Rock Step, Step, Step

The movie Swing Kids came out in 1993, the year I graduated high school. Although I was enrolled in jazz dance for a few years in high school, my love of dance goes back as far as I can remember. My mother had me in tap and ballet at a young age, and when my interest in that waned, I did ice skating. When I first saw Swing Kids I fell in love with swing dancing right away. It wasn't until several years later when I met my husband that I would pursue this goal to learn it. My husband and I took swing dance classes in our early days of dating and up until about a year after we were married. Then, just about when we were going to get to the level where my husband would learn how to do those fancy moves where he flips me around his back, our teacher stopped giving lessons. I searched for another teacher, but we couldn't find one we liked.

Last night was the first time in almost seven years that my husband and I went swing dancing. We started our "Swing 1" class last night at Century Ballroom in Seattle. As swing is a social dance, the way these lessons are usually done is the men form a large outer circle and the women form the inner circle. The instructors teach you the move and then prompt you to do-si-do (wait that's another kind of dance) to the left and switch partners. My husband and I remembered our basic moves real quick. It was rather painful to have to move around the room and rock step with leads who didn't know how to bend their knees, move their upper body, or create a solid frame with which to lead. My husband is a good dancer and a good lead. So when I got back around the room to him I refused to switch. Much to the chagrin of the other women in the room who had all figured out that my husband was the only real "lead" in the bunch.

We had tons of fun and can't wait to go back next week.

So far so good

I know you all were wondering...how is she doing in her first sweater...ummm...t-shirt that she has been knitting? The above is where I stopped tonight after my knitter's callous started throbbing. It's this callous you get on your left first finger from pushing the stitches over a pointy needle.

According to the instructions I am supposed to be trying on this sweater now to see if the bottom there "nearly covers bust while stretching lightly." I didn't have another set of size 4 circular needles to shuttle half of the sweater onto so I could try it on, and my attempts to shuttle the stitches onto a "spare length of yarn" as the pattern suggests almost resulted in utter disaster. My decision at this point is to just employ the ole hold it up and see if it looks good method.

After doing so I decided I best be wearing some support, if you know what I mean, because my girls certainly weren't in the right place according to the pattern. Either this pattern was made for perky 20-somethings or they didn't take into account what 14 months of breastfeeding does to a woman.

Indian Food Rocks

Twice a month we get deliveries from Pioneer Organics of local fruits and veggies and an assortment of other grocery goodies. Besides delivering scrumptious grapefruits and tasty kale, they also deliver a newsletter which always has a few recipes to try with your seasonal produce. The above is from one of those newsletters and is what we had for dinner tonight. I had to share because it was absolutely to DIE for.

Indian Spinach with Potatoes (Adapted from Lane Morgan's Winter Harvest Cookbook)

Servings: 2 Time: 30 minutes

• 1 pound boiled potatoes
• 1/2 pound spinach
• 1/8 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• Dash of red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or to taste

Cut potatoes into cubes, 4 cups. Chop spinach coarsely. Heat oil in a skillet, add onion, garlic and fresh ginger and saute briefly. Combine mustard seed, cumin, red pepper flakes, turmeric and chili powder. Add spices to skillet, stir well and cook mixture over gentle heat until onion is soft.

Add potatoes and stir gently to coat with spices. Add spinach in handfuls. Add salt, stir carefully, cover and cook about 3 minutes until spinach is cooked down. Serve at once.

When I made it I was about 1/4 pound short on the spinach, which certainly would have been nice to have. Also, instead of fresh ginger and garlic, we used pre-diced that we have in jars in the fridge which makes that part of the prep process a lot easier.

Washington State Toy Safety Bill

There is a bill that is currently being considered that would make Washington State have the toughest laws on toy safety in the country. It would require toy manufacturers to go above and beyond federal safety standards in presenting evidence that all toys sold in Washington State had low levels of lead, cadmium and phthalates. The bill goes even further and requires studies to be conducted by the Department of Health to identify high priority chemicals that are of high concern for children. This bill would require the toy manufacturers to submit an annual report on the chemical make-up of every toy sold in Washington State.

Governor Christina Gregoire is currently contemplating a veto of this bill. I can only imagine it is due to pressures from lobbyists from Mattel and Hasbro that have stated that 50% of their Fischer Price line would not be able to be sold in Washington State under the regulations of this bill. Another toy manufacturer was interviewed last night and stated that the reporting requirements of this bill are so stringent (annual) that a domino effect would occur that would cause them not to sell toys to Washington State at all.

