Summer Night in Seattle

Can't get enough of this song - it really captures the emotions that I associate with summer nights in Seattle. It's positive, warm, soothing, but at the same time it's exciting and intense. Like when the weather is amazing and there's nothing else you'd rather be doing, you just take a deep breath and feel overwhelmingly relaxed. And it's so overwhelming that it's almost like anxiety. No? Is that just me?

Summer Hobby - Golf

A few weeks ago, Sunny took a road trip down to San Francisco and was kind enough to pick up my golf clubs! He also promised to teach me how to play golf, since he used to teach professionally and all. How awesome is that!

Today was the first lesson. After work, I headed over to Columbia Super Range and we worked on posture and swing. There are SO MANY things to remember! But I think I'm picking it up pretty quickly. I had an awesome time, but I wish the driving range wasn't so ghetto. Sean actaully told me that the range we were at is one of the nicest ones in the area, and Sunny later agreed. WOW. Seriously? It was only one level, the grass was all dried up, the railings were rusted, and the range smelled like hot frogs. I was not impressed, but I guess I've just been spoiled by the driving ranges in San Francisco.

Anyway, Matt is always telling me that in Seattle you have to have hobbies to enjoy the nice weather. I found mine! I'm hoping that with Sunny's help, this summer I'll be able to hit well enough to actually play a game on a course. If I keep at it, I'm sure I'll be able to do it. And inbetweens I'll start running - I can run around the beach I found last weekend! My new Brooks running shoes are absolutely wonderful, the treadmill is a totally different experience and I think I finally have enough support to start hitting the pavement.

This summer is going to be good times. :)

Memorial Day Weekend - Portlandia & More

While I appreciate that Memorial Day is in honor of the veterans who have served and/or died for our country, the only way I know how to spend it is 1) shopping and 2) taking advantage of having Monday off.
And this year, I did great on both counts!
Friday night was kind of a blur... attempted to go to the Mariner's game but arrived to the stadium so late that we decided to enjoy the game at Sluggers instead.
Saturday I done got my hair did, and then I found myself an adventure! I took the wrong turn after heading home from my hair appointment, and ended up at Juanita Beach Park! I saw the sign and pulled into the parking lot - got a nice serving of Vitamin D while I walked along the dock and stared out at the water. Later at night, Matt and I went to Eric's house where people were watching movies and eating. We chowed down on the leftover bbq and watched The Devil's Double. Some people were very disturbed by the movie, but I was absolutely intrigued. Very, very interesting.
Sunday morning, Matt and I picked up Charles in Long View. The weather was amazing, and the drive down to Portland actually seemed a lot quicker than it usually does. Along the way, Charles informed us that he booked a hotel room and that we were staying night. FANTASTIC! Luckily, Matt and I didn't have work the next day, so we didn't mind too much. Once we checked-in at The Nines, we got some shopping done at Pioneer Square. After a snack at Buffalo Wild Wings, we went to Sinju Sushi and stuffed ourselves with delicious Japanese food! We got a huge boat platter and weren't even able to finish everything - such a shame that we couldn't take leftovers.
After dinner, we cabbed over to the the Aladdin theatre to catch our burlesque show. Now, I've never been to a burlesque show, but I think this was a GREAT one to experience. Dita Von Teese was extraordinary. Her body is a temple and her charisma as a performer is sure to demand a religious following. Although, there was one act in particular that bothered me - there was a midget burlesque act, and even though I fully respect little people I still did not feel comfortable watching her seduce the audience. It was like watching a child take her top off. Anyway, one of my favorite moments of the show was when they picked three members of the audience for a dance-off. Leave it Portland to offer up one gay film student, one aspiring female burlesque dancer, and one butch dike painter. Ironically, the least talented dancer of the three was the aspiring dancer. The gay film student blew our minds, and then the butch dike showed us her cleavage and blew everyone out of the water. The show was fabulous and highly enjoyable, so glad we went!
By the time we got back to the hotel we were beat, and decided to stay in. We watched Safe House, which was a great movie, and Ryan Reynolds was hot as always. The next morning, we were all relieved that we decided against going out because otherwise we would have been miserable.
Monday morning felt like borrowed time. We shopped at Lloyd Center, then had lunch at Mellow Mushroom. Great pizza! On the way back to Long View, we were talking about how relaxing the weekend was. It really was nice to get back from a trip and not feel like I need a vacation to recover. More shopping at the outlets in Washington before heading home!
I'm staring at the friendship bracelet that Matt and Charles gave me this weekend, and am so grateful for my awesome new friends.

