A Stick-free Undercarriage

Saturday involved macaroons & a large quantity of rain.  It also involved a rather marvellous nap on the couch, slap bang in the middle of the afternoon.  I didn’t have much of a plan when Saturday started out.  It just unfolded:

– Shuffled downstairs in my slippers, with Daisy the cat in tow, to a clean kitchen.  I love when that happens.  The nights when I have just enough energy left to load & turn the dishwasher on before heading to my big, soft, feathery bed.

– Whizzed a whole pound of strawberries up in the blender, threw a few other things in there & then lolled in the green leather chair by the window, slurping contentedly, while Florence & Penelope took up residence on my lap.

– Tackled the pile of papers on my desk & turned one large pile into 3 smaller ones.  1. To file.  2. To recycle.  3.  To take action on.  By a stroke of luck, pile # 3 was significantly smaller than the large pile I started with.  Just re-piling makes me feel clean.  Delusion can be a splendid thing early on the Saturday morning.

– Remembered that it is time to do taxes.  Decided, for the 49th day in a row, that today was not the day.

– Fed the tribe.  Scooted around Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest to get the overnight scoop.  Spent too long in a very hot shower.  According to The Internet my skin is now older than the rest of me.  Some things are just worth the sacrifice.

– Drove to North Ballard.  Lake Washington had white caps.  The rain was falling sideways.  The I-5 was pretending to be a snail.  Got a text from my Curly-Wurly-loving gorgeous girlfriend, “There’s a stick in my undercarriage and I need to stop and dig it out”.  Drove past a store on 85th that had an amazing array of large metal chickens, which reminded me of this.

– Guzzled down a large, chocolate-y hot chocolate & a ridiculously leek-y & Gruyere-y piece of quiche while gorgeous girlfriend (now with a stick-free undercarriage) downed some frothy-topped coffee drink & a slab of quiche with enough spinach in it to make Popeye proud.  It did not make her muscles bulge, and we were glad for that.  She was wearing Doc Martens or something very similar; and they were adorable on her.

– Armed with several boxes of pastries to take away, we headed south to Le Pichet, since gorgeous girlfriend was determined that today was the day she was going to partake of the best Chocolat Chaud this side of Paris.  We stopped off at Whole Foods parking lot to carpool the last mile.  This saved on parking & the inevitable trauma of having to find 2 spots in downtown Seattle on a Saturday lunchtime instead of just 1.  Is that wrong?  How about if I mentioned that parking in downtown Seattle for 2 hours costs more than your lunch?

 – Le Pichet was packed like Londoners on the Underground; most everyone was as soggy, too.  It was like hiking in a hurricane out there.  We huddled at the very end of the bar where gorgeous girlfriend got bumped regularly by a particularly thin woman who we shall forever remember as “Snooty Manager”.

– Gorgeous girlfriend’s Chocolat Chaud went down in a blaze of glory.  It reminded her of Spain and Churros.  Sadly there was not a lot of light at the very end of the bar.  This is important if you’re a super-duper photo-wizard, like gorgeous girlfriend is.  Instead, we caught up on life, ate Baked Eggs, a Ham & Cheese Baguette & asked the very lovely Rosey to move plates of pastries around so we could shoot them.  Rosey was very obliging.  Especially given how maniacally busy they were.

– We braved the hurricane, found the car still in the same spot unscathed & gorgeous girlfriend drove me back to Whole Foods.  There were a few moments of hugging.  Love that girl.

– Swung by Barnes & Noble to peruse some new books and make mental notes.  Because no one actually buys books at Barnes & Noble.  No.  They just enjoy the peace & tranquility, the smell of fresh-bound paper & experience the deliciousness of roaming slowly up & down the shelves, gazing sideways.  Then go home & order them from Amazon.

– Ate the best macaroon I’ve ever eaten in my life. 

– Had a nap on the blue check couch with Dougal curled up in the crook of my knees & Penelope draped over my head with one paw on my nose.  Luckily her purring is more soporific than annoying.  Besides which, nothing was going to win against the carbohydrate coma that I fell into.

– Ate a particularly fine Almond Croissant.

– Processed images, did the accounts (they balanced!), re-did all my recurring online bill payments with a new credit card & made an enormous pot of Leek & Cauliflower Soup.  I do have a thing for leeks.

– Ate some Swiss cheese.

– Read some chapters from one of the books in the pile of 14 15 on my night-stand.  I no longer recall which one.

A very lovely Saturday.