YEAH.

So I had a ticket to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah tonight. (ONE ticket--no one wanted to go with me.) I almost didn't go, because I called the Crocodile and I heard they'd be going on at 11, and I am an old lady, but I went, and I am SO GLAD. They were awesome. (Although the set was way too short.) They closed with "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood," and it was fantastic.

The only downside was while I was waiting for the bus home, 2 people were talking about how the New Pornographers show was better. Mostly because Neko is hot. Well, duh. Of course she is! But they're totally different bands, people.

The winner of the first Trivial Kate Trivia Contest (Kontest?).

Rotorglow! He was the ONLY one who played, people. Chickens, all of you.

But seriously, for being the only one playing, he kicked everyone's ass nonetheless. SIX CORRECT. He knew that one about the intercontinental flight!

"Prize" to be determined. I would LOVE to send him this, but really, $16.95 plus shipping is a bit much. Not that his mental feats aren't worth $17+!

Trivia Night report, 9/28.

Third place. Oh well. At least I knew the one about Ashley Smith and the crystal meth.

The so-bad-but-you-can't-look-away karaoke moment came when this REALLY drunk guy sang "Rosanna." Except he subbed "Ross Harrison" for all of the "Rosanna"s. Of course, we were wondering who Ross Harrison was. Turns out, it was the guy singing. Oh boy.

Extra trivia night at the George & Dragon.

Dude, this shit was HARD. We think that we got 18/40 right. The winner had 24/40. I'm going to ask you some questions and I'll put the answers in the comments. If you're HONEST about it (and it doesn't count if you were at the trivia night with me, you know who you are), and don't look at the answers before you look at the comments, we can have a little contest: in the comments, tell me how many of these you get right, and maybe you'll win a prize. I don't know what the prize will be, but at least you'll be given credit on this here blog and all of the Internet will know that you're the smartest of the half dozen people who actually read this blog.

Sweet.

Here are the questions.

1. Which country has the most universities?
2. What are the 2 professions of leprechauns?
3. How many noble gases are there?
4. Between which 2 cities is the shortest intercontinental flight?
5. How many rounds are in an official Olympic boxing match?
6. What does "UNESCO" stand for?
7. What does the "MP" in "MP3" stand for?
8. In Italy, what character is known as "Topolino?"
9. In which US city were traffic lights first used?
10. How many hurdles are in an official 400 m race?
11. What number does the Roman numeral M with a bar over it represent?
12. What was Halie Sellassie's real name?

So, don't look at the comments if you're going to play.

Where everybody knows my name.

Today, at my normal coffeeshop where I go to work from "home" (when actual home gets too quiet), the barista called me by name. Of course, it was in the context of, "Kate, I forgot all about you!" because I went up to the counter to check on the status of my drink about 20 minutes after I ordered it. But still, he knows me! I think this means I need to start tipping more. (Here's a question--my normal Americano is exactly $2. What should I do? I feel like a whole dollar tip is too much. But I am REALLY loath to tip with change, because I need quarters for laundry and other change for the bus. Help me out, frequent coffee drinkers.)

For some reason, I love to be associated with things (uh, like drinks). At the bar at my school, there was a drink called the "Winne." (You might still be able to get this! I think it was written on an index card in the drink rolodex behind the bar. To be fair, I was kind of dating a bartender who worked there, so I don't think most patrons got their own drinks.) I probably wouldn't like the Winne much now--it was pretty "girly," involving fruit juices and coconut rum (I was a Malibu fiend in college--another bartender there would make me a Malibu and Diet Coke as soon as he saw me walk in), but still, it was mine.

This whole thing is making me realize that perhaps I should focus more on recognition for coffee drinks and less on alcoholic drinks in the future. You know, in the interest of my liver and all.

I believe when I fall in love with you it will be forever.

Yesterday's wedding was beautiful. It was outside, right by Lake Washington, and you could see Mt. Rainier off in the distance. But of course I am not going to go on and on about the ceremony. I will go on and on about the food!

