ironymaiden | replete

this has been a weekend of fine meals and good fellowship. (i associate the word fellowship with a long childhood of Lutheran church services, but it's the right word and i can't pass it up.)
C asked to go to Marrakesh for his birthday dinner, which was delayed until Friday due to schedule craziness. it's a favorite place to eat, with the theatre of the silly uniforms and the bellydancing and the hand washing and the tea poured from on high and the delicious sensuality of sitting on the floor and eating with your fingers. still, the last two meals i'd had there were delicious but socially awkward, and i was starting to feel like the place had become tainted. if it was, that time has passed. my lamb m'rouzia was tender and complex, and the room featured the Seattle delights of, on one side, two guys conversing softly in German, and on the other, a couple and a family with a fat happy baby whose father's male pattern baldness was glorified with a beautiful and elaborate band of abstract tattooing across his forehead that was a good three inches wide. i was dying to compliment this guy on his ink, but he was in the back corner instead of near us, impolite to stare and all that. but damn, talk about embracing and loving your body...who needs Rogaine? it was just a fine quiet dinner across our tiny table, followed by a leisurely walk home, and then brilliant slow TMI.
Saturday day was puttering online, and then a trip to the Market for veggies to contribute to dinner with

hgross and

evego. i'm pleased by silly things, and one of them is monorail rides. i'll take just about any excuse to ride the Seattle Center monorail, especially if i can sit up front right beside the driver. whee! i had a fresh hombow. i bought just one satsuma to peel and eat as i browsed. i found these nifty tiny red-purple carrots for dinner. i had a little conversation with the produce vendor about pens and calligraphy. there was an almond cake. as i ambled back by Westlake, i listened to a saxophonist performing on the street, and watched a gaggle of deaf HS girls chatter right next to him. i stopped at the mall and finally bought my own copy of Firefly. bwa ha ha! Captain Tighty-pants is mine! (well, Wash is mine, but i'll take good care of the ear.) C and i had an easy trip out to Issaquah, and were rewarded with a fabulous dinner, an astonishingly decadent cake (for our recent birthdays) and South Park (hail Satan!). i <3 them and all their kitties and more books than god. they also gave us just a teaser of Scotland, Pa; onto the Netflix queue it goes.
this morning i woke up and watched War Stories with C over coffee and scones, wondering if the snow (a whole half inch) would scuttle my sectional this afternoon. fortunately the normal rapid melt meant that almost all of us arrived safely in Leschi, and ended up working and talking for a good three hours. there was a lot of the talking, but since there hasn't been an opportunity to socialize as a section, it was lovely to be able to look at each other and hear each other and repeat musical phrases to our hearts' content and talk about things like travel and jury duty. i took the #3 bus home, except that it secretly turns into the #13 somewhere along the way and dumped me on the wrong side of Seattle Center. the wait for the bus gave me time to pull out the cel phone and make plans to have dinner with

scarlettina at Crow. new entrees are the only excuse i need to go. i had crispy duck with lentils and sausage, while the other two went for the lamb shank and polenta. Meyer lemon cheesecake with sage blueberry sauce for dessert wasn't quite enough for me - i finished off the last few bites of my stuffed seatmate's chocolate roulade. oof. i am so full, and so happy with all the visiting i got to do. i love my friends, and i wish i could have pulled out the time-turner to get to more of them this weekend.

one sad thing: i have a fondness for the defunct SciFi series The Invisible Man. Vincent Ventresca will be appearing next in a SciFi original movie called Larva. ick.