A spokesman from Archie McPhee claims that the law is ill-defined. Yet, I have read it through and through and it is extremely well-defined. It might not say what you want it to say Mr. Toy Manufacturer and Panderer, but it is in there.

San Francisco led the charge a few years back when it banned the sale of children's toys with phthalates in 2006. Now the entire state of California is taking the city's lead and will become the first state to ban toys and other child-care products that contain more than trace amounts of phthalates.

What are phthalates and what is the big deal? We all know about lead and cadmium. There is a fairly good Wiki Article which references some of the major studies recently done on this chemical.

Bottom line. This bill should become law. This bill needs to become law. Our state is known for our appreciation and conservation of nature and the environment. Why shouldn't we also extend that to banning these toxic chemicals which have a lecherous effect on our children. It doesn't take a scientist to realize that these toys, once discarded, are decomposing (albeit slowly) and leaching these chemicals into our water supplies and into the soil. How can one believe that if we allow this to continue that it will benefit us or future generations in any way?

Remember several years ago when conservation and global warming was a theory, a possible myth? It is here and now. It is happening at a faster rate than predicted. We can't sit on our tushes and bend to the will of Hasbro and Mattel and fears that we might not have enough toys for our children. Toys are nothing compared to our children's health and the health of their environment.

Take half of all of the Fischer Price toys off the shelf! Heck, tell me which ones they are, because I sure hope I don't have them in my house right now.

We have to do something on the State level. Obviously the standards set by the federal government are not enough. I get recall notices emailed to me daily for toys that are being sold that don't even meet federal standards. Toys sold by major companies. These toys need to be tested and verified BEFORE they hit the shelves. Not taken away after the fact. After our sons and daughters have been sucking on that toy for months, as kids do.

This is my open letter to Christine Gregoire. Listen to the people of Washington State. Listen to your conscience. Protect our children's interests over the special interests.

PASS THIS BILL!!!

Danny Boy

Last night my husband and I snuck away for another date night at the Seattle Symphony. We had the treat of watching the Camerata Ireland. A guest ensemble which was composed of a 40-piece chamber orchestra of talented Irish musicians. Many of them were young, perhaps in their late teens or early twenties. The first half of the show were two pieces by Mozart. One of them was the highly recognizable Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Sandwiched between the two pieces was a work by Prokofiev. A Russian composer from the 1930s, which was starkly different from the pieces my Mozart.

The second half included a dark piece by Stravinsky. You can imagine it as the backdrop to the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood. Complete with the reveal of the wolf and the scene of the chase.

The last song scheduled was by Tchaikosky, the Serenade for Strings. After they were finished the crowd went nuts. I don't think I have ever heard such a rousing reception from the audience. Of course, there were a lot more younger people in attendance than usual.

The conductor then directed the Camerata to play a lilting Irish tune. Irish music either makes you want to cry or drink...or perhaps both. I heard sniffles from around the room and I had to choke back my tears.

When we all thought it was over, the conductor announced that they would play one last song. "This is one that you may know, some of you," he said. It only took two notes and I knew exactly what song it was. Danny Boy. I couldn't contain the tears that burst forth from me. This is the song that was played at my Grandfather's funeral two years ago. I remembered holding my brother with one hand and my sister with the other as we walked up the aisle to my Grandfather's open casket. Peering down at him. Looking like he was sleeping in his Newsboy cap he always used to wear. Wisps of what was left of his fading red hair.

I left infused with the Irish spirit and good memories of my childhood and the time I spent in Dublin.

Joie De Vivre

As you may have noticed, I am a bit silent on the weekends in the Internet world. You see, I stare at a computer screen 9-10 hours a day, five days a week, and usually don't even turn on the computer on the weekends. For me the weekends are about living life, getting things done, playing with my little boy, enjoying time with my husband and my friends, and generally joie de vivre for everything except computer work.

Joie de vivre. Such a simple phrase which encompasses so much meaning. Put succinctly it means the cheerful enjoyment of life. This is something that I think we all strive towards. What is life if we cannot enjoy it? What are our obstacles to that enjoyment? For one, needless worry and fear.

Strange and unprecedented worry. Kind of like fear of small spaces, or spiders or heights. I have a few of those too. What am I getting at here? I think that fear is a huge hindrance on our society as a whole and as individuals. It is stifling and choking us into war and into consumerism. Last week Mrs. Vreeland mentioned that art and literature are a few of the things that bring about compassion and a sense of community and that these are two of the things you need to squelch fear and hate.

