No biting the personnel

IMG_1562Originally uploaded by Fizzz.

8 days.

Any dreams we had of arriving at an exotic destination other than the U.S.’s west coast were shattered when we landed in the fog, got stuck in the traffic on I-5 heading to the city (at 10 AM on a Saturday morning), circled for 15 minutes that evening hoping to find parking downtown and awakened to a drizzling rain the next morning. In short, Truffles, we’re not in Tokyo anymore.

We’ve been back in Seattle for more than a week now, an eternity in vacation land. If there’s such a thing as the vacation blues, I’m still suffering from it. S, lucky her, isn’t. Seeing her cat probably helped. Its life must have been dreadfully boring while we were gone: 50 minutes a day of attention from a cat sitter isn’t much. True, my parents occupied the house for a few days during our trip. That might explain why Truffles’ food bowl had been replaced by a crème brulée bowl. In any case, whatever misgivings he had about our prolonged absence were quickly forgotten with a serving of wet food.

So what have we done?

Saturday night we forced ourselves to stay up. Following the suggestion from Seattle Bon Vivant we headed for Tom Douglas’ Serious Pie. If you’re looking for a different pizza experience this is the place to go. Each pizza is certainly worth a try as the toppings are unique enough that you’ll probably have a favorite. I had the yukon gold potato one. S had the house mozarella. We each enjoyed ours but not the other’s.

On Sunday we hit the Ballard Farmers Market. Apples are still in season and the Mt. Townsend Creamery camembert is as good as ever. After this we detoured by the international district’s Uwajimaya for supplies and a stop at our favorite bubble tea store right across the street. Note the hot bubble tea for cold and rainy Seattle days.

The rest of the week flew by.

1. As has been mentioned in the press, our world got reorg-ed. There’s little to say except that times like these are always full of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD): a fun comeback to work on Monday.
2. On Tuesday I got up early and did something I wouldn’t have considered doing at anytime during our month out of town: I drove to a bakery and to a coffee shop. It’s not that you can’t find either in Asia; of course you can! It’s that I had to drive, on the highway no less, to both places… Good news though, with a thick and crunchy yet not crumbly crust, a full and tasteful body, a great aroma and a reasonable price, the best baguette in town is back at Dahlia Bakery which now has, once more, it’s own oven. Don’t be afraid though, the croissants are still anemic. Of course with good bread I had no choice but to stop by Vivace by I-5 for a latte and a cafe caramel.
3. Thursday… Thursday we had dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant and recounted our Japanese cuisine experiences to the owner chef.
4. Friday was the Toastmasters fall division E contest. As the division governor for half of Seattle’s east side it was my job to organize it. I’d done a good chunk of the work before leaving (and a few emails from Beijing) but it’s still always 15~20 hours of preparation: hunting down role players, booking a location, buying food and gifts for helpers, preparing certificates and awards, etc. As always some thing s didn’t work out as planned but in the end, also as always, everything fell into place. Everyone left happy.

Busy week. Overall I must have slept an average of 5 hours per night last week. Quite different from our vacation.

However, if the contest wrapped up the week with brio, Saturday was the icing. A friend of mine capped off a strong year with a 12 hour Ironman in Hawaii only a few weeks after qualifying at Ironman Canada. Go Lesley! As we got the SMS message that she’d crossed the finish line, we were listening to Wynton Marsalis at the Paramount. What a gorgeous venue for this great artist. I especially enjoyed the diversity of the pieces played. The last time I saw him was at Benaroya Hall some years ago. While I find the sound there better, the concert back then was strictly instrumental.

Today, today I got a short run in, the first in 6 weeks.


This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.