink beer with Joel and Mark (I think Chris really wants a roof deck.) We ended the evening with a BBQ, making it official: BBQ season is open at the Hill house! Although once we start doing work on the house, we might not be fit to receive visitors for awhile (and definitely not for beers on the roof). In that case, we'll just have to convince Finn to host the BBQs at his place more often...
Today at rehearsal, the chorus and principals (all 50+ of them) sang an impromptu "Happy Birthday" to one of the opera staff. WOW.
I still can't get over how cool it is to work with the Seattle Opera, even if I only play a dead refugee. As my mom said, it gives me lots of room to grow: next time, maybe I can play a really, really sick person...
Chris and I put off our honeymoon because we wanted to be able to travel in the August-September timeframe in order to catch the best weather. Originally, we planned to go to Tibet, but now we're looking at other options due to the issues in Nepal (most of the trips we'd like to take are in the Lhasa/Mt. Everest region and either start or end in Kathmandu).
We are fluctuating between "active" and "spoiled rotten lazy". We've found a few trips that sound really interesting, and I was wondering if anyone out there has recommendations or advice. We've narrowed it down to the following four options:
| A Japanese man walks into the currency exchange with 2000 yen and walks out with $72. The next week, he walks in with 2000 yen and is handed $66. He asks the teller why he got less money that week than the previous week. The teller answers, “Fluctuations." As the man leaves, he turns around and shouts, “Fluck you Amelicans, too!” |
Chris' birthday celebration was a lot of fun! We had over 30 friends show up for the comedy show, where we managed to take over half of the tables in the club (everyone shown in the first picture below, except for the waitress, was with us). Chris learned the Magic Watch joke from Parker, which he told to the whole group as we were assembled on stage for a photo. We followed up with martinis at Marcus', and this year we stayed there the rest of the night without being asked to leave! We were well over half of the clientele at Marcus' too, so the theme of the night seemed to be "dominate every venue we enter". That is a highly appropriate way to celebrate Chris, so it was a huge success!
Tonight was my first rehearsal with some of the principal singers. At one point, Macduff and Malcolm stand directly over me (as I lie dead in the wagon) and sing. Holy cow, that's cool.
Yes, Chris is another year older! We kicked off the celebration with dinner at Morton's. We'll continue this Saturday with a comedy show at the Comedy Underground...stay tuned!
Last Friday, Margaret and I headed down to the Luau for dinner and drinks. I know a lot of people who can't get enough of the Luau, but I've never been able to garner as much enthusiasm for the place. This evening did not help. We started with appetizers and drinks, but shortly after being served we seemed to have fallen into the Bermuda Triangle of wait service. Our table was right in the middle of the room, which apparently is completely invisible to the staff. We escalated from subtle nods and smiles to actually standing up and waving our arms in the air. I could have guided a jetliner into place, but I could not get the attention of a single waitstaff. Finally, Margaret went to the wait station and forced someone to pay attention to us. We got our bill and left. It's really too bad, because we'd planned to order more food. We could have 1) freed up a table for other patrons or 2) ordered more food, but instead we 3) sat there for two hours and then left after ordering only drinks and appetizers. Shame.
I spent most of the week either being sick or trying to make up for being sick. I also spent a lot of time harrassing Cowboy. Chris was away on a trip to Zion, so Cowboy was stuck with me for 24 hours a day. Poor boy. I did let him have some fun though -- I let him disembowel his mooing cow toy. His idea of fun is to "catch and kill" his toys. He's very adept at ripping a small hole in them and then pulling out all of their stuffing. At least he's tidy about it - he keeps all of the stuffing together in one pile on his rug.
This past Friday night was another Sh*tkickers concert! I love the Sh*tkickers. This one was for a benefit and it took place in the Salmon Bay Eagles club. I have to say that it was probably the most appropriate setting for a Sh*tkickers concert that I've been to. We started with German food at the People's Pub on Ballard Ave and then headed out to the Eagles club. It was a very mixed crowd, but the show was great and we had a fun group there with us to enjoy it! The usual suspects were there (Chris, Meg, Margaret and me), and we were joined by Joel, Glenn, Cathy (who is very quickly becoming a "usual suspect"), Marek and Ashina (or something like that -- I'm sorry, but I didn't quite catch her name).
Yesterday was my first rehearsal for Macbeth. This is going to be so much fun! I showed Chris what I do during the whole scene we rehearsed: I lie dead in a wagon. It was a good first rehearsal for me because it's not that hard so far (eyes closed, arms flailed, no noticeable breathing...got it). But now we will start to work in earnest -- I have 3 to 5 rehearsals a week plus one weekend day starting tomorrow. The opera opens on May 6 and runs through May 20, so it's going to be a really busy six weeks for me! I'm really excited about it.
On top of it all, I'm still waiting for my free pony.
