Friday we met my family at McCormick & Schmick’s (incidentally the first Valentine’s Day Jill and I had together was at the Reston location). My sister doesn’t like to celebrate her birthday, so my mom has an “unbirthday” dinner about the same time each year. I wasn’t too hungry, had the chowder and a shrimp Caesar salad (the exact thing by dad got too) while Jill got the Mahi-mahi. A nice dinner, then we headed home. Jill was tuckered out and went to bed, I stayed up a bit reading newspapers.
Saturday was cool but I took Illa out for a good long run/walk. He had his nails trimmed by our dog walkers and cried a river, but he was worn out by the time we left for DC. We had to stop at my favorite store, and since that’s not Jill’s idea of a good time, I told her she could go to another favorite, but she decided she’d just get coffee and read while I shopped. It took us a little while to get downtown as there was big repair work going on at Metro Center, but we did have time to complete a very important task: make it to the restroom at the National Portrait Gallery to see the portrait of Stephen Colbert. We also had time to see the RECOGNIZE! exhibit and America’s Presidents (appropriate given the weekend).
We were right on time to our reservation at Poste. I had read about the bass and the rabbit, and decided to get the bass while Jill got the Beef Bourguignon, and we both started with the celeriac soup, hearty and smoky. We shared an order of the truffle oil drizzled fries before the entrees arrived – I’d read they were pretty good and they were (though Dr. Granville Moore’s Brickyard still has the best fries in DC) For dessert Jill has scoops of the housemade pistachio and hazelnut ice creams and the citrus sorbet, while I had the gingerbread cake with poached pears and hazelnut ice cream. The “Pear Of Queens” cocktail made with rosemary roasted pear puree was a great accompaniment to end the evening.
Sunday I finished my epic eBay auction – took about 7 hours to get everything done. I read the newspaper and finished my monthly comics, grilled steaks and sauteed asparagus with butter, garlic and feta for dinner. I read my weekly book after Jill went to sleep, going to sleep the first time all weekend after midnight. Today I got up and it was gorgeous out. I took Illa on a romp through the woods, then we hung out on the deck for a while. I had a massage scheduled and enjoyed that, then returned home to start another auction (small one this time). Now I’m going to unfreeze some leftovers for dinner as Jill’s home early, then head off to Iota to catch Howie Day.