Late because… ah, you’ll figure it out, faithful reader. Friday we had a quick dinner of frozen shrimp scampi with added broccoli, then Jill went to bed and I stayed up finishing getting the CDs ready and starting the cleaning. Saturday we were up somewhat early to take Illa to the vet and give him the second dose of the lyme vaccine, then I made breakfast before going outside and raking leaves. When I was done outside, I started on the interior, Jill did bathrooms while I did floors. I was determined to get the shower floor clean, and had to use both mildew and soap scum cleaners on it. Unfortunately I breathed a little much of the vapors while doing that and taking a shower – my ears were bright red and I didn’t feel that great as the party started, but that faded as the night went on (although the bathroom still has some chemical leftovers).
The party itself went well. Not as many people showed up as had indicated they would, but the continuous rain we got during the night wasn’t all rain to our west. We had lots of food and lots of beer, and went through a good portion of it. The food we had was mostly store bought, although I did make prohibition peanuts and a jello cheesecake that vanished quickly. Illa was the star of the night, getting attention from everyone (and some food, though he knows better).
I don’t know if it was the aftereffects of the cleaning products or just being tired, but I slept in past 1 on Sunday. I didn’t get much time to do much beside walk Illa, as we headed out to DC around 3:30. We had reservations at Zola, the restaurant above the Spy Museum. I was hungry, and it was good as we had a lot of food. We both started with soup, Jill had chickpea and I had a corn and mussel chowder that were both creamy and flavorful. We both had cocktails, I had The Jade (Grappa with Grand Marnier and juice) while she had The Cardinal (brandy, Cointreau and lime juice). We both chose seared seafood entrees, a Bronzino (a Mediterranean white fish with a similar taste to the overfished Chilean sea bass) with spaetzle for her and a skate wing with crab and Virginia ham for me. For dessert Jill had the banana mousse cake which I tried a little of (not a huge fan of much besides banana bread).
After dinner we wandered through the outside downtown market on F Street, and I bought Jill a pair of gloves because she didn’t have any, then headed over to the Verizon Center to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. We’d skipped their show last year after seeing them the previous four years running because we were just getting back from Ireland and didn’t want a commitment, which was good as I was under the weather. They were their usual spectacle, playing the first album through before choosing different Christmas songs in the second half (and it was an odd week to hear the Ike and Tina version of “Proud Mary”). We left early as Jill had a long day ahead of her today as she had an early rise for a 12 hour shift.
I started watching the Redskins game around 11:30, and managed to finish by 1, skipping commercials and commentary. I hit the bed, but was rudely awakened around 4:30 by the power going out and Illa trying to get in the bedroom – he’s got a noise phobia about beeping, and the UPSes weren’t helping matters. I turned them off, called Dominion Power (who’ve switched to an incredibly annoying voice command system for reporting outages that takes three times as long), and tried to get back to sleep, but wasn’t successful until Jill left for work. Got in late for work, got home late, what a fun way to start the week – now I’m really looking forward to my four day weekend next week.