Good To Go...

All over the Metro area they are selling toll tags for cars and other vehicles as we are gearing up for tolling on the 520 bridge that goes over Lake Washington. There are two other areas where they toll but I rarely get near those places. So anywho I sign-up and put $30 on my account. Order the $5 tag for the car and head off. I look at my account on Thursday and it shows a balance of $19.04. What?? Have not even used it and it is down over $10. What gives. Well, as much as the Good to Go people do not want to admit, their system double dinged me for one pass and the pass has SALES TAX? A government issued pass gets taxed...go figure. Well, it took not one, but 2 calls to the agency to get this resolved. Seriously, the initial call went nearly 15 minutes with the end result being that "Kelly" was taking my account to her "team" for review and action. Lord love a duck!

What A Surprise!

So last Friday I did not go into the office and it ended up being a April Fool's joke on my staff. They had decided to do a party to mark my 13 years at E&A and poof, I am not there. Well, they decided it was "a test run" and we did it all over again today. So I was feted at the office and there were red velvet doughnuts and I got several fun gifts. Above is the "bubble wand" and all I can say is that in the packaging it was not the first thing I thought it was. The butterfly was part of the decor on the doughnuts.

This is a bouncing ball. I you look at about 4 o'clock on the ball you can see a ring that you put on your finger and bounce the ball at which time there is a series of lights inside that start blinking, and they can go off when they feel like it to scare you. Too funny and many laughs. A very nice memory.

A Legend Celebrates 88th Birthday

Indeed it was Doris Day's Birthday Yesterday.

She is such a class act and stood by Rock Hudson to the end.

How often I refer to finding a "Doris Day" parking space.

(It is a space right in front of where you are going just as happened in all her movies!)

Sundae Celebration on Sunday

OK, so this is so random I did not know this post was going to be a post until like 30 minutes ago when I was working on a post and had to Google something. Then I saw this image. In hovering over it I come to find out it is the 119th anniversary of the ice cream sundae. How fun is that. The sundae is an ice cream dessert. It typically consists of a scoop of ice cream topped with sauce or syrup, and in some cases other toppings including chopped nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream, or maraschino cherries. The first historically documented sundae was created on Sunday, April 3, 1892. So take time and go have a sundae, but oh wait until next year when it is the 120th anniversary, then we'll just get crazy! But now, why is Google celebrating the 119th anniversary of the first documented ice cream sundae. Somehow, this didn't seem the most obvious thing to be celebrating, though Google seems to believe that the ice cream sundae was invented first by someone in Ithaca, N.Y. That someone is alleged to have been a pharmacist. However, this all seems obscure that some, have attempted to claim an insider's knowledge of this Google ruse. Search Engine Watch, for example, is sniffing that "Sunday's sundae is Google's way of whetting the world's appetite for the latest Android update, nicknamed Ice Cream." But might this doodle have other intentions? Here is some of the thoughts: Might it, for example, be the work of worried Google staffers, encouraging new CEO Larry Page to eat a little more as he attempts to drive Google beyond its current, slightly static state? Might it also be worried Google staffers expressing their need for a little cherry atop their lives, as the drive to become a new Google is taking its toll on their fun quotient? One final view was that this is a symbolic recruiting tool. Google is trying to tell engineers out there that it is tired of its vanilla image. What is the company now looking for? Engineers with a little more sauce. Oh, and more nuts. As for me, I just thought it was fun!

A Week Later

If you look at last Sunday's post you will see the same flowers and lemons. Not bad for a week to say the least. OK, so a few petals have fallen, but nothing crazy. At the front is what I am pleased to share. I woke up yesterday 5 weeks behind on New Yorkers. This day as I post this, they are in a bag by the front door waiting for Markie! Yes, it was a lovely weekend of good food, good reading and good friends.

An Evening to Remember

Hello there, I am a cocktail. I am Chris' cocktail. This swizzle stick is rather "handy" don't you agree? After pretty much inviting myself to dinner as I was jonesing for some grilled meat, I arrived and was met with this lovely cocktail and some very fancy Tonic Water. It was quite lovely. Between the festive ice balls and fancy tonic and snappy swizzle stick, I was the cat's meow. And so the evening began. We even played a round of the northern European train game. Dare I tell you I won? Opps, guess I just did. So these are the two bottles of wine that we decided on having with the dinner. Oh what a dinner. Rob and Jodie went to Double DD Meats and got a big old bag of meat including three glorious Porterhouse steaks. Those just scream Big Ass Reds! So the Zin on the left, 2006 Zabaco and on the right a 2008 Reserve Syrah from Tsillan. Oh be still my heart! First course was an amazing salad of dressed greens complete with mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, croutons and pumpkin seeds. Yummers! It was during this course I got the first taste of the Zabaco and I was in heaven. It's funny what amazing wines can do to people. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I was not able to eat last night. Mind you, when I began, there was no room for even the bread! A Porterhouse is kind of a composite steak coming from the point where the tenderloin and top loin meet. Basically an over-sized T-Bone steak the porterhouse is thicker cut and has much more of the tenderloin relative to the loin portion. If you remove the bone and cut out the two steaks that basically make up this steak you will get a tenderloin steak and a top loin (or New York Strip Steak). So if you are ordering a Porterhouse, I hope you're hungry. Mind you, we had already had drinks, salad, plus there was bread with dinner and broccoli that had been steamed and then had Beecher's Flagship Cheese melted on it. Oh, it was a very good evening. And really, can one ever have too much fun? Why yes that is a Starbuck's bag on my head and for a good reason. It is where we had dessert from. As part of Starbuck's 40th anniversary they now have added mini treats to their menu. Tonight we tried the Tiramisu Cake Pop and the Red Velvet Whoopie Pie. Both were a delight and a perfect ending to a perfect meal.

Three Weeks Ago...

Are words even neccessary? What a horrible moment for so many thousands, nay millions, of people. Click on Red Cross to donate!