The reception was at Carmelita, and I knew the food was going to be great, because Anny is a cook at Lark (this supposedly fantastic small plates/tapas restaurant). My favorites (there was a printed menu--after 3 glasses of rose there was no way I could have remembered all of this): Camembert, tomato-lavender chutney, microgreens, fennel crostini (passed appetizer). Black mission fig pizette with Sammish Bay Gouda and truffle honey (passed appetizer). Hearts of romaine with caramelized garlic-lemon vinaigrette and reggiano (salad). Chanterelle mushroom ravioli with truffle butter and parmesan (entree). Caramelized onion and teleggio tart with heirloom tomatoes (entree).

SO GOOD.

In Seattle foodie celebrity news, I think I met Johnathan Sundstrom last night!

Also, if anyone needs a dj in the Seattle area, the Groundswell DJ Collective did the music yesterday, and they were awesome. I guess it helps that Dave, Anny, and I have very similar musical tastes. No chicken dance at this wedding.

From bike to beer.

I started yesterday incredibly healthily (25-mile bike ride around Lake Sammamish) and finished it in pretty much the exact way possible (pitchers of beer and pizza at Bill's Off Broadway [BTW, that pizza at Bill's has got to be the best drunk food ever, with the possible exception of poutine]).

Somewhere in the middle of that we went to the Fremont Oktoberfest, where I attempted the time-honored beer festival tradition of trying to get as many beers as possible without having to give the beer servers tokens. You'd think the only girl in our group (ie, me) would have a better chance at tokenless beers (since most of the beer servers were male and probably a good percentage of them were straight), but Colin was far and away the free beer winner of the group. What that says about me, or Colin, or the beer servers, I'm not sure.

More CYHSY adoration: this article only makes them cooler to me. The lead singer's from a Philly suburb! And they're compared to the cast of "Freaks and Geeks," the best television series of all time. (Tickets are still available!)

On tap for today: a wedding and possibly karaoke at Vito's.

Trivia Night report, 9/21.

We should have won outright with 36 points, but I was an idiot and wrote down "Making OF the Band" instead of "Making the Band". (And I actually watched that show, too!!!) This meant that we tied with another team for first place with 35 points. Thankfully, for the tiebreaker, both Doug and I knew that neurons were the nervous system transmitters of the brain, and we also knew that the Cincinnati airport is actually in Kentucky, not Ohio. So we won anyway.

Next week: best team name ever. Girls Gone Feral.

Rory, get a calculator.

Tonight's "I hate Rory" moment of the Gilmore Girls came from Rory's inability to perform basic math. See, she has to do 300 hours of community service over 6 months because she stole a yacht. So according to Rory, "That's a full-time job." Um, Rory, actually, it's 12.5 hours a week. Most of us (even including those of us who work from home in our pajamas!) work more than that.

The episode was nearly redeemed by DAR members talking about which founding father they "fancy." One woman picked Alexander Hamilton over George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. There was also 1 vote for James Madison. Judging from those pictures, I'm with the woman who picked Hamilton. What a hottie!

Who wants to visit me?

Cheap flights to Seattle!

Seattle-Boston for $99 (each way) on United. Travel Monday-Thursday and Saturday from September 27 through December 14. Book by September 22.

That's only 3 days to get tickets, people!

Come! I've got a futon!

The reason I didn't go to karaoke last night.

I had a job interview today. I didn't tell many people because I 100% totally, absolutely didn't want the job. I guess the company found my resume on Monster, but I have no clue what their search terms were. The other people called in for the interviews seemed very different than me. One woman kept checking her cellphone during the presentation. One guy was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And 2 people could barely speak English. Man, that made me feel great, like, these are my peers? Bring back the ennui.

So I think my suited appearance and semi-articulate use of workplace cliches ("teamwork," "flexibility under pressure," etc) in the screening interview must have made some kind of impression, because during the presentation (in which they explained what the job would actually be like) the recruiter kept using me as the "good" example ("Katherine, let's say you're the CEO of this union...") and she'd use other people as "bad" examples ("Kirk, let's say you died. How would your wife handle your funeral costs?").