Fear and hate end up being the same in the end. And they never bring about anything good.

Joie de vivre. I hope you all were able to have a Happy Easter and a weekend where you were able to enjoy life without any encumbrances.

Susan Vreeland

Last night I went to see author Susan Vreeland speak at Third Place Books. Mrs. Vreeland (as I have always called her) was one of my teachers my senior year of high school. And she was not just one of my teachers. I had her for 3 out of 5 classes of my day. She taught me English, Ceramics, and of course, Writers Workshop. Writers Workshop was a special class which you had to submit a writing sample to be accepted to. I know that every one of my classmates that were in that class took a lot away from it and I was no different.

Seeing Mrs. Vreeland again after all these years (I graduated in 1993) was so overwhelming. To start, Third Place Books is a marvelous independent book store which is enormous and creates a sense of community the moment you walk into it despite its size. There is a food court with a stage inside the bookstore. The stage is where Mrs. Vreeland gave her presentation on her most recent novel, Luncheon of the Boating Party.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I know her books have "New York Times Bestseller" on the front. I know this means she has sold a lot of books. But still, for a whole year of my life I spent half of my day in Mrs. Vreeland's classroom. An intimate setting. The audience started to fill in almost a full hour before her presentation was to begin. I had to hurry and claim a seat in the front so I would have one. People eagerly clutched their copies of her novel and whispered, "Is that her? Is that the author?," pointing to Mrs. Vreeland preparing up on the stage a few feet away. I was beaming. Trying to hold back tears and laughter at the same time. I was so proud of this woman. Proud to be able to call her my teacher, my role model.

Fifty or more people were in the audience when she began. Mrs. Vreeland's gesticulations and "isms" for lack of a better word were exactly the same and I was transported back to my school desk at UCHS in her classroom which was a large open space that also was home to the work area for her ceramics class and the wheels that we used to form what would later become change dishes and perhaps ash trays. The smell of the clay was always there. The wet earthy clay.

Mrs. Vreeland brought to life this story she has written by explaining the history of the time and the history surrounding the creation of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party. I was transfixed, as I always was in her classes, by the passionate tone she used to describe every detail. She loved this work. She poured herself into it and out of it had come another level of understanding and appreciation of the effect of art and literature on the masses.

Have you ever felt that you have all these ideas bouncing around in your head that to you are simple truths? That these ideas, if you were asked to explain them, would be near impossible to form in words? Mrs. Vreeland took some of those things I think of as simple truths and put words to them last night. And I thank her again for being a never ending source of inspiration to me and, I know, to all those she taught in her 30 years as a high school teacher.

Mrs. Vreeland's work is rich with imagination. You feel the wind in your hair and you smell the flowers as you read her words. I can only hope to someday have a small morsel of the level of mastery she holds with words.

Shoes make it all better

Inspired by Melissa Lion
Happiness is John Fluevog Shoes
Here are pictures of me in my three favorite pairs.

Is it a sign or am I paranoid?

I was able to beat back the migraine demons this morning. Thank God. I already missed work on Friday and my employer is probably going to start wondering what they pay me for if I miss any more.

So the big mortgage thingy ma-jig folded/sold whatever this morning. That's bad right? I'm not too hip to the financial systems of the world and how they intertwine. I am sure I am smart enough to understand these things, I just choose not too. A certain level of ignorance is bliss and I have a feeling I would implode or perhaps really start that bomb shelter I've always dreamed of if I knew too much about these things.

But it kind of hit me, the seriousness of it all, as I exited our building a few hours ago through the bank that is in on the bottom floor of the high rise I work in. The television was on and they were streaming live coverage of what is happening to the markets. Again, it all went over my head. That's not really what caught my attention. It was the three elderly people ("white hairs") that were standing there in front of the television transfixed. And then I got it. They understand what is happening. They understand that this blip in the market is going to affect them.

I hope that is all it is...a blip.

Someone has a lot to say

I was able to catch the rainbow that formed late yesterday off my back deck. Unfortunately, I was not able to catch my son playing in the rain. The photos of him were somehow corrupted on my camera. Frig. He loves to play in the rain and would stay outside until his toes fell off if I let him!

