Frog and Goat

The organization I work for has people spread out over three buildings in the Fan area of Richmond. My building has 10 people, the building at the other end of our block has seven people and then the third or main building has a bunch of people but still no more than 30. The main building is several blocks away and I end up over at that building at least once a week.

I think there was some bad mojo circulating when this building opened and people were sent over here. At the time, it was a bit of a punishment to be thrown out to the far reaches of campus. Honestly, though, ours is the nicest building: bright, sunny, spacious and what a courtyard and backyard.

I have friends in the main building and in the one down the street. The people in my building are a bit territorial and, frankly, a bit snobby about who we should socialize with. I’ve been trying for weeks to have lunch with someone who used to work in my building but moved over to the main building. Our schedules keep conflicting. We were supposed to have lunch today but something came up for her so she suggested Thursday. Thursday is the day the Greek Festival starts and we had the Greek Festival as an agenda item at a recent unit meeting. Lunch is important to us. Anyway, it was decided we’d go to the Greek Festival as a large group on Thursday. I invited my sometime lunch buddy.

Remember that bit about the snobby? I haven’t told anyone in my building that this other person is coming with us. I had the perfect opportunity to do so yesterday in the car on the way to pick up lunch. We were talking about lunch and one person remembered she has a thing at her child’s school at lunchtime on Thursday. We had to change our trip to the festival to Friday. I didn’t think it was good to broach the subject of having this other person join us for lunch when I was trapped in the back seat of the car. The better-half said I was a chicken. That’s true. I don’t know why the animosity exists but I have ties to people in all the buildings and my co-workers need to understand that and, frankly, get over it.

At least we’ll be sitting outside at the Greek Festival with good food and live music and the chances of cattiness breaking out will be minimized.

What do most people do with a three-day weekend? Hang out, break out the barbecue, play horseshoes and sleep late. What do we do? Rip up the temporary plywood floor of our porch and install the tongue and groove fir floor. Then we sand and stain it (By the way, the stain? All the claims on their website about being top-notch? True. This stuff rocks.) That’s what we do on a perfectly lovely three-day weekend.

Last night I stayed up past my bedtime playing our game of let’s flip through the music channels and guess the ones we know. I feel like I stayed up 3 hours later instead of the hour later that it actually was. I woke up and shut the alarm off at 5:49am because in my addled state I thought it said 5:59am and I hate the sound of the alarm. When I realized I still had a good 10 minutes of sleep, I reached over and lamely tried to turn the alarm back on but then said, “eh, might as well get up.” Yes, I regularly take long tokes on the crack pipe. But, I was able to clean up the pots from dinner last night and make coffee. Two things I don’t normally have time to do. I have my morning time down to the exactly how much time it takes me to shower, eat and get dressed. There’s no real room for anything else in the morning.

Anyway, back to our version of Name that Tune. Sometimes the game is an actual game but most times we see the name of the artist too soon and then we end up staying on the music channel for more than a few minutes listening and usually telling each other the same stories of what we were doing when we first heard the song. The game worked better when we had to deal with satellite delay but now cable is just too fast.

The better-half kicks serious butt on the Easy Listening channel and he can pull some obscure titles right out of his butt. He says it’s from years of listening to WRVA in the back of his mother’s Pinto wagon or the Volare. And, for your information, you must sing the name of that last car whenever you mention it.

Other embarrassing cars in the F&G background: AMC Matador station wagon. And, the pièce de résistance: a yellow Gremlin with Levis seats. Rivets so hot they left a mark.

Digging started yesterday and the walls went in today. These guys are wasting no time.

What it looked like before they started digging:

Two guys and two pieces of equipment:

Almost all of the walls are up. Sorry for the through-the-window photo but they were starting to cover the hole (rain is coming) and I had to snap the photo from where I was sitting:

Update 5/30/06…we had a concrete delivery for the back-fill process. The level of trust between the workers is pretty awesome to watch. The young guy holds a 2X4 up against the wall while the owner places the bucket on the 2X4 and then pulls the wall in line. The young guy’s hands are right there where the bucket comes in to put some serious pressure on the wall segments.

