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Martinis Make Me Snore…

23 Sunday Dec 2012

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edgewaterLeave it to my dear friend D to turn FIFTY – THE BIG 5-0 – on the “end of the world” (December 21)!  And to pull together a fabulous celebration with friends in style!

And how fabulous was it to shut off the laptop, wrap up the work conference call (while on the road heading into Seattle) and just focus on FUN.  Normally this time of year is super quiet at work.  Most people are on vacation or working from home, checking messages very infrequently.  That’s not how it’s been for us at ALL.  We’ve got a big product launch next month and we’ve been on an intense schedule since mid November.  Man, it’s been crazy like this for over a month!  As much as I love my team and what we’re doing, I’m ready for a break!

I woke up Friday morning with a huge smile on my face.  It’s the end of the world…and we’re still here!  One weird thing:  I have a small clock in my master vanity with a swinging pendulum.  The pendulum had completely stopped swinging overnight.  But the clock was still ticking and keeping time perfectly.  Hmmm!!  I know it’s the energy of the Solstice.  It’s that solid, THUD-like energy you can feel on that day if you breathe really deeply. Breathe through the darkness.  The stillness.  I felt it for sure.  It’s those deep rhythms of the changing seasons.  And it almost feels like a slightly heavier gravity pull.

It could not have been a more glorious solstice. As I was heading over the bridge into Seattle, I saw the beautiful colors of the early sunset and the sky was glowing.  THIS is the promise…the promise of more light ahead – brighter days.  And what a bonus it wasn’t raining!

First stop:  the famous Edgewater Hotel.  Right smack on Elliott Bay.  Yep, the one where you can fish right out of your window.  Where the Beatles stayed back in the day.  This is THE only waterfront hotel in Seattle…and it’s a must-visit the next time you are here.  It’s very lodge-y feeling and cozy. River rock decor everywhere.  Warm, luxurious and unpretentious.  Did you know this hotel was built in 1962 in anticipation of the Worlds Fair? Hey, the same year D was born, ha.

We checked into our rooms, had a cocktail toast and the 10 of us got whisked off to Cuoco for dinner.  Any Tom Douglas restaurant is a major hit in my book, and I couldn’t wait to try this one!  It’s delicious northern Italian cuisine.  The mezzaluna pasta with butternut squash is heaven on a plate.  Savory but light.  And this is where the Ketel One martinis started flowing.

cakeOne of D’s friends made her birthday cake from scratch.  4-layer red velvet decorated with fresh roses.  Exquisite!  And the shiny thing next to it?  That’s the Long Lei….a chain of 44 chocolate kisses and 6 condoms.  I think everyone got to wear the Long Lei at some point throughout the evening.  It was long enough for two people to wear it at the same time!

We headed back to the Edgewater and up to the Six Seven lounge.  This is another part of your must-do-in-Seattle list.  The views of the water, the ferry boats and looking back at the city are stunning.  So is the food and service.  A few more friends joined us, and I vaguely remember heading back to the room a couple of times for a Veuve Clicquot toast, loudly cheering as we popped the champagne corks right out the window.  By the time the evening was over it was 3:00am and we were all back in D’s room laughing so hard. 

Most of this group goes back to high school years or earlier.  So you can imagine the hilarious stories and memories flying around.  I loved it.  I feel very blessed and fortunate to know D and to get to know her friends in the process as well.   I’m the new kid to this circle, having only known her a little over a year! 

The Motrin worked!  I crawled out of bed the next morning with no hangover.  Just no voice.  Although while we were eating breakfast back in D’s room, I casually asked my roommate P if I snored.  She said I sure did and she had to put in her earplugs!  Oh my God!  I laughed but felt a little mortified too.  Do I really snore all the time?  No, it couldn’t be…it’s gotta be the martinis and champagne.

Right?

That Glorious Extra Hour!

06 Sunday Nov 2011

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Oh man ohmanohmanohman…I am sitting here grinning ear to ear, sunshine streaming into the home office…and…

It’s. Only. 11am!!  Not noon!

Seriously, people, our flip back to Standard Time (clocks go back one hour) is my most FAVORITE time of the year.  Payback…we balance the books.  It’s no secret DST kicks my ass when we lose that hour in the spring.  I feel jetlagged that entire week, and perpetually stressed that I am constantly running late.  Tired + late = bad combination.

But now, time to chill.  I woke up Saturday just knowing this morning was coming.  Kinda poked around the house and later, fueled by a salted caramel mocha from a Starbucks drive thru (which I RARELY do even though there is one just 5 seconds from my house), I drove out to visit my dear friend T in Sammamish.  She’s going to do a Silpada party later in December – an absolutely perfect time to host a party as it’s prime time shopping season!  Blue sky, leaves turning – ahhh anytime I need to whip out sunglasses in November I am a happy girl.

I had a major sushi craving as I was driving home, and swung by the Metropolitan Market to pick up some other groceries too.  I used to commute through the Houghton neighborhood a couple of years ago when I briefly worked in Kirkland and I miss it.  The Metropolitan Market is absolutely amazing, and the people who work there have their shit together.  Nice, knowledgeable, energetic.  You can just “feel” it when you walk in. 

So I grabbed some pre-made sushi (it’s actually pretty decent as they make it fresh right there in the store), got home and added an extra blob of wasabi and a few shakes of Nama Shoyu (unpasteurized soy sauce as recommended in my raw food cookbooks).  Even found my chopsticks too!  Bliss.