Today at Gymboree one of the parents asked me how many words my son could say. Honestly I never counted, and I told her so. She is the one parent at Gymboree that makes my skin crawl with how much she is always directing her child. Of course, now since she asked, my husband and I were forced to make a list because now we were curious. Supposedly, kids should know 50 words and several phrases by the time they are two. Fifty seemed like a lot. No way does he know fifty, I thought.

Well, here they are:

1. Please
2. Mommy
3. Mama
4. Daddy
5. Papa
6. Grandma
7. Ball
8. Juice
9. Shoes
10. Socks
11. Hiss (for snake)
12. Woof-woof
13. Rawr (for lion)
14. Meow
15. Peanut
16. Jelly
17. Binky
18. Blanky
19. Nose
20. Eye
21. Bus (this is his favorite word)
22. Hi
23. Bye
24. Oh-oh
25. Bath
26. Night-night
27. Pee-pee
28. No
29. Hot
30. Gymbo (the name of the clown at Gymboree)
31. Hat
32. Foot
33. Toe
34. Knee
35. Eeeeew
36. Bubble
37. Outside
38. Yogurt
39. Apple
40. Cheese
41. Nana (for Banana)
42. Fish
43. Bee
44. Jacket

Phrases:

1. Thank you
2. All done
3. There it is
4. In the sky (for plane)

There you go, my baby has words. Lots of them.

A day off

Today my daycare provider was sick, so I stayed home with little B. He awoke at his usual 5:45am. We hung around for an hour or so and then went to the Metropolitan Market where I cashed in my coupon for free mini lemon currant scones and bought little B a tub of sliced strawberries. We noshed and got our sugar buzz on before we went to Gymboree and dropped in for a 45 minute music class and then followed that with a 45 minute gym class. Whoo-hooo! All before noon. I'm exhausted!

That up there is our older pug Peanut. He is having fun snoozing away. I think I hear BB waking up so I'll have to make this a quick one. I dilly dallied his nap away knitting. I'm addicted.

Creative wanderings of the mind

I've been neglecting my writing practice lately since I have been so focused on this knitting project. It is so enveloping to sit there and knit row after row and watch the form of the sweater take shape. I know that even if in the end the sweater doesn't fit I'll still have enjoyed the process of knitting it.

I've been keeping my ears and eyes open on the bus for potential characters. I realized that in my Nanowrimo book my characters were not strong enough and you couldn't distinguish the voices between my two main female characters. In the last two days I've discovered two people on the bus who were quite funny/interesting.

The first one I noticed on the bus yesterday on the way to work and going home. He sat in the same place in the middle of the bus both times. A young man in his upper 20s, early 30s. He wore his short brown hair in a way that made you think he had probably been wearing it the same since junior high, and probably had been wearing the same glasses since then also. He wore a faded black trench coat that snapped up the back. During the ride home he spoke on his cell phone with a full headset -- not bluetooth -- the kind of headset I have here in the office or that you would imagine a telemarketer spending the day with. He was a good old fashioned dweeb from dweebsville. I can say this, because I am one. The interesting part was when he got up to get off the bus. He swung his Eddie Bauer backpack onto his shoulders and dangling from the zipper pull was a handmade key chain. Spelled out in ceramic block letters was the word "Wild Thing." This made me chuckle inside and I can only imagine the things I might write about "Wild Thing."

I'll have to save the second character for tomorrow's blog. Got to get to work.

What is a mother to do?

My son is turning two in a little over a month. The questions from family members have started, what are we going to do for his birthday?

The first birthday was a biggie. Family flew in from out of town and all the friends from around the region (most of our friends live a good hour or more drive from us) drove over to celebrate. But this year is different. I don't expect everyone to pile into the car and drive over for birthday number two. I have one friend who has a son the same age as mine and we barely speak because we are both so busy. The few other friends we have with children have older children who aren't really interested in the same activities as a toddler.

I'm left with arranging a gathering for my son's grandparents, my husband and I, and our son. He has no little friends I can invite over. Don't get me wrong, he socializes with kid at his daycare and at Gymboree, but I don't know these kids or their parents.

What am I getting at here? I am glad my son is turning two but I really don't want to throw a party.

I suppose we'll just go to the zoo and invite everyone to join in who wants to. I am an exhausted Mamacita and that's about all I can muster.

Houston, we have arm holes

I am getting further along on my first "sweater, um shirt." Last night I got to the point where I now have arm holes! The sweater is being knit from the top down, so the sleeves are all done. Now I just need to knit the body of it.

