Got a Date with an Angel

Jude works a few days a week in a little shop in the Pearl District. The Pearl is the converted warehouse district where lofts are half a million and the streets are paved with latte. It’s a very cool shop that sells antiques, jewelry, art & sculpture from the Thai region and from Central and South America. It’s called The Monkey and the Rat. Some of the images are weird because she was closing and had already shut off most of the lights last night when I took them, but they give you a sense of the place. Jude does all the displays and is constantly rearranging the whole place, and it's pretty big. She's happy as a hobo in a hot tub.

Since she closes at 6:00 and I get off around 5:30, we’ve established a pattern where I drive home and take a short walk over to the Max stop. I bring a book and read for 15 minutes during the ride downtown and I walk in right around 6:15.

The trains are free downtown, so we get back on together and ride over to this little Italian place and we sit in the bar playing Gin or Cribbage and have clams, Caesars, and a pasta dish, all from their cheap cheap happy hour menu.

The Italian place is right across from Border’s, Nordstrom, and Jude’s fave, J. Jill. We sometimes go into one or two of these hotspots “real quick.” Last night we went to Wild Oats after dinner – it’s a gourmet grocery – and we picked up some victuals. Then we went home. Life is good.

Sorry if this post seems scattered. I'm having all kinds of trouble with the software today, and it's screwing up my rhythm. Damn it!

Where was I. Oh yeah, life is good.

Anyway, here’s some of the evidence that we worked all weekend. We emptied the dining room of all non-dining items (everything), and we busted open the 3-year-old boxes containing the table and chairs we bought. The table is perfect for the room because it has curved drop leaves that make it circular if you’ve got a crowd. We’re going to keep the end curves open and the side curves closed, as a rule.

I also installed the lower doors on the built-in china cabinet. Thanks for the chisels, Dad! And thanks, Lisa, for saying the moldings are beautiful. Please look past the missing window bottoms shown here, to my shame. (Also, don't try to open the lower right cabinet door.)