Anyway, I knew the job wasn't for me when I took the "candidate assessment test" (basically, the "are you a psycho?" personality test) and there was a question, "My number one goal is to be rich." So, I circled "disagree," and then the first thing the recruiter said in the presentation was, "This is a job for people who want to earn a LOT of money!"

And finally, here's another ego-boosting fact from the company website: "[The company] holds the philosophy that we don't need to start with the best people to end up with the best."

Gee, thanks.

"I didn't have the guts to tell my partially sighted boyfriend I was tired of always being the one who had to drive."

Do you guys know about PostSecret? Every week, this site posts postcards from all over the world--people write in with a secret that they've never told anyone. Some are sad, some are funny, and some are just plain...weird.

For a while I wondered if these were actually real--some are so artistically done--but this seems to indicate that they are.

(Hmm. They used to have all of the secrets archived but now it looks like you can only see 2 weeks' worth on the site.)

I feel VERY strongly about this.

Tonight, part of a friend's post evoked pent-up rage that I thought I had sublimated. For those of you who aren't from Boston, here's an explanation. Where I lived in Somerville, there was street parking with permits--normally not too bad, except when there was a snow emergency. This meant that you had to park on the odd side of the street. Because both sides of the streets were normally filled with cars, there was obviously a crunch for parking when a snow emergency was declared. So, it'd snow, you'd rush to find a spot, but then you'd have to shovel out your car when you had to leave.

So far, okay. Except when some people would leave their spots on the street, they'd place a marker--a lawn chair, a recycling bucket, and once I even saw a kiddie pool--in their spot to say, "hey, I shoveled out this spot, and I want it when I get back." The issue is that there was no law to say this was legal--so some people did this, and some people (ie, me) didn't do it. So my spots were always taken when I got back from work. Why didn't I put something in my spot? It was street parking, not my driveway. It didn't belong to me. It should be first-come, first-serve. I hear you that you did all that work--but I did, too. Street parking = public parking = no reserving. That's my opinion.

Anyway, I've had arguments with people about this. Arguments! This from a person who never ever fights with friends.

So, while I might never again get to sing "Sweet Caroline" with other Sox fans after a once-in-a-lifetime World Series win, in Seattle I will never have to deal with the do-I-put-my-lawn chair-in-my-spot dilemma. I am mostly cool with that trade-off.

Chimichurri.

What a good word! Vegetarians, beware: I had bacon for breakfast and steak for dinner. Both were from happy pigs/cows though, so I feel slightly better about it.

Anyway, I'll give you the dinner recipe--grilled skirt steak with Vietnamese chimichurri. It's from Mark Bittman's "Minimalist" column in the NY Times. Put the following in a food processor: 1 T. Thai fish sauce, 1 t. black pepper, 1 t. sugar, 1 t. crushed red chili flakes, 2 T. fresh lime juice, 2 t. chopped garlic, and 2 medium-to-large chopped shallots. Puree! (Mine didn't exactly puree--I added a bit of olive oil to make it smoother.) Then add 1/2 c. chopped mint and 1/2 c. chopped cilantro and chop finely. Take 1.5 lb skirt steak (I just realized I used flank steak, oops), salt/pepper it, and grill for about 4 minutes on each side (I used a grill griddle thingy on the stove). Then let the meat sit for about about 5 minutes and slice it against the grain. Serve with leaves of lettuce--wrap the steak in the lettuce with a spoonful of the sauce. (Kate's recommendation: to make it more Vietnamese-style, wrap with rice noodles, sprouts, and mint leaves. I will try that next time!)

I heart Threadless.

I got my Threadless shirt on Thursday, and it's even better than I expected--it's green, not natural colored. Soooo nice.

