writing: rats
exercise: romping

Ken woke up at 7 today because of the cats, and realised he was awake, and got up. I didn’t crawl out of bed until after 10. But did he use this time to wrap all of my presents? Noooo… Goober. Of course, he’s in the wood shop right now, so I could wrap some of his. At least one isn’t here yet. Just one, I think. Unless I find something else. Most of the stuff I got for him is big-ish, so I have only one thing that might be stocking-appropriate. Phooh. Bad planning on my part, buying him big-ish presents.

I have, however, hung all of the holiday cards on the side of the stereo centre. It’s beginning to look a lot like…

Ah, finished the GP (to the proofreading stage, anyway). It was refusing to build into a booklet, and I was tearing my hair out, but I finally figured out the problem. Phew. Now it’s on to some copy editing, and thence to the rest of my To Do list.

The borrowed radial arm saw is functional, and after determining this, Ken cut all of the uprights for the library. It’s getting late, so we’ll stain them tomorrow morning (pray for sun, people) (or even pray for the sun people, if you wish. I’m not picky.).

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So, apparently we’re on a heightened security alert because there have been possible terrorist threats. My response? Well, this is what happens when our fearless leader diverts his (and attempt to divert our) attention away from bin Laden and al-Queda. I’m not sorry Saddam’s in custody, but was the expense worth it? I don’t have an answer to that.

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We had a wonderful evening! We headed down to Newport Beach on the bike to Josh Slocum’s, a restaurant on the waterfront. Ken had done some calling around, and of course every place was booked solid, but JS said if someone was 5 minutes late for their reservation, they’d lose it and the restaurant would give their table to someone waiting. As it turned out, we ended up eating at the bar, but it was no problem at all.

It was a funky place. The back wall of the bar was faux stone, as if it was in a cave, but the ceiling and overhang were Renaissance-style carving. The dinner area that we could see was all sofas and chairs and low tables. White fabric draped from the ceiling. The fireplace had cool statues carved into the sides, that seemed to be people, but there was a screen hanging down over their heads (showing an underwater scene. Oy.).

The required outfit for the waitstaff (all female) was tight white shirt, extremely short black skirt, and knee-high chunky black boots. Oh, and long straight dark hair, except for one mostly blonde girl. Beyond that, they had free reign. The hostess’s skirt was layers of black lace and barely covered her ass. Which was a good look for her. One girl wore fishnets. One had a long-sleeved shirt that displayed her lovely midriff. She was my favourite. The bartender got to wear a black top. I guess that’s how we knew who she was.

A guy came around with gifts for the ladies, and I am now the proud owner of a necklace of a rubber heart that flashes multiple colours. Hey, it was fun and festive.

So we had some reasonable wine, and shared a calamari appetizer, then had another glass of wine each. I had ahi tuna, seared and rubbed with a chili mix, and Ken had blackened mahi mahi. My tuna was superb. Oh my goodness. The bite I had of Ken’s mahi mahi was very nice, too. The fresh asparagus was lovely and the orzo was nice. But oh, that tuna. To Die For.

An older man to Ken’s right, who’d obviously had too many beers, engaged us in reluctant conversation with an opening gambit about how jealous he was of Ken’s hair. I eventually tuned him out, but Ken was very patient with him. He was harmless, really. It would have been mildly fun to mess with his head, based on what he was talking about, but I refrained.

Then we went outside and sat on a dock and watched the rest of the boats go by. Some of the lights were pretty amazing. It was definitely Californian, with displays of palm trees and dolphins and at least one flamingo sharing space with Santas, Santa bears, trees, stars, and American flags (all in lights). Some people had megaphones, and they shouted greetings at Joe’s Crab Shack, which was next to our restaurant. Some played holiday music. Ken played with our new camera, but I don’t know how many pictures he got.

Then we rode home, put out the trash, and had a lovely frolic, whereupon he crashed. It’s not even 10:30 now, and I’ve written this, and read e-mails and journals, and puttered a bit. I’m going to do a little more work, then curl up in the living room and watch TV and weave, or read. Or, hey, duh! I need to wrap Ken’s presents. Yeah, that’s the plan.