Sorry this picture is so crappy, I’d feel like an idiot taking pictures from outside so I take them from the second story and try to get the whole pool in the shot.

Whoohoo! They left the pool uncovered.

We spent the weekend creating a vegetable garden. The better-half turned over the plot with a shovel and then he used our mini tiller to break up the soil. I was in charge of root extraction, manure tossing and planting. For some reason I tend to end up on my knees wailing away at roots with a hatchet way too often. I am woman hear me roar.

The little tiller performed really well considering we made it do way more work than it was designed to do. We’ll probably have to upgrade at some point. We received the tiller as a wedding gift and I was so excited to get it. We’ve probably used it more in the last 3 days than we have in the last couple of years. 20 minutes in a flower bed once a year is nothing compared to hours in a 25X25 garden plot.

What does our garden grow? I’m glad you asked. Tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, watermelon, pumpkin, corn and sunflowers. We’re also trying carrots and radishes this late in the season. I’m skeptical. The better-half is hopeful.

I tried starting some herbs from seeds earlier this year and 1/2 of the plants look like crap so I bought some actual plants and put them in larger pots. The eating at F&G should be great come late summer.

In other yard news, the pool guy came out this morning to do one last check on the site before they start work tomorrow. He said he’d be at the house at 7:30 and the better-half said he was there on the nose. The better-half has promised to take pictures.

Here’s a lengthy wrap-up of the food we encountered in the Pacific Northwest:
Etta’s: Calamari and shrimp and ginger rolls, albacore tuna over risotto and spinach and dungeness crab cakes with asparagus.
Peso’s Kitchen: Outstanding Bloody Marys, breakfast burrito and huevos tacos.
Kells Irish Pub: Corned Beef pasty and clam chowder.
Wild Ginger: Salmon satay, black pepper scallops, BBQ prawns, sichuan green beans, white and brown rice and mango sticky rice.
Piroshky-Piroshky: piroshkies (we tried several on more than one occasion).
Mr. D’s Greek Delicacies: Gyro.
Virginia Inn (went twice): Chicken sandwich, meatball sandwich (one of the best ever and I order these a lot), tuna sandwiches.
Le Panier: brioche, apricot croissant, raspberry croissant.
CI Shenanigan’s (the most mediocre of meals): 1/2 dozen raw oysters (very nice), asparagus wrapped with prosciutto, NY Strip with prawns, prime beef kabobs and prawns and caesar salads.
Renaissance Cafe: 3 Little Pigs eggs and toast, Denver scramble and toast. The owner scrambles the eggs with the steamer attachment on the espresso machine. Heavenly.
Cafe de Paris: mussels, frisee and lardon salad, salade mimosa, duck breast, cassoulet and pomme frites. Cheese plate for dessert. Epoisses and some other cheeses, but I don’t remember because there was Epoisses and it was perfect.
Sylvia Hotel: buckwheat pancakes, eggs, sausage, toast.
Mediterranean Grill: falafel platter and chicken shawarma platter.
Pacific Crab Co.: the best mojito (I joked about running over to the bartender to give him a big smoochie), calamari to start, clam, mussel and chorizo linguine, sablefish and salmon with asparagus and crab and potato salad.
Cafe Mexico: chicken chimichangas, chipotle chicken. Darn good margaritas.
Siam: egg drop and vegetable soup, chicken curry, spring roll, vegetarian pad thai.
Matisse (7 course tasting menu with accompanying wine) and sorry about no French names on these dishes–it was bad enough I was taking notes on an old receipt: salmon pate in puff pastry that was shaped like a gingerbread man (as the amuse bouche); beef broth, wine, truffle and morel soup; lobster bisque and lobster meat on a potato pancake; rabbit, carrots, pearl onion stew; halibut, merguez, caviar with a beurre blanc; peach and raspberry sorbets to clear our palates; venison, asparagus tips, mashed turnip or parsnip, pearl onions with a veal demi glace and a thin waffle-cut potato crisp; brillat-savarin salad; strawberries and Devonshire ice cream; citrus madeleines. One of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.
Gustav’s: burger with Canadian bacon, bratwurst, fries and onion rings.
Enzian Inn: breakfast buffet eaten quickly so we could get the heck out of Dodge.
Lombardi’s: Ravioli and smoked salmon, chicken saltimbocca and salads. Chocolate ravioli and chocolate mousse.

