Category: Seattle Life
Back in early August, our community got together for food and talk at a ‘Community Night Out’ event. The idea is that you get to know your neighbors, and are therefore more aware of what is going on and what is out of place. It was a lot of fun.
We ended up walking home with two other couple. We stopped in front of our house and ended up talking for 1/2 hour, just chatting (gardening ideas, mostly). Wine came up at some point, and we all agreed that we should get together for a wine tasting.
When J. & I moved in to this neighborhood, we made a commitment to get to know our neighbors. We didn’t want to just wave hands, we wanted to have meals together, borrow and lend cups of sugar, basically re-creating a mythical time that people used to live in before we were born. So I didn’t want to leave this sentiment in the ether, that weekend I contacted them via email and asked *when* we’d hold our wine tasting.
The first time we were all available was last Friday, the 9th. But my ankle was jacked up from Muay Thai the day before and I was *not* in a socializing mood, so we cancelled. In the week following, we had a couple of email attempts at rescheduling, but it never gelled.
Or so we thought.
Friday night is ‘date night’ which generally means that we watch TV, or do a jigsaw puzzle, and cook dinner together. Sometimes we go out, but mostly it’s a chance for us to spend time together that isn’t work-related or somesuch. So there we are in sweats, putting together a (fiendishly difficult) jigsaw puzzle, the kitchen in a mess, generally disorder all downstairs . . . when the doorbell rings.
It seems that everyone had decided that we were just going to do it a week later, and J. & I had missed that.
What to do? We laughed and said ‘give us 10 minutes and ignore us tidying and we’re on!’
We did, and they did, and we had a GREAT time. The wine tasting was really just an excuse to get together and drink. We learned a lot about our neighbors, and they about us, and the cheese and crackers went over great. Nothing fancy, far less structured than my original plan, and probably a lot better for the casualness.
This is turning into a real neighborhood.
Sometimes, it can be hard to understand and celebrate the internet and its power to connect people. Especially when you are deleting yet another advertisement from ‘your best friend *unknown name* who just wants to say hi, or sell you pills.
As an antidote, please take 5 minutes and enjoy this virtual choir singing a truly lovely song.
http://www.artsjournal.com/gap/2011/04/hes-got-the-whole-world/
What the composer/creator did was hook up 100s of people, all over the world, all singing at once on their webcam. Simple,effective, profound.
I dare you not to tear up.
Happy everything — I hope your evening was a lovely as ours.
We had a simple night — dinner at Melrose Grill with our friend Dan. Lots of conversation, a couple of glasses of wine . . . and home by 9pm. I was in bed by 10:30, but the fireworks made Sasha go into ‘Defender Doggy’ mode . . . loudly.
The night was incredibly clear, and about 20*, so we had a great view of the fireworks from over the side of the hill.I like looking at fireworks, I just don’t like the loud ones.
Sasha eventually calmed down, and we all went to sleep.
It’s another gorgeous (cold) day.
May 2011 be far better than it’s predecessor!
Buying a car is a lot harder than buying a house. At least it feels that way right now.
After doing a lot of research, test driving 1/2 dozen cars, and hours of talking (stop laughing Dad!) . . . we decided to get a used Subaru Legacy.
We got great financing from our Credit union (the awesome Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union) and ended up going with a 2010 Subaru Legacy in a dark gray color. Its got a number of bells and whistles, but John compromised on not getting his sun roof and tech toys, and I compromised by getting a larger car. So we both gave in something and ended up with a great deal. It has ~24k miles on it and is built like a rock. We think this car will last us at least 10 years.
Here’s an example pic:
Nice, huh?
And if you don’t, I did.
In other news, the old house *still* hasn’t been closed on. We were supposed to close on 11/24, then 11/30 . . . we signed an extension through today. The buyer’s lender is apparently taking its own time to get the documents to the title company. Maybe Monday?
We also still haven’t heard about the cost of repairing our car. Is it totaled or not? Don’t know.
A piece of furniture we thought would arrive Tuesday (11/30) is still floating around somewhere. A picture I put in to be framed on October 8th is still unfinished.
Lots of frustration at the delays. So the above picture is particularly delightful.