Rehab: Week 1

Last Friday I went to get my shoulder checked out - my doctor gave me two sets of rehabilitation excercises because she says I have a torn rotator cuff and minor shoulder separation. Yikes, no more snowboarding for me... until I get health insurance, HAHA.

Anyways, I've been doing the excercises every other day. She told me to do them every day but my shoulder was so sore after the first day that I decided to stagger my rehab days. I'll start doing every day for week 2. But so far so good! My range of motion has increased significantly and my shoulder feels a lot less tense. It would be nice though, if I had health insurance and could just go in for physical therapy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it right?

And then to recap... on my last post - it's not that bad, and I'm over it. I really like my new Seattle friends, and aside from that angry moment I am truly happy with my new Seattle life in its entirety.

I'll close with a picture from Matt's surprise birthday at Volume last weekend.

Personal Space

I've always had this thing about personal space. Whether it stems from a need to be territorial, or from growing up with plenty of it, there is certainly a need.

But then again I also like to share my personal space, so long as people ask for permission. Some people don't even need to ask for permission, it just depends on the closeness of the relationship.

So now that I have a room mate, our friends come over sometimes multiples times per week. And sometimes I know they're coming, and other times I have no idea that they're coming. And even though they're not here to hang out with me sometimes, I used to enjoy their company anyway and be excited to hang out. I used to think it was great, fun, exciting even! I think I was just happy to have friends in Seattle. Now I'm starting to realize that maybe this room mate thing isn't for me.

I'm starting to get irritated that they eat food without asking. Sure, they bring food over sometimes and share it with me. I get that, and appreciate it. And there are definitely times that I don't care at all about what they're eating of mine. But then there are OTHER TIMES when they eat things I'm planning to eat for lunch the next day, or was really excited about eating. Or they eat my favorite foods without even enjoying it, because they're high. And everything gets eaten all the same. I've stopped buying groceries now. IS THAT WHAT IT HAS TO COME TO?

Secondly, I can't stand it when someone asks to use my bathroom, and I say no, and they go ahead and use it anyway. Like seriously, I don't want to be a bitch and flip out, but it really fucking bothers me and it pisses me off when a friend thinks its funny to blatantly disregard my feelings. Why do people get to see my personal effects? When did I stop having a right to privacy in my own home?

Thirdly, I leave a password on my laptop for a reason. And I understand that some people don't, and really don't care if someone else uses their laptop. But I HAPPEN to LIKE privacy with my laptop, and if I didn't give a shit about people using my shit then I wouldn't have a password. RIGHT? Right. So today, I took a nap and left my laptop on in the living room. I didn't know people were coming over.

LO' AND BEHOLD

I COME OUT TO GET MY LAPTOP AND SOMEONE HAS BEEN USING IT.

What the fuck is going on. I guess everything is a learning experience. Having friends who don't give a shit about their personal space, probably won't help in my maintaining my personal space. Sometimes when you work customer service jobs you just want to go home and not talk to anyone. Hell, even if you don't work customer service sometimes you just want to come home and be as alone as possible. I'm at the point where I can't do that anymore here. I'm at the point where sometimes I don't even feel at home.

My gripe here is with my friends, and not my room mate. I don't mind if he eats my food, uses my shit, etc. So I don't know the best way to deal with it without losing the few friends I have in Seattle. And I don't think they'll understand. It fucking sucks. But at least I have a blog to vent about it.

Fremont Mobile Food Rodeo

Today was the food truck rodeo in Fremont! It was really nice weather, thankfully. The best thing I had was the coconut shrimp wood-fired pizza. It was not too coconutty and the sauce was so delicious with the juicy shrimp. LOVED IT.

We also had a few other dishes that were alright. Nothing amazing though unfortunately.

Saw a dog with a mo'!

And a really cool mural I've never even noticed before!

Cinco-de-mayo - New Places, New Faces

Cin-co, cin-co-de-may-yo! That's the really annoying jingle that Matt has been singing for the past few days, and it is actually to the tune of the Flintstones theme song. It's so ridiculous, and I can't get it out of my head. Anyway, in the morning I went to Munich Evolution to check out the awesome stuff that they have. Brad gave me a tour and I got to chat with the owner Matt - really cool guys. The most interesting thing that I saw was probably the Z1 with the roll down doors. Roll down what?? Yeah, ROLL DOWN DOORS!

