Valentine’s -> President’s day

We didn’t have much planned for Saturday. We ran a couple errands, including picking up a ski bag for our big trip next week. Our destination that night, was as usual, a surprise to Jill. Twice in the last month the Melting Pot has come up in conversation, and I quickly changed the topic, so she wouldn’t think about it. It worked, as she was very surprised when we arrived. It took them a little while to seat us, but the meal was amazing. It was a fixed menu (which figures since it’s their busiest day of the year), although they let us change the dessert course from white to dark chocolate. We started with Swiss cheese (served with bread, apples, carrots, celery and cauliflower), then had a salad. For the main course we used oil instead of broth (I don’t like the broth), and cooked steak, chicken potstickers, shrimp, and lobster. By the time we finished dipping the fudge, strawberries, banana and cheescake in the chocalate, we were ready to burst.

Which was an excellent reason to get up at 5:30 Sunday morning to go skiing at Ski Roundtop. We took a bus with the Ski Club of Washington DC. They hav a standard one day trip, which is a morning lesson, lunch and all day lift ticket for $45, or add the bus trip for $35 more. I like being able to read all the way there and back, because I usually have to drive. The lesson itself wasn’t too challenging – we never made it off the main (blue) slope to the back half with harder slopes. After lunch, I pushed myself hard and did a lot of fast skiing. I was done by the time the bus pulled up. Jill was more tired – she slept all the way back, then went straight to bed. I finished the Post, then read some new comics.

I was off Monday, and there was no snow, unlike last year. In the morning, I visited some former coworkers – their company may have space for me in the future. When I got back, we watched Saturday Night Live and Alias. Quentin Tarantino’s returned to Alias, and he’s having a lot of fun with his role. SNL had some great skits, especially a fictional meeting in 1971 between Bush, Clinton and Kerry. In the afternoon, we went to The Tortilla Factory. We’re trying to decide on a caterer, and it’s come down to a choice between them and The Purple Onion Catering Company, who we did a tasting with last Tuesday. We love the food at Tortilla Factory (we had a dinner of everything we’re considering), but they don’t generally cater weddings. The lady at Purple Onion was great and would really be good to work with, but her food just didn’t grab me. Now we have to look at the estimates and make a decision.