Weekend Update

Friday night was some Simpsons Halloween hilarity, followed by Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Mmmmm. Halloweeny.

So the thing about not planning anything social all weekend means you actually get a lot more done. This weekend, that included cleaning and shoveling out my carport to the extent that Ruby now has a covered place to park.

We did such an admittedly excellent job on the carport that when Kayleigh went to Gavin's for their Star Wars RPG (Tyler had already spent the night there), I took the Little Woman (hey, I can say that - she's teeny) to dinner at Cactus on Alki. And who should be hostessing at the front, but Alyssa - my Ordinary Angels hair & makeup gal (and erstwhile stagehand).

After a yummy dinner, we headed back to the house and spent about an hour and a half practicing some songs for an acoustic set. The songs we worked on were all covers, but we have originals stashed away which will be surfacing at some point. It was good to sit down and work the tunes together. That was the original premise for our first meeting, and we finally did it... five months later (happy five month anniversary, by the way).

Then we retired with a bottle of wine to watch Kinky Boots, a funny little film about a doomed shoe factory and a line of boots for big, burly drag queens. And it has The Operative from Serenity in the transvestite lead.

Much clinging and cuddling this weekend. It was nice. Gavin brought the kids home about 11PM, and K watched the first part of SNL with us, then it was crash time.

Sunday was all about the Halloween shopping (after a birthday coffee chat with Ron). We spent several hours at Southcenter. Fortunately most of what we needed was in a couple of the side malls away from the main shopping center. Whew.

Came home with last-minute costume bits and decorations for Saturday, some pumpkins to carve and some hair color for the girls. Kayleigh went with a strawberry red for her Willow persona, while Raechelle went dark blood red to highlight her brunette tresses. They both look fantastic.

Raechelle cooked up some ravioli and sauce, and Tyler handled the garlic bread (yummy!). We all sat down and had dinner together, followed by a couple Buffy episodes, and bedtime.

It was a good, productive, calm and nurturing weekend, after a week of stress in T-Rae Land. I daresay neither one of us wanted it to be over. I'm keeping a vigilant eye on the calendar to make sure neither one of us overbooks for the next couple weeks. We both need to be good to ourselves and allow plenty of calm alone time in our respective spaces before the move.

We now return you to your week, already in progress.

Sunday Wrap-Up

Friday night found us hunting down the motel where Kenni and Joel were staying, and showing them down to Anthony's on the waterfront. Real nice couple, fun conversation, good food. Raechelle had planned on paying for dinner, but Joel got sneaky and intercepted the check before she could even look at it. Well played, Joel.

By far the highlight of the dinner experience was when I got up to visit the men's room, and not for the simple pleasure of giving back the Pike ale I'd had with my meal. As I was standing at the urinal shaking the dew from the lilly, seeing a man about a horse, or whatever euphemism you'd care to use (and also watching the sports scores - sometimes it's cool to be a guy because in some restaurants you can watch TV while having a tinky), I heard the door open and a brief gasp of shock from over my left shoulder. The janitor who was mopping looked up and notified the non-male interloper, "this is the men's room." There was a pause as the info apparently sunk in, and I heard a familiar voice say in an embarrassed tone, "Oh, men's room!" followed by a nervous laugh and a quick exit. The following conversation then transpired:

Me: "Was that a 5'2" brunette?"

Janitor: "Jean jacket?"

Me: "Yeah."

Janitor: "She with you?"

Me: "Yeah."

Janitor: "That's awesome."

Me: "Yeah." [smile]

Later I found out that Raechelle had remarked (in the correct lavatory) that "the guy at the urinal was cute...", which is hilarious (and ever so sweet) because she didn't really realize it was me until much later.

We dropped Kenni and Joel back at the motel and headed home and straight to Cuddle City, population: 2. It'd been a stressful week and the girl was finally relaxing. Aside from a brief tussle with dinner in the middle of the night, she did okay, and we awoke ready to hit the road for Bellingham.

I'll leave it to Rae to post her own impressions of the trip, but for me it was a bit of a sensory overload. We met my mom, sister and niece at the Bellingham farmer's market, where I bought a sweet hemp long-sleeved T-shirt (or light sweatshirt), which not only looks awesome but apparently I can smoke it later.

Lunch at Boundary Bay, then my sister went to work and the ladies and I went to a women's consignment store. Imagine Raechelle's surprise when, within thirty seconds of entering the shop, I recognized the young, attractive counter clerk. Brittni Thoreson was in our production of Fiddler on the Roof back in 2005, and her dad Mike was the mastermind behind my Deathtrap set (as well as a fantastic Tevye in FotR). Still, it remains a running joke that I can't go anywhere without running into someone I know, especially cute actresses.

As far as being a guy and going shopping with my woman, which most guys bristle at, here's a couple nuggets of wisdom:

1. Guys who have the patience to go shopping with their women are rare. Doing so makes you look really good.
2. By going shopping with your woman, you can exert an opinion and tell her what you like her wearing, or conversely what looks frumpy. After all, if you look at her probably more than anyone else, why not point her toward something sexy? Ladies do the same for us all the time.

After a quick drop-in at Sara's work, we headed out to my grandparents' place near Lake Padden for pie and a quick visit. There were stories repeated, embarrassing family photos shared, and spontaneous folksinging. That was where the full weight of the day finally settled on me and I felt like we needed to hit the road before I fell into a coma.

Back at home, Raechelle took off for dinner with Jamie, and I took Tyler to his weekly game session at Gavin's followed by dinner for Kayleigh and me at Charlestown. I was asleep by 9:30.

Then I was up at 3AM when some vandals broke into the new multifamily building behind the licensing office and threw a bunch of computer monitors, microwaves and glass bottles from the roof. Sometimes you pay a price for having that prestigious Seattle address.

Up for coffee with Ron, picked up the latest Futurama movie on DVD, found out The Shield season 6 is out in just a few weeks. Came home to find Kayleigh had arranged an overnight with a friend. Went shopping for dinner stuff. Took K to friend's house. Gonna watch some John Adams before I have to get dinner started. Raechelle is here tonight.

And another action-packed week lies ahead! Including getting to meet Rae's sister Wendy on Tuesday, more house hunting on Thursday, and the first Hawks pre-season game in Minnesota on Friday night. We're having it on the projection screen, and some friends may be joining in.

Stay tuned, loyal readers!

P.S. Raechelle says my head doesn't smell like Thin Mints. So there's that.