Don't let my dreams run dry

2006-07-03 - 5:05 p.m.

On Saturday Lolo and I worked together. Everybody, or at least nearly everybody, at work knows about us being a couple by now, so we are definitely past the ignoring each other at work thing. We talk to each other at work all the time--even about personal things--but of course there are some things you just can't do at work. We were the two triage pharmacists for the day shift so we spent all day near each other but never touching, never being too familiar. After work we walked back to my place. We were barely through the door before things started to heat up. We had made our way to the bedroom and were down to one article of clothing between us when--the fire alarm went off. What horrible timing! It could have been worse, say a few minutes later, but still. We had to evacuate outside and wait for the firetrucks to come and the firefighters to do their thing before we could go back inside. By that time the mood had passed and we had other plans for the evening so that was that.

Friday was my brother and sister-in-law's 5th wedding anniversary. Actually it feels a lot longer to me. It feels more like their 10th. But anyway, they decided to celebrate by coming to Seattle and staying at the Salish Lodge on Snoqualmie Falls. Last night they invited Lolo and I to join them for dinner there. We ended up ordering the sampler...a six-course meal consisting of samples of various items from the menu. $120 per person! Yup, officially the most expensive meal I've ever eaten. The "captain" was a woman who would come out and give us the details about each course of the meal. She had a fairly thick accent, spoke sort of softly, and used words I didn't know anyway, so I had some trouble understanding her, but it was still cool. They had various staff that would buzz about and bring new silverware for each course and keep our drinks topped off and bread plates full. I'm not sure I've ever been so pampered during a meal.

The first course actually scared me a bit because I thought it would be representative of the rest of the meal, but apparently it was just to whet our appetites. They brought each of us a large plate with one paper-thin slice of undercooked beef (?) about the size of a silver dollar, a tablespoon of salad, and half a cherry. The salad, all one bite of it, was very good with some sort of vinagerette on it.

Next course: soup. Some sort of asparagus thing. They gave me a little bowl with about four pieces of asparagus at the bottom, poured a green asparagus broth over it from a ceramic-looking tea pot, and provided a bowl of truffle creme which I could spoon into the broth to make it creamy. Delicious.

Third course: foie gras. I think this was the worst course for having no idea what I was putting into my mouth. Having never personally encountered foie gras before, I didn't know what it would look like. There was a brown cylindrical crispy thing filled with white pastey stuff topped with a gray slimy thing. From the captain the only words I actually caught were "truffle" and "foie gras." I assumed the slimy gray thing was the truffle and the foie gras was the white stuff. I have to say, that was the best damn mushroom I'd ever tasted. Only it turned out to be foie gras. The crispy cylinder turned out to be hazelnut tuiles and the white stuff was truffle coulis (I think--imagine me with a copy of the menu and a dictionary here trying to match up what I ate with what's listed on the menu). Whatever, it all tasted very good!

The next course was the lobster. It was a sizable chunk of poached lobster on a bed of vanilla-flavored parsnip puree. Circled around this were the cutest little vegetables. A tiny little carrot, a tiny little onion, and various others. My favorite part of this was actually the cute veggies, although of course the rest was good too.

Hmmm...let's see, what was next? The cheese course? The cheese course consisted of a wedge of bleu cheese topped with three little cherries and some tiny bit of something crunchy on the side. This was my least favorite course just because I thought the cheese was a bit much. How much bleu cheese can you really eat by itself? Especially when you're already full? The cherries and crunchy bits were good accompaniment for the cheese, but they ran out long before the cheese did. This was the only course I didn't finish completely. I left some of the cheese on my plate.

Next it was time for the intermezzo--to clear our palates before the main course, according to the captain. I was served an empty martini glass upside down on a small dish. On the base of the glass, which was now the top, was a scoop of apple sorbet with a thin slice of apple and a thin slice of candied lemon. On the dish, inside the glass, was a raspberry, a strawberry, two more thin slices of apple, and two small pieces of an orange-colored citrus. The apple sorbet was undoubtedly my favorite part of the night. Yum!