…almost as blissful as sleeping in today until 10am (which really was 11am but I remembered to turn the clocks back tonight – oops, well most of them).  Funny how my cell phone didn’t make the automatic change (booo) but the old, crappy laptop here sure did.

So that’s about it.  Just enjoying a nice, lazy weekend – hockey is the big exclamation point later tonight.  Can’t wait!  

And the nice people at amazon.com are sending me a book that was very highly recommended by my new friend D.  I’ll leave it at that for now – it’s on it way and I will likely have my first ever book review post in here soon!  

Holy Cow, am I Eating Again??

14 Sunday Aug 2011

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Again? Already thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight?  After last night’s Seafood Fest?

I have that wonderful post-bloat feeling of fantastic food at a fantastic party.  And I feel relieved that I don’t have to wear anything snug today.  Just another lazy Sunday, where the only thing on tap is making a run to Goodwill, read and pick up a few things for dinner.  No hockey tonight.  Summer season wrapped up with a disappointing shootout loss in our playoff game.  I had a major Silpada jewelry event that same night which trumped hockey (rare, because hockey is usually on Sunday nights), so I found out about the loss through my teammates.  Bummer.  Is it October yet??

Yes, Goodwill.  A purge here in the ol’ townhouse is very, very overdue.  Sometimes I struggle getting going on a home project.  I get overwhelmed and then end up procrastinating, doing nothing.  I look at the clutter building up here in the home office.  And the guest bedroom which is still crowned the Room of Crap and Good Luck Getting to the Ironing Board.  Hmmmm.  This is NOT OK!! 

So what do I do?  I play a mental game with myself, and break down an overwhelming task into smaller pieces.  Every time I need to go downstairs to the main living room/kitchen level here, I make myself take at least one thing out of the home office or the guest room that needs to go.  And I start a pile downstairs near the dining room.  Repeat as needed!  

Voila – in about 24 hours I had a couple large garbage bags full of old computer shit, knick knacks, books, jewelry, shoes and clothes that are ready for Goodwill! The cute, stuffed polar bear I won at the Puyallup Fair a couple years ago doing Skeeball?  Sorry, dude, you’ll make a kid happy in your next home.  Remember the Left Behind book series from the 1990s?  I’d purchased the entire set over time and never cracked open a single one of them, despite numerous raves from many of my friends – even my grandfather.  Le Sigh.  If I haven’t read them after 15 years sitting in my bookcase then it’s time for someone else to.  Also in the “outta here” pile: a set of 4 glass beer mugs I maybe used once in 20 years.  THAT feels good.  I looked at the hodge podge of a dozen mismatched wine glasses currently on the floor in the guest room and considered getting rid of them too but I decided to keep them.  THOSE are good to have for larger parties.  I just need to box them up and get them out of the guest room!

Larger parties…what a segue. I’ve been looking forward to my new consulting firm’s annual Seafood Fest.  The staff has been buzzing about it ever since I joined the group in July, and I’m sure they’ve been in planning mode far earlier than that. “Are you coming?”  “Can you make it?”  “Can’t wait to see you there!”  I probably heard this every time I sent in a timesheet or collected my pay stub.  The energy was contagious!

And the party was amazing, just as I expected.  Our CEO hosted it in her home as she does every year, and just about everything on the menu was made by her and her team from scratch.  Right down to the homemade ice cream, her signature dessert!  Her home is fantastic for entertaining.  She has a front yard with enough room for a large table and chairs plus a couple of grills and a drink stand, a large kitchen and great room on the main level inside, and a huge back deck with room for multiple round tables, mingling and the incredible view looking west toward Puget Sound and across the water to the Kitsap Peninsula (and I think some of Whidbey Island too).  

I soaked in the view with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc and enjoyed meeting other fellow consultants and chatting with our CEO, T, and her team!  What a great team.  This really didn’t feel like a work-related party…it felt like family.  Really and truly.  T LOVES to entertain…and it shows.  Party for 80 guests?  No problem, right? 

Seafood fest knocked it out of the park.  I’m kicking myself for not getting any pictures of the food with my phone but it was unbelievable.  This year the theme was Caribbean, so we had jerk chicken and beef on the grill, blackened halibut (our CEO caught the halibut herself off of Vancouver Island earlier this year – she had the video of it playing in the living room!), rice and bean side dishes, salads with papayas and mangoes, chips and wonderful salsas, and even a couple of pizzas!  Dessert was a choice of pineapple or lime-flavored cupcakes, and two kinds of homemade ice cream – pineapple and vanilla with a little cinnamon.  Simply incredible.

And the weather turned out decent too – it was a little cloudy during the day but thankfully burned off later in the evening.  This summer really hasn’t been a summer, so I was happily relieved we had a warm evening last night!

Great people and great food.  There simply is no better combination out there.  And so many reasons to celebrate!

Now it’s time to get started on dinner.  While I might not be super hungry after all that wonderful food last night, it DID inspire me to keep honing my cooking skills.  I’m pretty good at it, I must say!  Practice, practice, practice.

Tonight it’s another dish from the Primal Blueprint Cookbook I’ve posted about a few times before.  Chicken and fennel stew with, onions, garlic in a broth of beer and coconut milk, garnished with fresh parsley.  Can’t wait!