And then probably the most valuable item I saw in there... the '53 Bentley? Easily.

Finally, the most fun thing there has got to be the racing simulator! I got to drive a GT3 on the track, and practice paddle shifting - it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Even though I've never driven a race car, it felt really realistic and everything was super sensitive. Pretty freakin' cool.

Later in the day, I met up with Theresa and some boys in Woodinville for a distillery tour/tasting at Soft Tail. We tried grappa, which I really liked a lot, and some vodka which I didn't like at all. The distillery was probably five employees and it really felt intimate because it's such a small operation. We wandered over to the Patit tasting room next door and tasted some honey wines. Apparently the two businesses are very familiar with each other, and it's so pleasant to see a tight-knit community! I don't think you'd get that in Napa, anywhere. The last stop of our Woodinville adventures was Red Hook, where we did the tasting/tour. I thought the tour was pretty boring and by about halfway through the session I was done drinking. It was well worth the $1 though, and I had good company. I met new people today! And it was exciting.

Later, the guys came over to hang out as per usual. We had plenty of good laughs and interesting conversation, and I'm so glad I stayed home with them instead of going out and partying too hard. I'm sure I'll thank myself in the morning! I wouldn't have spent my CDM any other way.

First Mariner's Game

After work today, I came straight home to meet up with Matt, JR, and David. We went to the Mariner's game! Now... I'm definitely not a baseball fan. Even putting it that way is an understatement. I don't like baseball at all, but I was SO CURIOUS to see this amazing Safeco Field with the closable roof! And of course Seattle would need a roof like that, since the city is so well known for rain. We got free choo choo trains!! :)

So Safeco Field is totally gorgeous. It seems a bit smaller than AT&T Park where I've seen the Giants play, but it is also less crowded. I guess because the Mariners have no fans, HAHA. It's okay though, I had an excellent time hanging out with the guys - just drinking beers and taking it all in. I learned today that you can ask for extra garlic on your garlic fries. I still have the garlic breath to prove it!

I almost bought a t-shirt, and I even considered buying a jersey - they're so good looking! I just can't justify though, for a sport that I don't really like and a team I don't feel anything for. Instead I bought beads. Beads! Just like the ones I bought at the Seahawks home opener last season! These, of course, are baseballs instead of footballs though. Interestingly enough, all of Seattle's sports teams seem to have the same colors.

I think collecting cool beads is my new souveniery thing. I also kept the sombrero beads from the Yelp event last week. They're so cute! I can't say that I'm becoming a fan of baseball, or that I like the Mariners. I do, however, enjoy great company and will probably attend more games with the guys this season. We actually never even went to our ticket seats, we just hung out in the beer garden! Good times indeed. I'm actually pretty excited for football season to start. I had the time of my life at last year's home opener and I can't wait to see the Seahawks play again - and as you probably guessed, it's not the team but the awesome company!

Yelp Eliting!

On Monday, I went to my first Yelp Elite event! It was called Cinco-de-drinko (how cute is that?) and I'm glad I finally found the time/courage to attend something. I always wondered if people actually went to Yelp events, and what kind of odd personalities they'd have - some people on Yelp are extremely obnoxious with their opinions. But then again... I'm on Yelp too! We sampled Tapena wines, but it wasn't really sampling because it was unlimited! And we got some pretty decent Mexican food from Trago, which has an amazing view of Lake Union. Matt went with me, and we got a bunch of cool freebies like Yelp nail files and lip balm.

Matt and I only really talked to one other person while we were in line for food, and she was really nice. There were definitely people meeting new people there but Matt and I kept to ourselves mostly. I think next time we'll branch out and make new friends! I think I would have, had Matt not shown up. Either way I enjoyed his company. It was a great time, and I think I would be able to attend an event on my own in the future. People seem to be friendly enough and not too cliquey. I think this is a milestone in my life. I've been Elite for 3 years but I never had the motivation or courage to go to one of these Elite events because it really is kind of scary to enter an entirely foreign environment. Since I've moved, I've learned to open up and try new things! And I'm so glad for it.