Hello darkness, my old frenemy.

Hey y'all. So I know it's been a ridiculous amount of time since my last post. For both of my loyal readers, I apologize. Things have been kicked into high gear at work lately, and the hours I've been putting in at the office (and the out-of-office hours I've been putting into beating all three God of War games) have made me awful about keeping in touch with my friends and family. In my defense, beating God of War 3 was fucking rad:
Say it with me: ZEEEUUUUUUUSSSSSSS!!!!!

Allow me to give you a brief recap of the last 3 months:
Late August: Last soccer game of the season. Low point: my team was knocked out of post-season contention after a loss to the whiniest bunch of dive-taking asshats I've seen since the Netherlands lost the World Cup. High point: I set up the last goal scored for the season in the last minute of our last game. Booted it down field into the expectant feet of our finest forward. I've got the power; thank god he had finesse.
September 9-13: Trip to New Orleans to visit family & friends. Got to have an evening with the old posse and came very close to quitting job and never returning to Seattle, much to the future chagrin of this blog's stalwart fans. Both of them. Instead, was persuaded to be responsible and return to the PacNW upon promises of many future returns to the Crescent City.
September 19: Turned 25. Presents abound; as does my despair that I am old enough to rent a car. Last cool birthday before feeling old: check.
October 2: Fresh Ale Hop Festival in Yakima, WA. Met Portland-based buddies for day of trinking ales with freshly-picked hops. Aromas were lovely. Hangovers: universally painful.
October 3: Attempt to climb some major mountain trails aborted due to intense fog in Rainier National Forest. Climbed lesser trail, subsequently suffered lesser pain in lower calves.

We can't stop here...this is bat country!


Money shot from alternate hike. CHING.


Descending decently.



Gettin my climb on.

October 16: Both our hearts broken when an awesome house we had just looked at went under contract before we got home and could make an offer. Lingering hatred for the house-hunting process persists to this day.
October 29-November 8: Have to put in such long hours at work that I forget what the sun looks like. Thanks to daylight savings time and the northern latitude, it is now pitch-black even when I leave work at 5. The night-owl in me likes being awake at night, but not when it's dark for 16 hours a day. I feel like I'm living in 30 Days of Night.

If only I could actually watch Josh Hartnett turn to ash in real life.....sigh.

On the bright side, I made friends with a seagull who taps on my window everyday at lunch time so I can feed him a cracker. I named him Seymour. Having flashbacks to reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull as a child, and experiencing few qualms about living vicariously through a winged scavenger. Find the sun, Seymour!
Suddenly Seymour is standing beside me...

That brings us just about up to the present time. All my major court submissions are in and I finally feel like I have cleared enough files off my desk to the point that my cubicle is no longer a fire hazard. At home, we have been cooking pretty regularly and trying new recipes from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which is pretty much to Italian food what Julia Child's books are to French food.

Meryl Streep, eat your heart out.

I mentioned it cursorily earlier, but househunting blows. For some reason, even though the rest of the country is in "PLEASE BUY MY HOUSE I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING" mode, the Seattle bubble hasn't seemed to have popped yet; at least not in sellers' minds. Even though all the data is saying the market isn't going to rebound anytime soon, whoever is selling this piece of shit thinks $400,000 is a fair price. While that may be an extreme example, houses up here are almost universally overpriced by like $30 to $50 thousand. It was fun to laugh at when we first started looking for houses, but now we just get depressed by the lack of reasonable options.

I'm going to try to be better about posting...but also staying in touch with everyone in less impersonal ways. Like calling or (MAYBE) visits. I miss you all.