Kathryn

Meet me at the top of the Space Needle on Valentine’s Day?

Okay. I just did. Where were you?

So Valentine’s dinner in the rotating restaurant atop the Space Needle will run you a flat $95 per person before tax and gratuity (A tip is what you pay at Denny’s.)

We thought this would be quite romantic but decided to go for lunch instead. Lunch is reasonable. At lunch, a burger only costs $24 dollars and it comes with free french fries and a bed of lettuce. I think they even throw in a tomato. Very doable. I’m surprised we don’t go there all the time.

Dan and I drove downtown, listening to Kelly Clarkson sing songs of teenage pop star angst and betrayal. Mucho romantico. We used the sweet Valet parking at the foot of the Needle and headed in to the front desk where we were given our “boarding passes” to the Sky City Restaurant (I know, very “George Jetson-esque” was this date.)

We then rode up 520 feet in the glass elevator with a be-purple-vested man who described himself as our 41-second tour guide.

Once we were seated, I started taking pictures like mad. The main problem I had was trying to get a good shot of the skyline. For the life of me, I could not find the Space Needle. It seriously took me a couple of seconds to realize I was in it.

Our waitress said she recognized me from somewhere and my immediate thought was….”She must read my BLOG!” Um….I’m glad now that I didn’t suggest that. I can just imagine it. “What’s a bl-og?” “Um…never mind.” I don’t know. Hundreds of people world-wide read this blog. There’s a chance that my waitress was randomly a reader…right? Okay, I’m a loser. Moving on.

What’s the deal with Ciabatta bread? It’s everywhere and I have no idea why. A year ago, I had never heard of the stuff and now it’s taking over the world. I don’t even think it’s all that great. Let’s put it this way – If Ciabatta bread were running for President, I’d probably vote for Ralph Nader.

Dan asked if the burger was anything special and the waitress said, “It’s made with premium GROUND beef.” Ooooo, the big sell. This burger is made with GROUND BEEF! Get OUT!

She then sealed the deal by saying, “Everyone’s gotta try a $24 hamburger once in their life, right?”

Yes, yes they do.

I chose the Rare Ahi with Wasabi Mashed Potatoes and Baby Bok Choy. Delicioso. Delicioso and Daring. This menu option had an asterisk that warned that eating it would increase my risk of foodborne illness.

It also had a Wasabi garnish around the outside which I took to be some sort of avocado paste but was actually a burning goo of torture and death. DO NOT EAT A LARGE FORKFULL OF WASABI – EVER.

The waitress brought us a small bowl of salt with a tiny spoon (I guess shakers are things you use at Denny’s).

During the course of the meal we rotated twice around the space needle. The lady at the table next to us was wearing the same red turtle neck I was planning on wearing but decided against last minute. Phew! That was close. Instead I went with a black ensemble with subtle pink highlights.

Later last night Karli came over to deliver a Valentine’s treat and medical supplies (see LoveFest Part 2), wearing THE SAME THING. No, this was not planned. Weird, huh?

During the meal, Dan noticed what looked like some WI-FI antennas so I tried to hack into the Space Needle secret death ray detonation system with my PDA. It was a no-go. Seattle is still intact.

I resisted the urge to make “that noise” on the rim of my crystal glass.

Dan and I discussed whether it was better to tip your valet before or after he takes your car. If you tip him before, he may take better care of it. When my parents lived in South America as spies for the Canadian government (Oops! Was I not supposed to mention that?) people used to always offer to “watch their car.” This meant, “if you don’t give me money, you will no longer have a car when you get back.”

If you tip him after, then I don’t know what, but I think you’re supposed to tip him after. Who knows? Is it you?

Dan gave me some chocolates and a card that made me cry in a good way.

We ordered the Exploding Fog Lunar Module Sundae desert which is ice cream with a whole lot of theatrics and a peppermint sprig.

I dropped him back at MegaCorp and headed home where I found lovely flowers waiting for me on the doorstep with a note that read, “I love my sweetheart!” Delivered flowers are just so uber-cool.

What a fun and romantic day!

Whilst taking pictures of said gorgeous delivered flowers on the doorstep…….(please see next post)

Jane Eyre (A&E version) – Samantha Morton who plays Jane comes to save Mr. Rochester from being burned alive in his bed. He asks her to stay a moment and hold his hand…

An Affair to Remember – See Rita Wilson’s stirring rendition of this one in Sleepless in Seattle.

Riverdance – There’s a scene where a couple sings a love song and at the end she turns away and then he grabs her by the hand and they look in each other’s eyes and my roommates LOSE THEIR MINDS. Yes, Riverdance, with the dancing. That is correct.

Remains of the Day – Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, the love, the inability to express emotion, the physical and emotional closeness that can never be.

What are your favorites? Share – for the love of the season.

Please do not nominate me for anything in that category of blog awards. Leave that to the experts. I think I should be allowed to post about my artistic and martial arts skills from time to time though, without really crossing any major lines.