This was like a siren’s call:

The better-half had the pepperoni and jalapeños slice and I had the Mediterranean slice.

We got home yesterday and unpacked the mountain of dirty clothes. Let me tell you–I smelled by the time we finally got home. Something about being in the same clothes for more than 24 hours will do that.

We took the red-eye to Dallas and then had a long lay-over before we could get on the plane to Richmond. I was so tired that I don’t remember the flight to Richmond. We got on and luckily had two seats by ourselves. I shut the window and we went to sleep. Didn’t hear the safety announcements, briefly saw that others were getting sodas, woke up as we started our descent into Richmond. That nap was the best and kept me going until after 9 last night.

Leon has followed us and meowed since we got home. The meowing isn’t something simple like “meow”. It’s more like “oh my god there you are, I’m so happy to see you, where have you been, I’ve missed you, please don’t leave again” meowing. This morning when I opened the bedroom door he started the meowing and ran half-way up the stairs to greet me. Then he did the cha-cha-cha around the kitchen with me this morning…to the pantry, to the counter, to the refrigerator, to the trash can. Hopefully, he’ll settle back into the normal routine of ignoring us and graciously giving and receiving affection.

Work today has been fine. Luckily not too much heavy thinking was needed because what little bit I had to do, I didn’t do well. Tomorrow I should be completely readjusted.

Tonight is our last night in the great state of Washington. We fly out of SeaTac on the red-eye tomorrow night.

A co-worker suggested we come to Leavenworth to see the little town that turned itself into a spitting image of Bavaria.

Mr. Quayle, I know Bavaria and this is no Bavaria. It is like a theme park gone horribly, horribly awry.

Exhibit One–the room art:

Exhibit Two–a close-up of that lamp:

The only thing to do is to enjoy the Okanagan Spring Pale Ale we bought in Victoria.

Nothing but pictures today…
Butchart Gardens–ice fell out of the sky while we were there:

A cold and windy vista:

Yesterday morning we went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese garden in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The garden was smack-dab in the center of Chinatown with all the noise of construction and people going about their business. The garden was quiet and calm and we felt like whispering while there.

We took the advice of the very nice woman working at the garden’s gift shop to enjoy outdoor activities before it rains and went to Grouse Mountain.

This morning was overcast and we enjoyed breakfast at the Red Umbrella and sat next to two older women who seemed to have been friends for years. As we were leaving, one of the women said something about us having to endure their chatter but they don’t see each other very often. We let her know that it was no problem and we said good bye. The people here are so very nice. We noticed that in Tacoma and Seattle too. Must be all the clean air, delicious food and diversity of the population.

We’re in Victoria now and rode over on the largest ferry I’ve ever seen. When we got off the elevator from the parking level, I’m sure I looked like a rube. Stunningly huge passenger lounges and we just picked just one of them. The lounge on the other deck was huge too and had cafes, gift shops, etc. The seats were better than some airline seats I’ve been in. The sun broke out on our passage and it’s been beautiful ever since. The temperature is pretty moderate but there’s the incessant wind that makes it seem cooler to me.

Our hotel is on the waterfront but we face the city. We have a balcony so if I lean way over I can see the sails of sailboats. There’s a park to the other side and lots of green space, large trees and flowers.