Got to work and there were 20 orders, we are over the HUMP – and with UW Graduation the 18th, we are on the downhill slope.
Meanwhile, work on getting the Focus Wagon to have a real armrest is continuing. I have the new console in, but it seems I need yet another piece to make it work as Henry (Ford) planned. Here is the pic of the new console:
So, what I need is the riser that the armrest bolts to. That would be this part:
Found it on eBay for $30, plus $10 shipping, or best offer. I offered $20 and the guy accepted on Memorial Day. It took until today for it to ship. In the end it makes to total for a Ford specific Focus armrest at $95. Now if I can just get used to the driver’s seat. I’m used to a little more support.
And MORE PICTURES. The boys are back tonight for Braised Lamb Shanks:
Shanks are braised and ready to go into the sauce.
Shanks in the stock.
Disaster afterwards.
A great meal, long conversation, a little hot-tubbing afterwards. All is good.
80 orders when I walked into the print shop this morning. I can print/package/ship about 10 orders an hour. I was VERY happy when Roxy walked in at 10:30. He usually works Nordstrom’s on Tuesday but with Memorial Day (i.e. Kiss A Vet Day), there were no delivers of goods on Monday, so he got the day off – to come work the other job.
By the time I left at 2 we’d gotten all the FedEx orders on the counter to be picked up, leaving the in-store pick-ups for him to finish.
Me, I went home and started trying to catch up on stuff, and then I went into Hot Dog Mode….
It started with seeing this, which would work very nicely at the Longhouse:
$129 and $35 shipping. And then I found this for $265 and free shipping:
Shipping weight is 90 pounds… free Second Day, though they do say this might take a couple of days longer. Amazon Prime ROCKS. But it comes with a roller cooker, two steamers and three condiment holders:
The plan was to open a hot dog stand in the kitchen for the final lunch at the Longhouse Gathering. I just didn’t have the energy for it. I came home, got cleaned up and took a nap – leaving me with all sorts of hot dog supplies. Guess what was for an early dinner.
And then I got a text message from a number I didn’t have in my address book: Arriving in a few minutes.
OK – texted back “who is this?”
And then the knock at the door with JSteve and Brian with salad and beets to go with dinner…. The dinner I thought we’d scheduled for Wednesday. Crossed wires. So, we fired up the grill and I had another round of meat tubes but this time with a salad with some nice beets in it. And they are coming back on Wednesday for the lamb shanks I was planning on making.
And I got both of them to try the SauerKraut that I marinated in Gruner-Veitlander, a dry Austian white wine.
Fun with friends – it was a great evening non-the-less, with another planned on Wednesday.
Happy Memorial Day – kiss a vet (no, not a veteranian, though they probably deserves kisses as well).
Dead first hour, then all hell broke loose – four figures by the end of the day and a special order for half the day’s take. Three stellar days in a row.
And off to the bog I go after closing after 5 – last minute run of customers. Maybe we should do until six on Sundays.
Well – quick commute to the bog to rejoin the boys camping (car camping in my case):
The camping set up, lower tail gate when it rains – thinking about a tent add-on.
Interior view – comfy bed, LOTS of blankets (and condiments – to the right). Awaiting Velcro® for the bottom parts of the curtains.
Uncle Markie’s version of BOX wine.
Sunset in the bog. When I do the tent extension for the car it will be based on the canopy above.
Alli did the most amazing diner tonight – a Thai steak salad (tasty but the pieces of steak should have been smaller) and a pork red curry over rice. The BEST food I have ever had at a faerie gathering.
Well, the new center console arrived…. In a HUGE box. Between all the camping supplies, and the broken down boxes from the shop, the box was a tight fit in the back of the wagon.
Good day at the shop – two four figure days in a row. And tomorrow we start the “Sunday Sippers” program with two bottles open, and more advertising.
Just a quiet night around the house eating some lovely Italian sausages with wine drenched sauerkraut.
Most working stiffs look forward to Friday – for me, it’s just the end of one work week and the beginning of another. At least I get to go car camping after work.
The Radical Faeries are getting together for the annual Memorial Day Longhouse Gathering. Occasionally there is a late summer shindig as well, but nothing planned at the moment. This will be the first test of how the Ford Focus works as a car camper.
Pulled the mattress off the rollaway in the garage, packed the cooler with ice and mixers, threw in the folding picnic table and these plastic snap together squares to provide a non-dirt place to get in/out of the back.
First impression is that it’s a little tight, but beats sleeping in my tent/cot. Might swap the mattress out for the slightly smaller one in the guest bedroom for the next trip.