Anyway, all of the shirts are sold out, as expected, but all of you should add your email address to the reprint list. They've already donated a HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars and they're going to reprint the shirts in small batches. For a company with 15 employees, this is incredibly impressive and generous.

"My ego-boosting little bowl of potpourri."

This is hilarious, really sweet, and slightly sad. I hope she finds her bus boyfriend again!

Plus I think it's awesome that she listens to Mr. Mister. My beloved a cappella group did that song.

I know you all come here for the food.

It's been like TWO DAYS since I've written about food! How could that be? Anyway, yesterday my parents and I went to Salumi for lunch and Tamarind Tree for dinner. Now that's a good food day.

Salumi, for those of you who don't know, has almost mythical status here in Seattle. It's owned by Armandino Batali (Mario's dad!), and it's only open for lunch 4 days a week. They serve all kinds of salami sandwiches, other meat items (the first time I was there I had a roast baby pig sandwich!), a soup, and a pasta dish. That's it. I had the salumi salami sandwich with fresh mozzarella yesterday. It was sooooooo good. Next time I want to try another kind of salami--maybe the finocchiona (fennel) or the mole (with chocolate, cinnamon, and ancho chilis).

And Tamarind Tree...well, I have mixed reviews. The food is awesome. We had fresh spring rolls, coconut rice cakes with turmeric shrimp, and I had green beans with tofu and some kind of combination dish with grilled pork, rice crepes filled with ground pork, and pork sausage/bologna. The green beans were delicious, but the combination dish was a little too complicated/busy for me. But anyway, the food gets a thumbs up. The SERVICE, however... I've read about how bad it is, but I didn't expect this. My parents got their dinners, and about 10 minutes later I got my green beans. So I asked, "my other food is coming, right?" (I was intentionally bringing home leftovers, I'm not THAT much of a pig), and all I got was a blank look. The waitress was really nice, but she totally forgot about the other thing I ordered. She apparently "rushed" it, but we didn't get anything free or even a real apology. Oh well. The food was good enough to go back. Next time I'm getting a bun platter (you get lettuce and rice paper to wrap your own food--I am such a sucker for food I construct myself).

And now you are updated on the interesting meals I've consumed recently. You can all breathe a big sigh of relief.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

Anyone interested in seeing CYHSY at the Crocodile on Thursday 9/29 with me? Only $10! Sold out shows in NYC, Philly, and Boston! I doubt Nate wants to go--I was playing their cd in the kitchen, and he walked in and said, "Come on, this guy is intentionally singing badly," but I don't see it that way. It's more of a David Byrne-esque thing.

Plus, Pitchfork loves them!

Trivia Night report, 9/14.

Second place! This time, we were tied for second with 30 points. (Thanks, Fred, an entire category on the NFL. Goody.) But we won the runoff round, with a correct answer to the question, what does 6.45 sq cm equal? (Answer: 1 sq in.)

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you ask, karaoke was cancelled in favor of some kind of Jimi Hendrix multimedia presentation. Oh well.

Take back the penguins.

Last night at trivia, we discussed this article--basically, the conservative Christian right is co-opting March of the Penguins as a pro-life message of family values, monogamy, and intelligent design.

I have huge problems with this. First, as the movie pointed out, these penguins are monogamous, yes, but only for one season (ie, serial monogamy). When the next mating season comes around, it's a free-for-all, and the males and females don't look around for last season's mate.

Also, haven't these conservatives heard about the gay penguins? There are several homosexual penguin couples in the Central Park Zoo. One set, Silo and Roy, repeatedly tried to incubate a rock, so a zookeeper gave them an egg. And now they have a baby girl, Tango. (I need a kid so I can buy this book.)

Anyway, I loved the movie, and this quote from Michael Medved just frightens me: "This is the first movie they've enjoyed since 'The Passion of the Christ.' This is 'The 'Passion of the Penguins.' "

Let's take back the penguins! Who's with me?

Karaoke-related article in the NY Times.

