6 more days, maybe 5

[susandennis]

Again I cut my swim short and left the gym at 6:02 and, according to twitter, just missed the major backup which, at least this week, has lasted until 10:30. But, in order to leave by 6:02, I have to rush, rush, rush and it's really not that much fun. Plus, I'm used to swimming a little over an hour. 45 minutes feels like I got cheated.

They are still saying that they are shooting for having the tunnel and the roads surrounding it open on Monday, Feb. 4. No guarantee but that's what they are hoping for. It can't come soon enough for me.

One of the people I follow on Instagram has a little 4 year old girl who had a nasty bout of the flu recently and she said "The flut [sic] is bad for my happy." These road closures are bad for my happy.

I may take tomorrow off. Depending how I feel after my hot date tonight.

The Mariners are having their 'premier' ticket holders in for a bit of a January 'due'. And I get to bring a plus one. So ljtourist and I are going to hang with the baseballs tonight. They set out really nice 'heavy' hors d'oeurves and cocktails that you pick up as you wander the underbelly of the stadium. You get to see all the places the players hang out. It's really fun and interesting.

Then they call us all together (there were about 200 of us last year) and there's a little program where some players, staff and one of the broadcasters talk about the season to come.

The Mariners have traded away all but a couple of their players so the team is a giant, not hopeful, question mark. So not good news BUT Edgar making the Hall of Fame should brighten the mood considerably.

It was a fun event last year and I'm thinking it will be again tonight.

Before then there is plenty to do. A lot more glueing of tiny shit. I am getting kind of wearing with having this big mess in my living room. My previous organizations did not work in terms of keeping it more tidy.

Today's goals are to get the bedroom floor/kitchen and bath ceiling installed and the 'office' placed and glued. And then clean up entirely. I need to either get it really tidy or put it away for a bit of a breather. Maybe do some sewing for a change of pace. At least that mess is in its own room and mostly out of sight.

Today I also need to make some cornbread today. I finally got my hands on the Martha White mix that you cannot get out here in the wild west. It calls for buttermilk which, of course, I cannot find without a very out of the way trip to Safeway which I'm too lazy for. So I'll make faux buttermilk. I also will have to use oil rather than Crisco. Clearly I need to get to Safeway. But not today.

Yesterday, I walked up the street to the new 85°C Bakery Café. The line was not out the door but it was pretty crowded inside. Lots of different pastries and baked things. I got a variety of stuff. Some good. Some bad. Some blah and a couple of OH MY That's Delish! I'm looking forward to going back when it's not so crowded.

Ok, second cup of coffee gone. Time to get my giant ass in gear.

Comments

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Enjoy tonight

[meathiel]

Hope they'll finish the roadworks on time!

Have fun at the event.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

That stadium event sounds like a lot of fun. I don't know if the Sox do something like that (I'm not "premier" enough to get invited if they do).

Yesterday, I walked up the street to the new 85°C Bakery Café.

Interesting name. Any idea what it's about? (A quick calculation says that 85°C
is 183°F, which leaves me none the wiser.)

[susandennis]

The stadium event was amazing... story to follow w/ pix!

85 degrees... funny you should ask. I forgot to take a shopping bag so had to buy one of theirs (Seattle is a no free bag burg) and when I was putting the bag away, I noticed this little message on it:

We believe that coffee holds its flavor best at a steady temperature of 85 degrees Celsius. To us, the name 85°C symbolizes our devotion to provide coffee of the highest quality. We hope to give our customers the best drink possible.

how about them apples?! I didn't get coffee this time. Guess i'll have to at my next visit

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Aha! That makes sense. I've owned a variety of electric coffee-makers, and most of them make the same point (some say 180F, which is about the same), and assure the purchaser that their system brings the water to that temperature. Many years ago, when I used a Chemex coffee carafe and heated and poured the water myself, it came with advice to let the water cool a bit after bringing it to a boil, for the same reason.

[amw.livejournal.com]

Hey, you got an 85°C! Cool. That place was the first coffee shop I went to in Taiwan and it became my regular haunt over there. It's my favorite coffee shop here on the mainland too, but there are way less of them here so sadly I don't get to go much. What makes them great on the mainland is they sell coffee for 13元 (11元 with loyalty card) which is half the price of Starbucks and all the other coffee chains. How are the prices in the US?

I'm sure the pastries over there will be a bit different, but my two faves are the 香芋 fragrant taro (?) Danish and the walnut sun bread. If you like the Chinese classic hot dog bun, I can also recommend their twist on it - they put the hot dog on a Danish with custard and Easy Cheese and ketchup. It's totally weird and amazing.

[susandennis]

ha!! I didn't check coffee prices but their pastry prices were exceedingly reasonable. They actually have their 'hot dog' here but what I was desperately hoping was ketchup, turned out to be very spicy hot. VERY. I couldn't finish it. Sad because it had such potential.

I will look for the fragrant taro and walnut sun bread. I am delighted they have landed here. There's one in a suburb about an hour from here that has, according to reports, done very well. Their shop here is also very pretty (and replaced a place that was grossly grungy).

[letmesaythis.livejournal.com]

They're nowhere near me (Philadelphia) but they sound so good! I hope they'll come east in my lifetime.