2002-07-20 - 4:06 p.m. seattle Campagne was the destination for dinner on Friday night. The beautiful warm weather had continued its soothing presence, allowing us to dine outside, watching the sky change colors as the sun set. Choosing what to eat should have been hard given the many scrumptious sounding items on the menu, but I decided quickly and easily: butter lettuce and avocado salad with a vinaigrette and both potato and leek salads. The leeks were especially spectacular. My entree was beautiful enough to inspire some contemplation/ adoration before I started devouring it...halibut fillet and quenelle, garnished with a soft orange roe, and accompanied by perfectly browned baby potatoes, fava beans, and peas. Mmmmm. Even managed to save room for a cheese plate to finish off the meal. My dinner companion had a lovely mixed green salad with Roquefort cheese, and an amazing wild salmon with oyster mushrooms and some sort of other loveliness that escapes my recollection at the present. The evening's events concluded with star gazing and bonfire watching at Golden Gardens. There were easily a few hundred people enjoying the lovely warm summer's night at the beach. I hope to come back and gaze upon this place during the daylight hours sometime, so the Olympic Moutain range will be more than a dark line at the edge of my vision in the twilight sky... I should add that the wine we savored over dinner, the name of which also escapes me at the moment (see a pattern here? too much bliss=brain damage), smelled like the botryticised Beringer Nightingale, with a rich honey aroma, but had a crisp taste. The perfect wine for sitting out in the night air, in a sleeveless sundress, enjoying Seattle's fresh air...I'll have to grab some for my collection when (if?) I return to SF. Of course, this morning's newspaper, with its stock market loss doom-predicting headline, followed so closely on the heels of an announcement that my company is going to do another round of layoffs makes me daydream about not going back -- about calling up and saying "I'm tired of waiting to see who's getting axed next time! I'm outta here! Someone ship me my cat!!!" Of course, that's far too impractical for me to actually do it. I'd find myself a job first. Which is why I'm going online after dinner tonight and sending my resume in to a few key places. It can't hurt. It could even lead to free trips back to Seattle to interview (and play in the City)... Today is my fourth day of sunshine and warmth in Seattle. I even awoke to rays of sunlight... so, although there's wind enough to warrant my pulling back my hair, it's warm enough that I don't care. Even a cloudburst would be unlikely to dampen my spirits (ha ha). I am suffering from a loss of hunger today. The burnt bagel and juice from concentrate I tried to suck down in the hotel restaurant (Sazerac) did little to rectify it... thus, I set out for the ferry to Bremerton with little in my stomach, which is actually probably a good thing. You see, there was some sort of tar paper on the top deck of the ferry, where I was sitting. I thought I was hallucinating due to lack of food when I kept seeing the deck move. After a while though, I realized it *was* moving. I wasn't having hunger-fueled hallucinations. I was then able to go back to relaxing and enjoying the sunshine, water, and beautiful trees on the trip to Bremerton. After the two hours on the ferry, I was tempted to find a warm spot near the waterfront to sit in for the rest of the day...realizing this would turn me into a peeling red mess, I returned to the hotel to do some writing or to decide where to go for my next adventure. I'm not accustomed to hotels...I typically try to stay in apartments, with friends, or in time shares. Thus, I am prone to putting out the "do not disturb sign" in the middle of the door handle, resulting in the housekeeper knocking on my door at the crack of dawn wanting to clean my room since the sign turned itself around...or for coming back at 2:30 in the afternoon and finding my room in the same disheveled state it was in when I left it at the crack of dawn, thanks to the reverse problem happening. Clearly, 4 bites of bagel is not enough to subsist upon, so I am now torn between sushi or more northwest cuisine (so, really, between raw fish and cooked fish) for dinner. I will take my leave now to ponder my choices as I write about the first few days of this trip... any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09