It starts with a little mishap the other day where I accidentally knocked over a folding chair in front of my family. I’m not sure if it was the Buster Keaton, the Jackie Chan, or the Hulk Holgan in me that made me try to pull this off as a sort of slapstick fall, leading into a martial arts turned WWF chair-throwing move.

Once I had picked the chair up and slammed it to the ground, I proceeded to give it a flying hammer.

“Look Laylee,” I said, slapping my hand to my elbow and jumping as high into the air as my post-Magoo body would allow. “This is called a flying hammer.”

Dan, who believes that knowledge is power, that with great power comes great responsibility, and that the responsibility of knowing how to administer the flying hammer is too much for a three-year-old in possession of a younger brother to handle, advised me against carrying on with the lesson.

What does he know? Who wears the yellow belt in this family?

That’s right.

It’s me.
(Yes I realize that is the ugliest picture I’ve ever posted of myself.)

Alas, once more his wise logic won out over my crazed need to teach our children WWF maneuvers.

But his victory does not mean that Laylee doesn’t know which parent bears the swirling fists of fury at el rancho de los Darings.

Laylee and I were having a friendly coloring smackdown the other day. We drew pictures of each other (Although Laylee wanted to fill in her own face. I cannot take credit for her amazing face drawing skills. I think she spent an hour just shading her upper lip.)

What do you notice about these pictures, besides that her drawing of me is better than mine of her, that my hair is actually orange and green (I usually fix it in Photoshop before posting), that her skin is the color of cherry-flavored mud and that my ears are as big as my feet?

That’s right. She was somehow able to capture in the wax medium the incredible speed and reflexes of my swirling fists of steel and fury.

I don’t mean to brag, but my friends do tell me that I am quite skilled at mixing it up in the ring. I won’t even go into my performance in cage matches.

After many requests from readers, my parents have officially started blogs.

Okay they didn’t start them.

I did.

BUT they’ve both posted at least once. They may not post again.

But then they might.

And if they do, it will be well worth the read.

Introducing Grammy and Papa Daring.

You empty everything… faster than I can refill it.

Today you snapped the wooden handle off a basket that Laylee has played with peacefully for 3 years.

You put everything in your mouth at all times.

You flail and splash like a water-churning-psycho-bot in the bath tub, never caring that your face is so covered in liquid that you can barely breathe.

You want the blinds to go DOWN in a blaze of glory.

You see it as your mission in life to have your hands sucked up in the whirly part of the vacuum cleaner and live to tell the tale…hopefully live. From what I have observed, you do not fear death.

You knock over chairs, big ones.

You eat twice as much food as Laylee, who is 2 years older than you.

You get injured frequently and while I’m distracted attending to your wounds, you move quickly on to the next venture of destruction.

You dismantled the door stopper the first time you came in contact with it…in 10 seconds flat and started sucking on the little white choking hazard tip at the end.

Breastfeeding involves sucking for 10 seconds, unlatching, laughing hysterically and attacking me for 60 seconds. You want to WRASTLE!

You also want to ingest my laptop and seem willing to use any means necessary to achieve that end.

But you know what? You’ve started crawling around the house at lightning speed, looking for me, and chanting “Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma MUMMMMM!”

I like you. You are a boy. I’m a bit scared. But I still like you.

Well, I’m surprised how few people guessed the truth, especially since my parents both came on gave the correct answer.

1. As for The Apprentice, I never auditioned but I did think about it. I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it to the third round of auditions though. But it’s fun to think about. What I really wanted to be on was Survivor…until I had kids…and a life. I’ve even downloaded the application and started filling it out.

3. I can play the piano well, the guitar and the flute semi-pathetically, but can make no music with my navel. If you count making percussion sounds on various hard surfaces in my home, it may come close to eight, but not ten. Yes Maki, I was a band girl and am currently teaching piano.

4. When I lose weight, it definitely comes off the “top” first. My feet are only affected by pregnancy. I made up the little “ham feet” thing as a tribute to Magoo, whose feet look like little puff pastries with grapes for toes.

5. Also, I have used an umbrella…a couple of times…when we first moved here…and were basically tourists. Real Seattleites don’t mind a little “moisture.”

So it looks like Lauren and may parents (duh! They were living with me at the time) are the only three who succeeded at our little guessing game.

When I was 17 years old, I went to the DPS in Houston to renew my driver’s license. I entered the office wearing my National Honor Society t-shirt, carrying my Franklin planner and I believe my hair was in pigtails.

They took my license behind the counter and ran it through a scanner, at which point the dot-matrix printer went nuts, spitting out a page that labeled my license as “red-hot.” “Hmmm,” I asked, “what does that mean?”

“It means there is a warrant out for your arrest. Please stay where you are.”

“What is it for?” I asked, amused. I had never so much as been pulled over for spitting out my car window.

