I remembered!

Dustin and I are jumping back on the food reviewing bandwagon. So tweet your little hearts out and follow us @seattleeatsout.

Don't worry, The Pink Door is already following us. We're VIPs.

Booyah

Is booyah technically a term coined by the marines? I remember when I was in high school and my mom would use the word sweet, and it just sounded SO DORKY. I think that's what my kids will experience when I continue to say booyah in 2032.

I'm booyahing because my itch to learn more about graphic design is finally getting scratched. Lucky me! And the best part is that it's freeeeeee. Booyah! A designer at work is giving me one-on-one lessons in Photoshop, InDesign, and hopefully Illustrator. I'm loving every minute, but the best part is that I'll finally have some ability to create a cool layout for this fine blog! Won't that be fun? It might be a reason to click on out of your Google Reader page for once!

There was something else I wanted to blog about and now I've forgotten. Typical. I will tell you that I bought some $2.99 shampoo the other day at Target. This is a big deal because I spent all my nanny money in college developing expensive taste and a love for Bumble and bumble (I really like their font, what can I say). Basically, this is hair-backsliding.

So Dustin asked me yesterday how the poor-woman's shampoo was working. And I launched into a long list of reasons it wasn't going to work out--weighed my hair down, looked kind of dirty, didn't smell as good, etc. Then he asked me where it was... as he stood looking at the Target bag in which the SHAMPOO STILL SAT. Unopened! And I legitimately thought I had a bad hair day from the Tres Semme. That's what anti-depressants do to your brain, folks. They take away your troubles and your frickin' memory. Oolala.

Next to Normal

Just when a hard day seems like it might end with a bucket of Breyer's Vanilla Bean, a long phone call with my mom saves me the heavy cream. Nothing quite like it. Four--one, two, three, four--families connected to Side-by-Side lost their children this week. No words for that. And the regular stuff of life marches on too. Car repairs, tax returns, poorly dyed hair. What a world, eh?

Last night we trekked out to see Next to Normal at the 5th. As much as I love the arts, sometimes I get bored in musicals. Then I follow up the boredom with guilt about not being cultured enough. Blahblahblah.

Not this time! Maybe it's because it felt so familiar, maybe it's because I saw at least ten people I know from my NAMI class, but I was howling with laughter and dripping with tears until the lights went up. All. the. way. to. the. end. It was superb. And there was an UNDERSTUDY playing the lead!

Take a listen and then go see this show.

Janruary

I can't tell you how delightful it feels...

...to put some creative SPRING back in my step.

Even though my only camera is on my phone...

I think you can tell I've been quite busy.

(Ruby likes to observe the art up close. Preferably

while she's wearing adult clothing.)

I roasted a lady-like chicken for sustenance.

And I made a plum tart/pie/thing for dessert.

(I ate this whole thing by myself while Dustin

suffered through P90X in the other room. Sucker.)

Then I spent some time with a mismatched baby.

(I adore him.) (My use of parentheses is wild and rampant.)

Then we flew to California so I could hold my other favorite baby, Ike.

THE END.

Rigoletto, anyone?

This too shall pass

There was a shooting in Seattle late last summer. A man died--a man who had a very hard life, filled with addiction and homelessness and poverty and a lot of living on the fringe. The man who shot him was a Seattle Police officer who perceived the man as a threat. The city of Seattle is turned completely inside out over this--how could a policeman be threatened by an inebriated woodcarver? People are furious.

But I am just so sad. I'm sad because that police officer is a guy we know personally. And frankly, he is a man of incredible character. I don't know what happened that day, but I do know that this loss of life is a tragedy. And I could never, never, never believe it was a calculated murder. Or that his action was motivated by racial prejudice. It was a horrible, painful tragedy that makes me sad for the vulnerable people on the streets of Seattle and sad for people like Ian Birk--people who have tremendous integrity and have to make terrifying split second decisions every day in the name of public service. They are human beings.

If you're the praying sort, send a prayer for our community and the fractured relationships we're trying to sort out. Nobody wins here, and it's going to take a long time for this to heal.

Priorities? Oh, they're darn straight.

Lately we've been watching quite a bit of Friday Night Lights. Yes, we are five years behind the rest of America, but our friends won't stop talking about it. However, it's been about a month of three-episodes-per-day watching. We managed to go out for Dustin's birthday and patch our leaking roof, but otherwise, that's all we've done since Christmas.

So today in a staff meeting, we had a little prayer time. (That's not so weird if you work at a church.) I was praying and I took a little pause, and then I prayed the Panthers' motto:

Dear God,

Please give us clear eyes, full hearts, so we can't...lose.

Amen

Apparently the Lord's Prayer just wasn't at the top of my mind. Apparently my mind is full of NBC television.