My hubby and I are signed up again for our swing dance classes. We start at the end of the month. Originally we were going to do this in January, then my back went out. We used to do swing dance a lot, for several years back when we first were married. Then our teacher stopped giving lessons and we really couldn't find anyone else we liked. I've always wanted to be good enough so he could swing me around his back and do all those cool flippy moves you see in the movie Swing Kids. I've still got a pretty mean Charleston. We'll have to dig out our dance shoes and see how it goes.

Don't you just love that between Hilary and Barack the Dems have raised almost $270m and McCain only has a little over $50m for his campaign? There is hope.

A Case of the Mondays

I woke up late this morning. This time change thing really sucks. My son thinks so too. It is so neat that I get the benefits of jet lag without even going on vacation. I woke up on the wrong side of the week this morning, can you tell?

I'm having a terrible, no good, very bad day. I think I'll move to Australia.

That and taxes are due soon. We have been putting it off this year because in August of last year our computer crashed, along with all our financial data, and we are dreading having to piece it together again. We are certain we will probably have to pay something. It doesn’t help that we own a house and have a child, we still get it in the rear. They should pass a law that all your debt (even those frilly nighties you charged on your Victoria Secret credit card) should be tax deductible.

Hopefully I’ll be back to my usual sparkly self tomorrow.

The hard part about this job

I am a paralegal. I don't talk too much about it, because it's my 9 to 5. A means to an end. I don't hate what I do, well, sometimes I don't hate what I do. Yesterday I really hated what I do. A blogger friend of mine once asked which were the top five jobs no one could pay you enough to do. One of my top five was a criminal defense attorney. I'll get back to that one.

I am often asked why I just don't become an attorney. For one, I would need to quit my job and go to school for about four more years and then there is the enormous debt that comes with going to law school. And that, piled on top of what we already have, is just not an option for me. But mostly it is because through the years I have come to the conclusion that I have no poker face and I am not getting one anytime soon. It is easy for me to converse with our clients on the phone, because they don't see my face. In person I can come off as quite condescending, and I know it.

Here is my dilemma. I can't be too specific, ethics and all, but we recently got in another drunk driving case. I don't do criminal law, but we still get to represent the drunk driver on the civil suit sometimes. You may think, "Why doesn't the insurance company just pay out if it was a horrible accident and it is the drunk driver's fault?" Many a time the insurance company has offered to pay policy limits, but the Plaintiff's Attorney won't accept it because they are trying to get some other big fish on the hook. In this case, the bar that served our client before the accident. There are a lot of variables here, but what it comes down to is that I think our client is a monster. There was a death and another serious injury in this case and looking at the pictures of the aftermath yesterday made me ill. Then my attorney tells me that I get to go to our client's hearing next week to meet her and interview her so that we can proceed on the civil suit. The hearing is going to be a media circus. And I have to come face to face with this monster and ask her questions like, "So, how much did you have to drink and how much did that 'evil' bar serve you?," like what she did was somehow not her fault. I don't think I can do it with a straight face. I don't think I can do it while the family of the deceased young girl and the debilitated young boy sit there in the courtroom looking on.

Day in and day out I usually deal with simple rear end accidents, where 90% of the time the Plaintiff is looking for their lottery ticket when all they did was get a little tap to the rear. In those cases I am glad to defend our client, even if the rear end tap was their fault because there is a question as to the measure of damages. In cases like this one, however, there is no question in my mind. And there is no amount of money that would be enough.

I need my woobie

Today was my son's surgery. I had to put on the strong face and a big green suit to accompany him into the operating room. I have never before been conscious in an operating room. They are big, white, stark and everything you see in the movies. There was a team of four women and the doctor, which seemed like entirely too many people for my 29 pound little boy.

He sat on my lap and was allowed to suck on his binkie while they put a mask over his face for him to breathe in the gas. They told me ahead of time that he might get irritable as he went under and might kick because going under anesthesia is a disorienting experience for little guys. But he didn't move a muscle. I watched as his eyes rolled back and his head nodded off to the side. Then I had to leave my limp little boy on the table and be escorted to the waiting room.

After fifteen minutes the doctor came out and said they were done. It was that quick. He was really irritable coming out of the anesthesia. He was confused and it was hard to hold him as he squirmed and cried. My husband was allowed into the recovery room and wrapped his big arms around him. He seemed to be comforted by his Daddy's embrace, but wailed "Mommy" the whole time, like he wished he could merge the two of us into one and have us both hold him at the same time.

