girl in greenwood

For those of you who don't live in Seattle, here's a data point: We have received more rain in the past 45 days than we normally receive in 6 months. Sigh.

Not too much has been going on with me. We're adapting to life as a one-cat family. We both still forget for a second that Kady's not here when we see a lump in the bed or a flash of white from the corner of an eye. I sometimes wonder why no one is trying to jump in my lap when I work at the computer (that was one of her favorite things to do). But overall, we're doing all right. R* says the image of her body on the table in the vet's office really upsets him. As for me, I was already crying so hard by the point that she passed on, the image of her body lying there is not that upsetting. It was the whole experience of saying goodbye that was difficult.

I'm waiting to hear back about school. R* pointed out that no news is good news because they send out the rejection letters first. :) I've come up with a few places I could go to volunteer to improve my application for next time if that becomes necessary. The problem is, I would need to submit my next application by April, so I need to start volunteering right away... but then if I start going to school in March, I will have to back out of my volunteer committment and I'll look like a jerk.

This afternoon I'm babysitting little Fish while his mom does some stuff at work. Her company is allowing her to work part-time from home for a while, but she still has to go into the office occasionally. I'm excited to test-drive a baby. I've spent quite a bit of time with Fish at his family's house, but I haven't spent any time with him alone. It's only for a couple of hours, so even if he screams the entire time, it will be fine. Well, he'll be fine. I might be a wreck.

Oh! The coolest thing I've done recently is visit Volterra, a new Italian restaurant in Ballard, for dinner. It was so good. The space is lovely, the food is high-quality and delicious, and there are a lot of nice little touches that elevate the experience. For example, R* and I both ordered hot tea because we were freezing after walking a couple of blocks in the rain - and they brought us Forte Tea on adorable silver platters, with a ramekin filled with two kinds of lump sugar, a length of honey-stick, and a tiny tea biscuit for dunking. When we requested cream to add to the tea, our waiter reappeared with two tiny silver creamers. Really, really nice. (By the way? I usually think that pretentious fancy tea doesn't taste any better than regular old tea, but this tea was amazing - it was the Forte blend which is Ceylon tea and jasmine flowers.) We called for a reservation and went kind of early, just before 7:00, and by the time we had our entrees the place was PACKED. On a Tuesday night. So if you want to try it, call ahead!