Backlog: The rest of July

Now that I've written a novel about the the first four days in July I'm going to finish the month out as quickly as possible.

Weekend 2: Thao and Mirah, West Seattle Fair, and Clothing Swap

The second weekend in July I saw Thao and Mirah play at the Crocodile, the first time I'd been there since they revamped the space. Justin, some of his friends and I started the evening at Local 360, my new favorite restaurant in Seattle. Inexplicably, I wore blue eyeshadow:

The desserts (like everything else they serve) were divine, and I still salivate over the carrot cake whoopie pie:

Led to Sea opened and I loved the music so much I bought the CD. Thao and Mirah were also spectacular and their album has been more or less on repeat on my work computer ever since. But, why does there always have to be one drunk asshole who ruins it for everyone else? One of the reasons I usually don't see live music; the fans ruin it.

That Saturday I went to the West Seattle fair with Jacob on a sunny Saturday. We got a lot of compliments on our matching hats:

The Sunday of that same weekend I hosted another wildly successful clothing swap, which is getting bigger every time and turning into a quarterly affair.

Weekend 3: French Crawl and Cabbage Battles

The next weekend, Robyn and I went on a “Bastille Day” French bar crawl on Friday night. Then I spent the entire weekend, unexpectedly, at K, M, and Toddler J's house. We spent Saturday in the garden, combating aphids on our cabbage. Then I went back on Sunday to make experimental kimchi with all the cabbage we couldn’t rescue (after doing a thorough job of cutting out all the colonies and then blasting each leaf with water). Here's K displaying a colony:

It was our first time making kimchi, and one of the writers of the many recipes we consulted said the only containers she had that were big enough were the drawers from her refrigerator, an idea we borrowed:

After a lot of research and hemming and hawing over which method to use we ended up making two kinds using a 'salt brine' technique.

They were delicious and I made batch after batch of kimchi fried rice with it:

Weekend 4: Wedding Planning and Beach Party

The following weekend my friend Annie was in town for the evening and I decided to make all her dreams come true by throwing her a dinner party and letting her invite whoever she wanted, a true gift for a girl who collects people in every city she's ever breezed through. I invited Casey and Joseph and they brought their charming friend Jordan as well as a random out-of-towner (the older brother of one of Joseph's friends I think) whose name I forget, and Annie produced a hodgepodge which, much to my surprise, ended up being a terrifically fun group. We moved my dining table into the living room and used the leaves for the first time to make a giant table using the couch as seating for one side.

The guest of honor and host:

Dinner was delicious, much wine and champagne was consumed, and we stayed up quite late chatting until I literally had to kick the last 3 people out so I could get some sleep for my big Saturday.

On Saturday Morgan, Jacob and I trekked to the Tacoma Art Museum to do a site visit for Morgan and Nathan’s pending wedding which I helped plan/coordinate. That day started productively with a huge breakfast at Fresh Bistro, a quick drive to Tacoma and a thorough meeting at the museum. As we were driving home we all decided the best thing to do once back in Seattle was get drunk, which we did through a combination of booze at my house and happy hour tequila (plus nachos) at the Saint. It ended sillily with Nick and BK crashing later on to play some drunken/giggle-filled Catan. Highlights included getting up onto my roof for the gorgeous view (since locked down by management), group intonation/chanting, and Morgan snorting water from her nose (twice).

The next day my friends Brandi, David and I decided to have a beach party at Magnusson park because summer had finally hit. I dragged along my co-worker Regis and Jacob and BK came too, plus a bunch of B and D's friends. It was a gorgeous, relaxed day with some float-toy action in Lake Washington and plenty of snacks. Regretfully I have no pictures from this entire weekend outside of Annie's dinner.

Weekend 5: Courtneys and Kurts and brunch

The following weekend (5 weekends in July!) was Morgan’s highly-anticipated bachelorette party in which we fulfilled one of her dreams from college: to have a pack of Courtney Loves running around town. So, we all found wigs and appropriate costumes in the weeks proceeding and dressed up as Courtney during a prefunk at my place. This picture is deceiving since I look kind of cool in it; rest assured I was a hot mess.

Here we are during a photoshoot at Cal Anderson park. Lots of people stopped to gawk; one woman asked to take a picture with us, who we happily obliged.

So artistic:

We hit several spots on Capitol hill including Bimbo’s for drinks and dinner, the Rock Box for hilarious private karaoke, and finally Barca where, much to Morgan’s surprise, a pack of Kurt Cobains was waiting for us!

It was a really fun night.

The next morning we celebrated Joseph’s birthday with a delicious brunch prepared primarily by Casey including piles of bacon and their favorite pirogis. I didn't take many pictures since we were all still recovering from the night before but it was a very pleasant way to spend a fuzzy Sunday.

That was on Sunday, July 31 so that officially wraps up July.

Phew!