Update... Amante is already open

Well, it turns out Amante is already open, and has been for 3 weeks. I stopped by tonight to find out when they'd be opening and was greeted by a bright neon open sign. Stopped in and decided to order a salad to go for dinner, since my rations at home have been dwindling. The people were very nice, but I was the only customer. I think that location tends not to do well - it's right next to the Greenlake Bar and Grill, but you can't even see it or tell that there's a restaurant right next door. On the other side is Super Jock and Jill, and beyond that there's no more retail. The space has recently been occupied by a noodle restaurant and later a teriyaki place, neither of which did well (obviously).

As I waited for my salad, I looked around the interior. I really liked their light fixtures, though you can't see them in this crappy camera phone picture. The fake tree in the middle was a little weird. Otherwise, though, it was nice enough. Took my salad home to eat it, and it was pretty good! I only had half of the half-size salad, so I'll be eating the rest for lunch today. Next time maybe I'll get the full-size salad and make it into three meals...

Those of you who know me know that I tend to keep things, things that don't seem to be keep-worthy, for reasons only known to me (and sometimes not even me). Some people call me a pack-rat. I don't disagree. Anyway, so funny story. A few years ago I was house-sitting, and I wanted dinner, but didn't feel comfortable trying to cook in the kitchen there. I was tired of pizza, so I found a flier for a place that delivered and ordered some tortellini alfredo and a salad. I liked the meal so much that I kept the receipt, thinking that I'd call them again someday. I never did call them again, but I happened to look at the receipt last night and realized it was actually Amante! I guess I can shred the receipt now.

Update 02/08/07:
I forgot to post the picture of my Crispy Chicken Salad - it was quite tasty! (The lettuce is hidden underneath the chicken pieces... :)

Coming soon... new restaurant in town

Spotted this sign the other day down on E Greenlake Dr, near the Greenlake Bar and Grill. I'll have to check it out when it opens and report back! The pizza prices seem to be on the higher end, but it is nice that it's within walking distance. Back when current roomie kc and I lived two blocks away from each other in Wallingford/Fremont, we'd sometimes walk down to the Pagliacci on 40th and Stone and pick up pizza for dinner. Of course, if we still lived there, we could go to Tutta Bella on Stone and 43rd as well, which would be even closer. But apparently proximity of restaurants has not encouraged me to frequent them - there are several decent places near my current apartment and I almost never go to any of them. Well, maybe trying out this new place will motivate me to change that. Stay tuned!

Raindrops

Sparkly
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Went out to my car today and noticed that the water from the recent rain had beaded up on the newly waxed surface. It was the only car on the street that still had visible water on it - kind of eerie. I like how the water droplets magnify the sparkles in the paint in this one.

Ferries and Grey's Anatomy

Apparently the next 2 episodes of Grey's Anatomy will feature the WA state ferry system prominently [psbj]. I am a big fan of the ferries (much like the show's characters, I guess), so I'm pretty excited about this. In case you didn't know, Washington has the largest car ferry system in the US and the third largest in the world [wikipedia]. You drive your car onto the car deck, and then you can go upstairs to enjoy the ride. They used to serve warm food in a small cafeteria, but they discontinued that service back in 2003 [p-i]. Ironically, I remember reading a story not too much later saying that the ferries were making more money from the vending machines than they did from the cafeterias. Lower overhead, I suppose. Anyway, I love going to the front or back deck of the ferry and watching the mountains and water from the middle of Puget Sound. One of the most interesting routes is the Seattle-Bremerton ferry, which takes you into the channels of the Kitsap Peninsula. I'm excited to watch Grey's to see how they portray the ferries in these episodes!

Olympic Sculpture Park on Sunday

Wake
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

On Sunday, inspired by the sun (again!), I went to the new SAM Olympic Sculpture Park with kc and ma. They preempted their GL walk to go with me, and I was quite grateful for the company. After braving the streets of Belltown to find a parking spot, we made our way back to the park. Crowded it was, but didn't feel claustrophobic.

As we made our way down the path, one of the first things that struck me was how much more amazing the Eagle looks in person than it does in pictures. Not that it doesn't look striking in photos, but the scale and setting have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.