By the end of today he was back to himself. He was saying words and dancing about like he has never done before. They said his ears were so plugged that it would be a dramatic difference to his hearing almost immediately since during the surgery they had drained all that out. And it was.

I'm glad my baby is better. I was at work last night until 7pm since I didn't go in today. Next two days are going to be trial preparation hell.

I have a little request. Can you all keep the name Cathryn in your mind tomorrow and think good thoughts? My Dad's (Jeff) fiancee is having surgery for breast cancer tomorrow and it never hurts to think good thoughts.

FreeWrite

I saw him from my office window. The strange man walking along the building top. His mission could not have been secretive. There were many windows pointed towards that building top. Mine was only one of thousands in this city of high rises. But he seemed unsure of himself. Darting about. He seemed like he was looking for an exit. I hadn’t seen how he got onto the roof. I had only noticed his movement out of the corner of my eye as I typed another response to my attorney. It was then that he jumped. I screamed and stood up to see where he landed, but I couldn’t see the ground from my window because the buildings were so close and I was up too high.

My co-workers were in my office in an instant. The walls are paper thin here. They all wanted to know what was wrong.

“I saw a man jump from that building.”

“Really?”

“Yes, just now. I don’t see how he could have survived. That building must be ten stories tall.”

“At least.”

“Should I call 9-1-1?”

“No, don’t bother, someone else will I am sure. Like the poor schmuck who will probably trip over him as they are walking down the sidewalk. Don’t worry too much about it. It happens a lot in this town.”

Can I request a weekend to recover from my weekend?

Tosca was great. I would probably go to more Operas if they weren't 1) expensive and 2) as Jeff said it best, "Operas aren't too nice to women." If you know this opera, then you know it is a Romeo and Juliet sort of story with the lovely couple biting it in the end.

Traffic sucked and there was a freak storm in the middle of it all. As you travel north on I-5, just about as you hit Boeing field, you usually see all the downtown high rises. Except when I rounded that corner all I saw was a milky white swath of clouds descending from the sky to the ground and covering all of the high rises. It was creepy. Then the freakish rain and hail started and in seconds there was so much standing water on the road that the car hydroplaned with every tap on the brakes. A little scary. And here I was thinking, "Dang I didn't bring an umbrella." But once I got into the city the rain stopped.

I got to the parking garage and realized you had to pay as you go in to a guy standing there. No credit cards. So I had to pay him $8 in quarters. I tried to joke with the guy. "Hey, I guess you won't need to worry about needing change tonight." But my joke went over just as well as trying to joke with an Englishman. Maybe it was the five cars lined up behind me as I counted out, "One dollar, two dollars..."

On my way in I noticed that right next to McCaw Hall, one of the exhibition centers was holding an Erotic Art Festival. There was a funny mix of people on the street. Elderly ladies in all their finery for the opera and young 20-somethings in red patent leather hooker heels that probably would have looked better on a transvestite.

Today I was D-E-A-D. Going to bed after midnight and getting up just after 6:30 a.m. when my son woke up. This, people, is why parents could "get a sitter," but don't often do so. You pay for it the next day. You can't just tell your toddler that "Mommy is tired" and let him fend for himself for the day.

I'm off to bed to try and catch up on some Zzzzs. Next week at work will be hellish since we are going to trial the week after and have a lot of work to do.

A Night at the Opera

Look! I have strings! All four of them! We went to Pilates this morning and then popped on down to the violin shop to get me restrung. Then we perused the Museum of Glass and watched some glass blowing demonstrations and came home. But this is the cool part. I remember how to play! It has been since I was pregnant that I played and I still remember how to read music. I am very surprised. I know I played for 4+ years before that, but still. Very exciting.

I tried to upload a picture of my knitting, but it didn't go so well. I am about 12 rows in and wondering what the heck I was thinking making my first sweater on size 4 needles. Live and learn I guess. I haven't given up yet.

My Dad (Jeff/ex-step-father) is taking me to see the Seattle Opera's performance of Tosca tonight. His girlfriend couldn't make it, so I'm his date instead. I don't think I have ever seen an actual opera before.

I have the blinds open right now and the sunshine is streaming through. The pugs are all curled up yin and yang style in the sun spot and this day, which was supposed to hold rain and lightening according to the weather reports, has turned out to be really nice.