Busy busy busy weekend

In further New Job developments, the Times called me up yesterday morning and asked, "So, can you start on the 14th?" I said, "As long as it's okay that I'll have two three-day weeks in a row, sure!" So no mini-vacation after all. But that's okay, since Writer's Weekend is on the horizon anyway and that's certainly going to be a vacation of sorts, though arguably a working one. So this is all exciting. I'll be starting the new job the day after my contract at Real ends, and it'll take a bit of getting used to just because my commute will not substantially change. I'll have to get up earlier, and most likely will in fact be commuting in with spazzkat. But I won't have to take any different buses and will just have to figure out my new walking route.

Meanwhile, my team took me out to lunch Friday afternoon to Wasabi Bistro in downtown Seattle, a sushi place I'd never visited before. Very tasty all around, though it took much stoic doing on my part to resist the green tea tiramisu dessert they have, which sounded like a very tasty concept. I figured however that since I was also going out for sushi in the evening with Paul, solarbird, kathrynt, and llachglin, I better go easy on the desserts. ;) We went to Hana Sushi in the evening, and that was all to the Tasty.

Tastiness continued today as Dara and I took on a doubleheader of social events: a combination baby-shower-and-tea-party for emmacrew at Elizabeth and Alexander's Tea Room in Bothell and a birthday party for auntmonkey at her parents' place in Renton. The tea party was quite enjoyable and was mostly attended by Emma and Kathryn's friends from the chorale, though spygirle was also in attendance, and lovely food and conversation was had by all. Monica's birthday party was also quite enjoyable and full of lovely food and conversation, with an entirely different set of people!

I am also pleased to observe that both Emma and Monica were pleased to receive gift certificates for Lush. ^_^ In which place, of course, I could not set foot without also purchasing some bath bombs for myself and Dara. And it was all part of my Celebrate New Job Acquisition plan, too--though I had to go to Bellevue Square to do it.

And on top of the Lush bath bombs, I also got me a shiny new iPod! I waffled hardcore between the 4-gig Nano and the 30-gig iPod, and finally settled on the latter on the grounds that it was only $50 more in price, and that it was itself significantly smaller than my old iPod regardless, which satisfied me size-wise. I played a lot with getting that all synced up with my music today and tonight, too! Being able to put photos on it is cool; the screen is surprisingly clear. And it will be really good to have something that'll let me finally listen to more of my collection on a regular basis again!

All in all a very, very fine last couple of days. But Dara and I are very, very full of tasty food, which has shot the hell out of my diet, so I'm going to have to be extra special diligent over the next week or so. Tomorrow I look forward to a nice quiet day, a bit of chores around the house, a walk down to the Lake Forest Park Town Center Farmer's Market, and hopefully finally a few words of writing!

Thursday evening miles: 2.4
Friday miles: 3.65
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1113.55
Miles out of Rivendell: 655.55
Miles out of Lothlórien: 193.55
Miles to Rauros Falls: 195.45