Another observation is how much more impressive "Seattle Cloud Cover" is in the evening (and presumably morning) than during bright overhead sunlight. We passed by it initially and didn't think too much of it, but later on came by again and it was much prettier.

At the end of the Sculpture Park (which isn't quite finished yet), there's a little beach full of driftwood and pebbles that people have taken to arranching into large structures. I guess visiting a park full of sculptures can be inspiring to some, especially when they find the right medium.

It turns out that the park is next to two Seattle parks with a continuous walking/bike path, so we kept on going and ended up getting in the walk that was abandoned earlier in the decision to go see art. We walked down to where the grain silos and grain elevator are (I had no idea we had a huge grain elevator on Elliot Bay), which was pretty cool, and then turned around.

We made it back to the park and hit the areas that we'd had to skip earlier based on our route. This included Wake, pictured, which was also much more impressive in person than in photos.

Then we went off to find dinner, hitting Mama's Mexican Kitchen in Belltown, an establishment that had been frequently noted but never visited by any of us, before I headed back to work and kc and ma went home to play Elebits. :) All in all, it was a great day, even better than I'd thought it would be. Hurray for sun in January!

Wax on, wax off

Inspired by the unexpectedly temperate and clear weather today, and faced with the time to do something, I decided that today was the day I'd finally wash my car (Betsy)... for the first time in a year and a half.

The washing went well - there's some caked-on crud that will take more than me and my little sponge (and dish soap) to get clean, but overall, getting rid of the leaf imprints and the bird droppings was a big step in the right direction.

As I was finishing up drying off the car, a thought struck me. Why not also wax Betsy? I bought some Turtle wax a number of years ago and had never used it, mainly because the yearly car-washing was on a hot summer day, and it says not to use the wax if the car is in direct sunlight.

So I set about to waxing the car after reading the instructions on the label. Didn't seem too difficult - just smear some on, let it dry, and wipe it off. I learned quickly how much to smear on (hardly any at all) and that if I did leave some goopy stuff to wipe it off with a separate towel so as not to sully up the one I was using to wipe off the main stuff. Before I had even finished two panels, I needed a new towel - and having a clean towel seems to be quite important. I ran upstairs and grabbed some more towels and came back armed and ready.

Well, by the time I had made it all the way around the car, my arms were exhausted, I was exhausted, and it had taken me quite a bit more time to complete than I'd anticipated. Mr. Miyagi definitely had it right - wax on, wax off is a really good exercise. I'm actually having difficulty typing this post, thanks to the soreness of my forearms! All this effort to make my 15-year old car just a little bit prettier.

Update 01/28/07:
Here's the finished product - so shiny!

Friendly family competition

A happy gingercouple on Chistmas morning
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Christmas day in our family is spent half at home - opening presents, eating breakfast, etc., and then driving to Half Moon Bay in the late afternoon to spend the rest of the day with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. In recent years, my aunt has started having us play various games, and this year was no different. We arrived to find an assortment of plain gingerbread people, frosting, and other decorations. Our instructions were to decorate one of these (the other was meant to be a backup in case of a failure on the first one), and at the end, we'd do an anonymous vote for the best decorated gingerperson, with prizes for the winners. Some complaints were lodged regarding the limited color palette (mainly red, green, and white), but everyone put quite a bit of effort into their creations.

Well, our family is a bit... disturbed... and we ended up with no fewer than three entries involving death and destruction. The top spot ended up going to my cousin Susan for her recreation of the Texas chainsaw massacre. The picture here is my sister's entry, which didn't win, but definitely should have gotten bonus points for being in the spirit of the day, and also had some of the most attention to detail.

If you click on the link, you'll go to a gallery with all the entries, and you might even find a gingerbread tribute to the namesake of this blog!

It's raining

... just raining. Not snow, not ice, not hail, not sideways hail. Just rain. How nice.

Sisters in Seattle

Well, there's simply no excuse, but somehow I never did write about my sister's visit up to Seattle back in October (gasp!).

So, waaaaaaaay back in 2006, lil' sis came up for a weekend o' fun. The weather behaved, which was really nice. Good thing she wasn't planning to come this month. (Sheesh! Just when you thought the snow/icepocali were done, another few inches gets dumped overnight....) Anyway, she flew in on a Thursday night and fortunately I was able to take that Friday off to spend more time with her.