Sorry, no pictures. Maybe when I’m back on Sunday night…. Since I have to work Saturday and Sunday, my camping will be Friday night and Sunday night.
Roast chicken and some wonderful conversation for dinner. I joked that I had some Retsina with me (the PineSol of fine Greek wines) and to my surprise the chap I was chatting with said he loved Retsina – not something you often hear.
Maybe that’s why we ended up spending a LOT of time together tonight, if you catch my meaning.
It must be travel planning week for me. This is what happens every year when there are no good airplane deals during the summer – I start booking up Fall like a madman.
Just booked early September at my timeshare in Cabo San Lucas. That would be Cabo Villa Resorts:
Those are shots off their website. Here is one of the room interior from last year’s trip:
Booking this just makes me miss CaddyDaddy more – he was with me last September at this place:
This year it will be DancingBear and BreticusMaximus checking in on Saturday, we me arriving Monday (staying through Friday). Last year CaddyDaddy got the very comfortable fold out bed, this year it will be me.
Here is what my late October mid-week will look like:
The MegaDo starts in Toronto, so I’m using Alaska miles to get a First Class ticket on American (32,500 miles plus $17.50) via Houston and Chicago – hey, it’s First, you don’t care how long it takes you to get someplace if they are feeding and boozing you.
Wednesday morning starts with a free breakfast at the Ritz Carlton, followed by a tour of a luggage factory that makes high-end travel stuff, comes with a BBQ lunch, though what the Canadians know about BBQ we will see. The evening is a reception (assuming dinner as well) hosted by Marriott Hotels and Resorts at the back at the Ritz.
Thursday its back to the Ritz for breakfast, and then busses out to the airport for a day of Air Canada sponsored events – apparently MegaDo folks being travel whores get a ton of attention from Airline Brass. After all that it’s back to the Ritz for a reception hosted by Air Canada. Apparently one year they gave all the attendees models of the airplane they were flying on. Must remember to pack camera.
Friday is the crazy day when after breakfast we all get in a chartered Airbus 321 to fly to Tucson, spend a couple of hours touring the “boneyard” of dead military planes, then fly to San Francisco for a hanger party sponsored by United. This would be the StarAlliance MegaDo as opposed to the OneWorld MegaDo. That runs until 8:30, then I get on a plane back to Seattle ($120 one-way).
Last time I checked, there were still seats available… but they have gone fast in the past.
And apparently I even get double (plus my Gold bonus) miles for this trip since it’s a charter. We will see on that. Might make it worth going back to Hong Kong so I could get United Gold through 2014, but I’m more worried about making MVP on Alaska at the moment.
Spent my evening rejiggering all the various flights and hotels.
No picture of dinner with the boys (DancingBear and BreticusMaximus)… but picture this:
Green Salad
Cole Slaw
Asparagus and Chicken Breast Pieces Swimming in Alfredo
No starch for anybody tonight. White wine for DB, cocktails for BM, and red wine for UM.
I think we have finally come to consensus on spending a week (well, I’ll spend five days) in Cabo San Lucas as my timeshare there. Guess I’d better get booking it – first full week of September is what we are shooting for. That would be AFTER most of the little kiddies are back in school and before BM returns to college.
Got to sleep in a little later today since I’m just 15 minutes from the office having spent the night at the Camlin.
Not a bad day at the shop, though I could have come in several hours late with the dearth of customers in the first hours.
Did have a little time to try and find an armrest for the 2000 Ford Focus. All of the universal ones are expensive, and don’t get very good reviews. Found one on eBay that is from the same model of car but came with the higher trim package than my base fleet package. I have a counter offer in on this:
It’s even in the right color!. Like the pencil holder they built in? Great idea – my base console has one as well. On eBay it was $75 buy in now or make counter offer. I offered $55 – we will see.
With it being Mayfair in Madrona today, the wine tasting started at 1pm instead of 2pm… which for me is handy since it’s Opera night and I have a room booked at the Camlin. Means I get to check in at a little before 4 rather than a little before 5.
This is the shot of the room AFTER I completely rearranged it so you could actually open and use the Murphy bed. They had the couch backed up against Murphy bed and the kitchen table was where I moved the couch to.
Dinner with WonderFool at Dragon Fish – small Asian plate meal type place. With the 20% off coupon we got out of there for $60.00 + tip, which included a lot of sake for both of us.
Off to the Opera next, via the monorail:
WonderFool wearing my old sport coat that he had retailored (when he was 20 pounds heavier).
This is our last season of tickets – giving up my truly wonderful seats, but at a grand for the pair, it’s become too much.
