I knew I hadn't been updating regularly, but I didn't realize how little I'd been updating until tonight :)
So! The end of February found us in San Jose, and then in Chicago. The Chicago trip was planned, the SJC one, not so much. I really do enjoy California, but I don't know that we'd ever live there again. Unlimited money and a nice house, but it still has its drawbacks. The weather was lovely though :) Chicago was less lovely, but not terrible. Work was bleh, but I got to take a day while we were out there and hang out with Tracey whilst getting beautified from head to toe. I hadn't had time to get my hair cut or colored since October 17th!! So, we went with highlights, a new cut, brow wax, and omg, chocolate truffle manicure and pedicure. Complete with frozen hot chocolate sundaes! It was great! Hanging out and getting to know Tracey a little better was awesome, and we both couldn't have been more relaxed at the end of the day.
Back home in early March -- lots to do, no time to do it in. Work work work. Since I'll be going to Chicago pretty much once a month, and since Richard's been doing a lot of traveling, we decided it might be nice to get one of our frequent flyer program statuses upgraded. American was the obvious choice, and it turns out they have some sort of "Challenge" Program, where you can fast track to either Gold or Platinum Status in a 3 month period. We looked over the travel we were planning to do, and Richard started a Platinum challenge on 3/16, and I started a Gold challenge on 3/16. We both flew down to San Jose then for the weekend -- me to rest up and relax before my Chicago trip on 3/19, and Richard to do actual work :) The flight down to San Jose was absolutely amazing. I had a window seat, and it was a clear day all the way from Seattle down to SJC. When we were taking off, I saw Mt. Rainier dwarfing the control tower... we flew down the coast some more, and as soon as Rainier was behind me, there was Mt. St. Helens... the pyroclastic flow side too! It was amazing! Then Mt. Hood, some other high mountain, as we went down the Oregon coast and passed into California, Mt. Shasta was there completely snow covered. The best was yet to come, as we were beginning decent over San Francisco, I got to see the Golden Gate from I think either 17,000 ft or 11,000ft, I can't remember which, but it was gorgeous! We flew down the penisula and it was so fun picking out all the things we could see on the ground. I really miss the area and feel very comfortable there :)
We ended up blending some of the work, as Richard's partner got snowed in on the east coast, so Richard needed an extra hand or two. Sunday was a me day, though. We went up to Berkeley and went to Giovanni's -- I read on Yelp that Giovanni's had changed hands, but they were still raving about the bread, and frankly that's all I cared about :) It still looked the same on the outside and on the inside, but clearly the food and service had taken a hit. The bread was good, but the copycat recipe I came up with a year or so ago actually tastes a lot better than Giovanni's now. I ordered the canneloni, which was still quite good. I need to learn to make that at home. Now, if we had just taken my meal, I would have said that Giovanni's was still a nice place to go, and maybe I'd just romanticized how good it used to be in my mind. But then Richard ordered the lasagne. It looks fine, he starts eating it, and he says "This tastes a little funny." I'd remembered that Giovanni's sometimes had some allspice in their sauce, so I thought he was referring to just that. Then Richard elaborated... "Kind of tastes like Indian food?" I took a bite. One of those dramatic, omg where do I spit this?!?, bites. The "traditional lasagne" now had curry powder in it. YUCK! Richard finished it because he was hungry, I also gave him one of my canneloni so that he could get the nasty taste out of his mouth. Sooooo, no more dreaming about Giovanni's :)
Also no more dreaming about Grain D'Or's creamy french sticks. These are really nothing more than french bread with packaged bavarian cream in them. Very meh overall, but something I can certainly recreate at home sometime.
Very early Monday morning, I left Richard in SJC so that I could catch a flight back to Seattle to catch another flight to Chicago that afternoon. As wonderful as my flight down to SJC was, my flight to Chicago was the karmic retribution for that pleasure. 100% full flight. I had an aisle seat, some 6'4" dude had the middle seat. We were sitting there jockeying for the knee room the whole flight, then the jerk in front of me decides he wants to FULLY RECLINE for the whole 4 hour trip to Chicago. My knee cap was crushed, the dude was almost laying on my boobs, it was just completely miserable.
I got to Chicago, and stayed at the Comfort Inn downtown -- I got a hotels.com $84/night rate on the room, so I wasn't expecting a lot. I was pleasantly surprised! No wireless, but the wired ethernet was fast and it was easy to sit at the little table near it. The room was very small, but the bathroom was clean and modern. The windows opened (which is a plus for me), the queen bed had 5 pillows! Unfortunately the only bad thing about the room was the bed wasn't very comfortable at all, and I had a hard time sleeping. No room service, but it was 3 doors down from Pizzeria Uno, and they were open til 1am! So take that sucktacular House of Blues hotel! (Which I guess is a story from the February Chicago trip that I still have to tell sometime.)
I got back Thursday morning, Richard left Saturday night for the annual Stupid Peering Cruise. He's gone til Friday. I have the house to myself -- much to clean, and I want to do some marathon cooking for the freezer while he's gone. I should head to sleep soon -- lots to do in the morning.
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