This is an awesome article about 2 brothers who built a karaoke stage in their Manhattan apartment. (But man, $4995/month for a 2-bedroom...I'd expect that to come with a full-time karaoke host and live back-up band!)

Extra trivia night at the Hopvine.

The Hopvine (one of my absolute favorite places near my house) has a trivia night on the second Tuesday of every month, but I've never been because who remembers the second Tuesday of every month? (My friend now has a solution for this: Outlook reminders!) It was quite good--great beer, delicious food (heirloom tomato salad with fresh mozzarella, basil, roasted garlic, balsamic vinaigrette, and crostini), and mostly reasonable questions (but really, who knew that pistachios were dyed red in the 1930s to distinguish them from other vending machine items?).

Anyway, we tied for fourth place with some other teams. Next month we need to go back with a full group of 6 (we were only 3 last night), because first place wins ALL the money in the pot. (Every person pays $3 to participate--last night's first place team won around $100!)

So then I got home from the bar and just HAD to watch the season premiere of Gilmore Girls that I taped earlier. What does it mean that I now find both Rory and Lorelai completely annoying? And that I'm liking Emily (the grandma) more and more? Perhaps that I am no longer in the WB's key demographic.

Urgent puppy bulletin.

Quick live update from the Capitol Hill Internet Cafe. There is an 11-week old longhaired chihuahua puppy here that is the tiniest, most adorable thing ever (and I don't normally like little dogs). Get on down here and check her out!

You seemed interested.

Judging from the whopping 5 comments to my post about the annoying reader/commenter in my Jacques Pepin book, I thought I'd conclude the story. I've finished the book--it was good, read it if you're interested in Monsieur Pepin or cooking, but don't rush out and spend $15 on it or anything. Plus, there really weren't any recipes I was dying to try.

Anyway, our reader took a break from commenting after the "chopsticks!" outburst, and I was starting to forgive him/her, until we got to Jacques's wife's recipe for pork ribs and red beans. This warranted a "ho hum" comment. Just when I was starting to get annoyed again, I turned the page to begin a new chapter. There are little line drawings over the chapter titles, and this chapter showed pictures of different kinds of mushrooms. The reader actually IDENTIFIED the different mushrooms in the illustration: "hygrophorus camarophyllus," cantharellus cibarius," "clavulina cristata," etc. And finally, one of the last recipes in the book, Semi-Dry Tomatoes and Mozzarella Salad (which actually sounds really good, sort of a caprese with roasted tomatoes), is deemed "too campy" by the reader. Campy??? It's not like it's a Jello mold or sandwich loaf, for goodness sake.

I hate this reader.

And in more food-related news, I'll tell you about my dinner with my parents and Nate at Eva in Greenlake on Saturday night. This place is fantastic--REALLY reasonably priced, fantastic food, good wine. Most of the food is local/organic, too. Nate ordered the golden tomato and basil pesto soup, which was great, but of course not hot enough for me. (I am such a nutcase when it comes to hot soup.) Then we shared a big bowl of mussels (only $14!)--they were in a parsley/garlic/almond sauce that was fantastic with bread after we ate all of the mussels (fantastic eaten just with a spoon too). For my entree, I had the pork loin (SO GOOD!) with corn maque choux, aioli, and frisee. This was only $16 for a huge amount of food--I could definitely see a more expensive restaurant charging over $20 for this. And then for dessert, we shared the brown sugar spice cake with stewed peaches and buttermilk ice cream. This was so delicious. (I sometimes read the blog of Eva's pastry chef--check out this dessert. I was going to order it, because I loooove Ding Dongs, but the spice cake/peaches/buttermilk combination was too good to pass up.)

Enough with the editorializing.

