Deliciousness & Nautilusness

Thursday the 17th was our 10 year wedding anniversary. Steve had to work, so we celebrated this weekend with a quick trip up to Seattle.

Our drive up on Monday was uneventful. We mourned the move of our friends Mike and Crystal as we passed their old exit in Vancouver, cursed the couple that bought their home enabling the move, and considered committing acts of vandalism to the home. Or maybe that was just me.

After arriving at Chambered Nautilus, our bed and breakfast inn, we took a brief stroll through the neighborhood. Within walking distance of the University of Washington campus, the street was a mix of beautiful old homes - some turned fraternity/sorority house - and rather unattractive student housing. We passed a granola girl having a yard sale. She had the most gorgeous huge dog with her, guarding some nasty dining room chairs and other random items for sale. She reminded me of the hippies that would hang out at the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, neither students nor employed, begging for money. "If you're so hungry, eat your dog", people would quip testily at them.

We walked further. Frat boys with no shirts on were spraying each other with a garden hose in their front lawn and screaming like little girls. Broken glass covered a side street .. discarded vodka bottles? victim windows from car prowls? A stairway covered in Sharpie graffiti (collegiate witticisms such as "Bush sucks") led to a community garden. And on the sidewalk, some coins. 35 cents! I bent to pick them up, then looked around sheepishly to see if someone was snarking at me through a window. Glued to the ground, those blasted coins! I wondered how many other spendthrifts had been conned. Steve laughed happily at my expense.

Upon recommendation, we ate dinner at the Metropolitan Grill. "Steaks that melt in your mouth", we were promised. The Met (as it is supposedly called by those in the know) lived up to the hype, but I was wooed less by the steak than by the twice baked potatoes that Steve ordered. He gave me a bite. My eyes opened wide with surprise - I have never felt this way about a potato before! He offered me a second bite. My eyes narrowed seductively. "Hello, deliciousness", I murmered as I brought the fork to my mouth. "Helloooo", waved a bored and neglected Steve from across the table.

We gorged ourselves on dinner and dessert, a giant tower of carrot cake with buttercream frosting and vanilla ice cream. Food coma set in early and it took us far longer than it should have to find our car in the underground parking garage. We returned to our well-appointed room (the Crow's Nest Chamber, if you're interested in seeing some pictures) and .. skipping to breakfast, we met a gal from New Mexico, which gave us further opportunity to curse Mike and Crystal in Arizona. Funny .. she and her husband were vacationing together in Seattle, but they traveled separately - she by plane, he by motorcycle. She was originally from the East Coast (Boston area), and quite a talker .. so the travel arrangements made more sense after that.

On Tuesday, we went to the Woodland Park Zoo. What an incredibly beautiful place! The habitats were so lush, and we saw quite a bit more active wildlife than usual. Orangutans appeared to interact with us through the glass barrier, the giraffes literally crossed our paths when they were moved from the Savannah to their pens, we fed small tropical birds from our hands, and a lion roared for several seconds when we were nearby. Granted, it seemed more like he was hacking up a giant furball than trying to impress us with his ferociousness, but it was still infinitely more interesting than seeing him sleep on a big rock.

That evening we took in the Yankees/Mariners game at Safeco field. A crushing loss - the Mariners hit a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth - made redemptive by the fact that a) it shut up the couple of overly obnoxious Yankee fans near us, and b) the Yankees turned around and won the following night when several of Steve's coworkers (all Mariners' fans) were present.

We left Wednesday after another scrumptious breakfast and conversation with a military couple from the Washington, D.C. area. They were well-traveled people who shamed us by remembering and using our names throughout the conversation, reacted badly to Steve's suggestion that every true baseball fan should admit that they'd love to have a George Steinbrenner as their team owner, and convinced me that if they could easily ski the Swiss Alps I could perilously ski Mt. Hood this winter.

On the way home, we hit the exceptional Museum of Glass gift store in Tacoma and picked up "Jupiter", a new addition to our collection of Celestial Series weights. We now have three - one for each visit up to the Seattle area. It should only take us another hundred years or so to complete the collection.

Our last stop was Ikea, where we hoped to score big on some new furnishings for the home but only did so-so. Significant purchases included a new TV stand (so we could reconfigure the furniture in our living room and consequently entertain more comfortably) and a display case for our previously mentioned glass weight collection (so they can stop collecting dust on the office desk). We feasted on Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce and sighed contently, basking in the knowledge that Portland will be getting its own Ikea in 2007.

Not the most glamorous way to celebrate 10 years of marriage, but neither Steve nor I are all that glamorous. Simple, happy, best friends still in love .. yes.