Ah, time for the main course. Too bad I was stuffed two courses ago! Main course: fig glazed duck on a salsify gratin. Basically a short column of scrambled eggs mixed with slices of salsify (a giant dandelion really, but tasted like potato) covered with a short stack of thinly sliced dark meat topped with a fig. My favorite part of this was the salsify gratin and the fig. All very good though.

And finally, after a short pause, dessert. A scoop of dark chocolate sorbet on slices of candied orange plus a scoop of chocolate mousse wrapped in a cylinder of sliced pears.

And all of this with a view of Snoqualmie Falls. Not bad, I'd say. Oh yes, and my brother payed. I definitely owe him something cool.

Today I'm working tele. We have a very low census today (nobody gets sick in July, especially not on the 4th--they've got better things to do!), and I was done with my work essentially before lunch. I'm kind of excited because this is my last decentralized shift for quite some time to come. I have tomorrow off (yay!) and then Wednesday I'm starting training in the OR. The other day Lolo took me to the locker rooms in the OR and showed where to get scrubs. I'm so excited--pretty soon I'll be an OR pharmacist. Isn't that neat? I have three days of training in the OR this week and then I'm on vacation for nearly two weeks (the vacation when I was supposed to go to China but instead I'm going to California). Then one shift of OR and I'm on graveyards for a week. This means, essentially, three weeks without Lolo. Seriously, I'm nearly dreading vacation for that reason. Hopefully I'll get over it. After graveyards I have something like three more OR shifts and then I'm on vacation again. Only this time Lolo is coming with me. We're going backpacking around Mt. Rainier. No, not all the way around, just for three nights. My dad and brother are coming too. It should be a lot of fun. And then two or three more weeks of work (not scheduled yet) and we're off to England. Yes, this should be a nice summer.

Last weekend Lolo and I went on our very first camping trip. We went to Palouse Falls State Park, which is over in Eastern Washington. We only spent one night, but we still had fun. There's not much camping, really, in this park, only one large patch of grass with some trees for shade divided into ten sites, but we were lucky and got the whole thing to ourselves. The place is pretty interesting, geologically speaking. I learned what a coulee is. I always thought the Grand Coulee Dam (which we also visited this trip) was named after Mr. Coulee. Yeah, no. Interested in a geology lesson? So back during the last ice age there was a big lake that covered most of Montana, dammed up by ice. Occasionally the ice would break and the water would rush out all at once across Washington scouring the landscape as it went and creating wide shallow canyons called coulees. Palouse Falls is in one of these coulees, out in the middle of dry Eastern Washington. It's like miles and miles of dry and hot and then suddenly a huge waterfall (picture below taken by Lolo).

Another random but very cool thing: Lolo is coming with me to my parents' house for Christmas this year. I'm so excited. Last night, having dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, Lolo was very quiet. Thinking back I can only think of three times when he really said more than a few words at a time. He's so like me. But when it's just the two of us, that's definitely not a problem. We're quiet together sometimes, but we certainly talk a lot too. Last time my dad came to visit, Lolo spent a day with us and afterwards my dad asked, "Is Lolo always so quiet?" Definitely not. I'm sort of hoping that if he's around them for several days at a time Lolo will loosen up a bit and they'll get to meet the real him. More, though, I'm excited to show him where I grew up. I wish it was going to be longer than for just a few days. I wish he could meet my college friends, but I know there won't be time for that.

Tonight Lolo and I are going to a Mariners game. I think they're playing the Angels. I haven't been to a baseball game since last summer. It was a second (and last) date with some guy, back at that time when I was going out with like four guys at the same time. Remember that? I'm so grateful things worked out like they did. Anyway, then tomorrow nothing major planned for the day followed by a party at Licorice's place in the evening. I went to her party last year too and had fun.

Speaking of those four guys at the same time, I actually ran into one of them the other day while I was with Lolo. We went for a short hike up to Twin Falls one day after work and we ran into him on the trail. He was the one that was obsessed with goldfish and kept me waiting over an hour for our last date without apologizing. I smiled and said hi, but no more than I do to anybody else I pass on the trail. I think he recognized me too, although only by the look on his face--he didn't say anything but hi. It was kind of weird. I didn't tell Lolo that I had dated the guy. At first I didn't want to and then like two minutes later I thought I should only it seemed too late. So I just let it go.