In keeping with my recent consumption of culinary-related media from the Seattle library, I borrowed Jacques Pepin's The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. It's a memoir about his career as a chef, and it includes some of his favorite recipes. So I was looking at the first recipe of the book, Eggs Jeannette, which has the instruction "Put the eggs in a small saucepan, and cover with boiling water. Bring to a very gentle boil...." Okay. Even I can see something is wrong there--if the water is already boiling, how can you bring it to a boil? But another reader actually crossed out "boiling" and wrote in "cold" above it. Now, I can almost see that. The reader is concerned that a less culinary-minded person would desperately want to make Eggs Jeannette and would be confused with the wording. All right. But when I got to the next recipe, Maman's Cheese Souffle, I started getting a little upset. Next to "1/2 teaspoon salt" in the ingredient list, this reader has drawn a little question mark. What does that mean? Does the reader think it's too much salt? Not enough salt? Again, okay, this person feels that it's necessary to correct the recipes (albeit cryptically) for other readers.

But THEN I get to a little passage where Pepin is describing how his fingertips were completely blistered with burns from turning meat on a grill, because his head chef forbade them from sticking forks into the cooking meat (the juices would run out). So our favorite reader has written in the margin, "chopsticks!" Now you're just showing off. Jacques Pepin could have learned a lesson from you! All subsequent borrowers of this library book will know how smart you are! I say, enough with the editorializing. (Hey...maybe I should write that in the book! Of course, that would render this whole rant completely hypocritical.)

Besides getting angry about library books, I bought an awesome shirt yesterday. I love Threadless so much, but I only buy shirts from them when they're on sale, which means I miss out on a lot of great designs. But this--buy a shirt for $10 and they'll donate $20 to the hurricane relief effort--man, that's just awesome. Good job, guys.

Trivia Night report, 9/7.

We won! 32 points--the second place team only had 27. And even if we hadn't won, I think I'd still be ecstatic because [insert deity here] spoke to me and told me an answer. See, the question was something about the name of the river where 1/3 of Kurt Cobain's ashes are scattered, and I knew I knew the answer, but it was locked somewhere in my head, behind Laguna Beach factoids. And then the answer came to me! Thank you, deity!

Things rapidly went south after that, and highlights included a friend handing me his (partially-finished) gin and tonic, saying he didn't want it anymore, and me actually drinking it. Then me spilling said gin and tonic all over my lap right before going up to sing (yes, I sang! the old standard again). I actually asked the karaoke guy to put someone else before me to give my pants a chance to dry. I am somewhat classy, after all!

And then I bought pizza on the way home.

Sunshine and corn salad.

When I walked outside to go to the gym today, I realized that it was the first time I'd been outside since Saturday night. That's really sad, but I'm blaming it on the sickness. Anyway, the blue skies and sunniness made me feel better. (The sad thing is that by the time my class was over, it was dark. At 7:45 pm! Summer is over.)

And then... I ate some corn salad! (Wow, what an incredible transition.) Boil 4 ears of (husked) corn for 3 minutes. Cool, then cut off kernels. Put in a bowl with 2 c. of halved cherry tomatoes, 1/4 chopped sweet onion, chopped chives, 1 chopped jalapeno, 1 T. red wine vinegar, and 2 or 3 T. olive oil. Mix, and salt and pepper to taste (let sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or so for maximum tastiness). Delicious and summery, to remind you of what you won't have in a month or two.

So, there's this Gilmore Girls episode on right now, and a bike race is coming through Stars Hollow. All of the bikers are yelling "big hole!" as they ride past Luke's diner. Before my long-distance biking experience, I thought this was really stupid. But now I know that's totally necessary! If you don't yell "hole" or at least point at the ground, someone's going to fall. So there, Luke! Don't be hating on the bikers.

I've managed to keep relatively calm (besides becoming irate at the government) while watching hurricane footage on the news. But this afternoon, watching Oprah (OPRAH!), I started crying and couldn't stop. Nate Berkus (her decorator guy who survived the tsunami--his boyfriend died in the tsunami) was interviewing people at a temporary shelter. A bus had come to take people to a more permanent place in Baton Rouge. But animals couldn't come on the bus. The camera showed all of these shots of these dogs just waiting by the side of the road. (Started crying here.) And then there was this guy who refused to leave his dog. He was just hugging the dog and wouldn't look at the camera. So then Nate said something about "I don't give a crap about the cameras here, I promise you that I'm going to save your dog." He told the guy to get on the bus and that the show would take the dog to Baton Rouge. Then there was a shot of the guy and the dog reuniting the next day. Oh man. Leave it to a story of a man and his dog to really hit me.