We first headed down to Pike Place Market in what seemed like a burgeoning trend, involving going to the market to buy yummy food to make for dinner later in the evening. While there we noticed a film crew surrounding a woman (we don't know who she is) and Andy Paige, who my sister recognized from TV. Apparently the latter is a makeup artist to the stars. After watching them film the flying fish at the south end of the market, we moved on.

Next stop was the Seattle Public Library. Since en works part-time at an architecture firm, she just HAD to stop by (if for no other reason than to hold all the architects at bay when she got back). We headed in and noticed that they were cleaning the windows that day. The library was beautiful as usual.

After passing by the Seattle Art Museum, still under construction (not much longer now though!), we passed through the market again and picked up some salmon, assorted fruits and veggies, a pretty bouquet of flowers, and other goodies. Then it was on up to picturesque Kerry Park. Unfortunately Mt. Rainier wasn't showing her pretty head that day. Then it was on back home to prepare our dinner and chow down. Thanks to some tips from dad on how to cook the salmon, we had a delicious meal. Since M&K were eating dinner at the same time, we felt very domestic and even documented it for posterity.

The next day dawned beautiful and sunny, so we took the opportunity to get up into the North Cascades for some prime larch viewing. After living here for 6 years and never seeing a larch in fall color, I decided it was time to make a pilgrimage. (Western larches are deciduous conifers - their needles turn yellow and fall off every year.) We drove up to highway 20 and passed through the North Cascades - which were absolutely spectacular. I've never driven that road when the sky has been clear - and it was just amazing. Our destination was the Maple Pass loop and Lake Ann. Due to the length of the drive to get there, we only had time to hike to the lake and back. Luckily we were still rewarded with some beautiful yellow larches, as well as other vibrant fall foliage. The ground at the lake was frozen and the there was extensive frost on everything around. We found a sunny rock to eat our lunch and then headed back down, but not before crossing the creek to get close to a larch tree and then investigating the extent of a pond's frozenness (i.e. it took a lot of rocks to break the ice). Sunset on the drive back was gorgeous and I stopped a few times to capture the mountains in the afternoon light (since I was driving I had the power to stop, even if en didn't want to get out of the car :)

On Sunday, we headed north again, but this time to a corn maze (inspired by a sign we'd seen the previous day). The maze was pretty neat, but we learned a few important corn-maze lessons:
1. If you're going to go to a corn maze, go on the first weekend it's open. If you go after that, all the kids obsessed with finding the route to the finish will break through the walls of the maze and make shortcuts. These will soon be indistinguishable from the original path.
2. Corn mazes are muddy. Wear appropriate footwear.
3. We were probably the only two people in there trying to find our way through the maze without using the shortcuts
4. When en gets hungry and decides it's time to go, all bets are off and all shortcuts will be used to find the way out.

So back it was to Seattle for a little more time together, downloading pictures, and hanging out. All in all it was a great weekend and I sure hope she comes to visit again (hint, hint.) :)

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Comet McNaught from Queen Anne hill

Comet McNaught
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Last night was the last chance to view Comet McNaught, the brightest comet in 32 years, before it swings around the sun and comes out on the other side, visible to the southern hemisphere in a few days. TR and I drove up to Queen Anne hill as the sun was setting and joined a group of people camped out at the end of Highland Drive, where there is a great unobstructed view to the west. There were quite a few clouds in the sky, but we were all hanging on the hope that we might catch a glimpse in the small swath of clear sky.

Just as we were about to give up and head home, the photographer standing next to us (flickr user Ed119) spotted the comet (he'd been out there the night before and so he knew what to look for). Because the comet was setting, and setting fast, we only saw it for about 2 minutes (confirmed by the EXIF data on my photos). But it was clearly visible by the naked eye, and just beautiful through binoculars. Before we knew it, it had disappeared again behind the lower cloud bank.

It was a perfect Seattle moment - we were all huddled out there in the cold (it's been chilly here lately), hoping against all hope that the sky would be just clear enough to spot the comet. When it appeared, it was just amazing.