I spent the evening wanting to slit my wrists. Here is the summary:
In this exciting pair of Seattle Opera premieres two very different composers explore the fates of women who must come to grips with grave disappointment. In Poulenc’s sensual, captivating 40-minute monodrama, a desperate woman is shunned by her lover over the telephone and stumbles through a minefield of emotions towards an unknown fate. In Puccini’s sentimental one act, a noble-born woman who has joined a convent is disowned by her family, takes poison in despair, and miraculously passes into a state of grace.
Sister Angelica (Suor Angelica) Music by Giacomo Puccini In Italian with English Captions
The Human Voice (La Voix Humaine) Music by Francis Poulenc In French with English Captions
Luckily it has only one more performance – the matinee tomorrow.
We should have taken the monorail home – got stuff in a traffic mess of Mercer AND 99 being closed. We could have walked home quicker.
So, if you need 2+ acres in the middle of the city, and have $4.1 million to spare, it’s a great house. Technically it’s two lots so you could take out the tennis court, barn and fruit orchard and build a second house.
As for me – worked the day, finished sewing the wagon curtains in the evening after a blade lamb steak and salad for dinner.
Back to work today – one week off, and then back to the craziness of the middle of the Graduation Announcement season.
After work, it was onto work on the station wagon adding curtains. Apparently I did such a good job matching the color (blind guessing at Home Depot) to paint the curtain rails that you can’t really se them:
Until you hang some curtains on them:
Got the one set done before age and eyesight made it impossible to get the bobbin refilled to sew more. Once they are all done I’ll investigate Velcro® to get them to conform to the body style.
The usual of working Sunday, and a decent (for a Sunday) take at the till thanks to a rush at 4:30.
The big news of the day is dinner at Swanda’s new digs up north. I don’t envy the “joys” of moving. It’s taken him a month to get everything put away – and the last big item is now in the back of my station wagon, the rollaway guest bed. Where I’m going to put that is another question, but it is always handy to have a spare bed.
Porkloins over roasted onions – he did the roasted root vegetables separately for the BF since neither of us are doing carbs.
Left early as compared to when I used to dine at the old place since it’s twice the distance (but much cheaper in rent) and I tend to not like to drive after having wine with dinner.
Looking forward to being off tomorrow… time to run all those errands.
Up at 6, out of the cabin at 7:30, off the boat at 9:30, lunch with Hummingbird and BamBam at noon, onto the train at 5, home by 11:30. Long day.
The Vancouver train station.
An interesting train set, private. Wow. Can’t seem to find any information on it though.
And I was awestruck at the redo of King Street Station in Seattle. I’m just hoping they are going to do some fancy accented paint work since that’s a whole lot of white.
Off to bed for me.
[? ? ? – should be interesting to see what tomorrow’s number is]
When asked what I did today, the answer is “a whole lot of nothing”. And that isn’t a bad thing.
Bought a bottle of Jameson’s at duty-free — bought a jacket (50% off) because I’ve been cold for days, and it will be handy for movies under the stars tonight. Probably will need it in the morning, but not the afternoon tomorrow in Vancouver.
Had breakfast delivered to the room — two egg mcmuffiny things which I removed the muffins from, along with coffee. Did lunch in the buffet as the restaurant I wanted had a long line, dinner with Jill and DancingBear with the Beef Wellington amongst other things.
A little nap in the afternoon and the evening was filled with cocktails in the Skywalker lounge (had to use the free drink coupon) with a bunch of the boys, then the dinner, then The Hobbit under the stars, then back to the Skywalker lounge for the LGBT, which on this cruise is really G, hold the BLT.
Today’s pictures are from the screening of The Hobbit:
Mind you, I’m not a big fantasy fan… but here I am bundled up watching:
That would be a fuzzy Jill to my right.
Again, up too late, but with a 6am wakeup call. Now to figure out how to kill a day in Vancouver whilst waiting for the train home.
Slept in until 11 and by noon I was lined up for lunch in the dining room. Gumbo and a chicken Caesar for lunch.
Back at the cabin, took this shot of the RIP CaddyDaddy poster I posted on his stateroom door:
Even took him to the LGBT cocktail hour which about 40 people showed up at, including one of the gay staff who said he was trying to get us moved for tomorrow’s meet and greet up to the Skywalker lounge since our numbers are so large.
And Jill and I took him to dinner as well:
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Movie under the stars anyone?
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It was a little too cold out there for me to stay for the movie, even with blankets.
Another late night – but at least I didn’t order late night room service!
    
    
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