Eggplanty.

I forgot to write about a delicious eggplant dish Nate made last night. (So I guess I did eat something other than soup/saltines!) I am taking partial credit for the dish because I gave him the recipe. Both the eggplant and the recipe came with our last CSA vegetable delivery.

Basically, preheat your oven to 375 F and oil a heavy metal (rockin'!) baking sheet with olive oil. Then you take an eggplant and cut it into rounds about 1/4-in. thick. Spread both sides of the eggplant thinly with mayonnaise. Grate about 1/2 c. Parmesan cheese, and put it in a bowl with some garlic powder and sea salt. Then dredge the eggplant slices in the cheese mixture and put on the baking sheet. Bake for about 20-30 min. until tender and very brown.

These are delicious! As Nate said, the eggplant is just a vehicle for cheese and oil. But oh, what a tasty vehicle it is!

Dun - DUN.

The hangover went away on Saturday night and left in its place extreme congestion. I finally got that cold that's been circling around, I guess. So, as a recap, here's what I missed this weekend: biking to the Red Hook brewery on Saturday, Bumbershoot on Sunday (and karaoke at Vito's!), and Dave and Anny's engagement party today. But, oh, what I did instead: Meg Ryan movies, reading, napping, eating soup and saltines. How thrilling!

Right now there's a Law and Order marathon on TNT. I've already watched 3 episodes. Lennie Briscoe, how we miss you! (Look--L&O HAIKU!) Watching this show reminds me of living with Jess. We'd get sucked into episodes all of the time. Nate's not as susceptible as she was.

Before I started feeling really sick on Sunday, I made more soup. I think now it's safe to say it's more my recipe than Orangette's. My substitutions included 1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, veggie broth, no leeks, dried thyme, a 28-oz can of whole tomatoes and juices, and about 6 c. baby spinach. It's good, but after 5 consecutive meals of soup and/or saltines, I'm ready for a change. (Maybe this means I'm getting better?)

The party boys call the Kremlin.

Too much fun last night at karaoke. I did "Walk Like an Egyptian" and it seemed to go over well. I say "seemed" because somewhere along there things started getting a little hazy (okay, very hazy). Nate and I had big plans today to bike out to the Red Hook brewery (about 20 miles each way) and go on a tour, but my extreme hangover is preventing that. (I may have to rethink performing karaoke. Participation in an activity that requires me to be drunk enough to breach my normal, sober inhibitions might not be the smartest thing. But it's just so much fun!)

Anyway, already today I've read a book, watched most of 2 movies, and watched all of another movie.

And finally, a complete change of topic (from entirely frivolous and selfish to completely urgent and terrible), but this is just one of the many amazing and terrifying accounts I've read about the hurricane. And this guy and his family are still incredibly lucky--they just lost their stuff. I can't imagine what it is like for all of the people who didn't have the transportation or money or time to evacuate.

Trivia Night report, 8/31.

Due to some confusion and cancellations, we ended up being only one team last night. Third place, not bad. Our team name was "Freshman Co-eds," in honor of the anniversary of Princess Diana's death and the fact that both Binah and I were just entering our first year of college when that happened.

The best part of last night was the vocabulary category. I was embarassingly excited. ("What is the term for the top half of the fraction?" Kate: "Eeeeeeeeeeee!" [Throws hands in air in victory, starts writing furiously.]) Sorry, teammates. I can get obnoxious that way. Worst part of last night: Old School Hip-Hop. We got Young MC and that's it.

Someone sang "Hey Ya!" during karaoke last night! (An explanation to Boston people: in Seattle, inexplicably, trivia nights are almost always followed by karaoke.) You know what to doooooooooo...