The computer wouldn’t say why I was supposedly “red-hot” but I had a warrant out for my arrest for unknown reasons. They explained that I was not being arrested, but instead “forcibly detained.”

They sat me in a back room with a police officer at a desk and a young teenager who was handcuffed to his chair. I found the whole thing incredibly exciting. I chatted to the “prisoner” who was unwilling to engage in banter. I spoke with the police officer.

“Does this happen a lot? Do lots of people have warrants out for their arrest by mistake? Are you going to handcuff me? Could you take my picture? No one will BELIEVE this happened to me. No, seriously, do you have a camera? How long have you worked here? This is so weird. I’ve never even had a ticket…..”

Eventually I think I annoyed them into letting me go. The officer looked at me with his most stern expression and said, “It looks like this may have been a computer malfunction. We’ll look into it but if the warrant is legit, we WILL find you.”

“Okay.”

So there you have it. A warrant out for my arrest in the state of Texas. And they never were able to find me. My youth group toured a police station later and I asked our tour guide to look up my criminal record in the database. He said that my record showed that something was there but had been erased. Hm.

Today I take a break and do a meme from the very talented and lovely, I imagine, Lauren.

Meme Directions:
Write five things about yourself with only ONE of them being true. The other four are fiction, and everyone else gets to guess which one is not fiction.

1. I made it to the 3rd round of auditions for the second season of The Apprentice. Not enough experience, my Aunt Fanny! No, seriously, I think I didn’t get chosen because my butt was too big and my hair was too small.

2. I once had a warrant out for my arrest in the State of Texas. Luckily, I was too smart, fast and tricky for Chuck Norris, the ultimate Texas Ranger, to track me down.

3. I can play 10 instruments (not including the spoons, washboard and my belly button).

4. When I lose weight, the first place I notice it is in my feet. When I gain weight, the tops of them puff up like little hams.

5. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for 3 years and have never used an umbrella here. It’s a good thing too, because mine’s broken.

Leave your guesses in my comments section and in 24 hours, I’ll post the answer.

I don’t love tagging people because a lot of people HATE the memes. If you hate the memes, no prob. If you like em, please play along. Here are a few of my newer blogging friends I’d love to hear from:

Chris
Susan
TigerSue
Krista
Jessica
Jessica
Goslyn
EmLouisa
Nancy

Anyone else who wants to play, consider yourself tagged. Please let me know and I’ll come and guess on your site. This was really fun for me. Me like games…..and cookies….me like cookies too.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just about smooching and eating loads of extra calories. Sometimes it’s just about generally sharing the love.

Heather, the Blogger formerly known as Pieces of Cheese, has launched a beautiful new site, One Woman’s World, and is having a sort of inaugural awards competition.

She is looking for nominations of female bloggers in the following categories:

1. Best Humor
2. Makes Me Want To Have Kids – This one is baffling people. I guess I mean the most Optimistic Mother. The kind that encourages other people to feel great about being moms!
3. Happiest Blog
4. Best Writing
5. Best Site Design
6. Most Inspiring
7. Most Meetable, In Real Life
8. Most Thought-Provoking
9. Best Discussion
10.Learn Something New Every Day
11. Best Commenter

They’re called “Share the Love” Awards and I think nominating a special blogger in your life is a great way to show you care and to let the rest of us know about cool new blogs. Take a minute and send some nomination love Heather’s way. The nominations are open until Valentine’s Day. Have fun!

In the Past Three Days, this is the person:

Who read herself to sleep.

Who breastfed her ducky…with a blanket…because they’re her “private breasts.”

Who got married, moved into a castle and went house hunting because she and her prince needed a “home” to live in.

Who reported that the washcloth was dead because it was dried out and crusty. She then told me that if she put it in the water, it would take all the dead off because Jesus gave us the water AND the bathtub.

Who jumped up into her car seat and proudly told me that she is the “fastest person in the world.”

Who just ate a tablespoon of butter before I had a chance to stop her, grinned and said, “Now it’s stuck in my body and you can’t get it.”

Who told me Jesus wants me to let her wear big-girl underwear all night long (she knew I’d never go along with it if SHE asked me).

Who asked if “Bob Marley is a little girl.”

Who says she’s “pretty nervous about the moon.”

Who struck up a conversation with our be-pierced Target cashier today and as we left told me, “I think she pretty loves me.”

In the Past Three Years, this is the person:

Who made me cry like a baby the first time I saw her.

Who makes me giggle with glee and delight every hour she’s awake.

Who makes fun of the way I dress.

Who, when asked what she’s doing, answers, “Just Chillin'”

Who started “giving rock” when other people’s kids were giving “five.”

Who knew over a hundred words at her 18-month check-up.

Who says “okayluvyoububye” and hangs up on you when she doesn’t feel like talking anymore.

Who is a princess.

Who went pee in the potty for the first time in July of 2004 and became potty trained…mostly…last week.

Who has her moments.

Who won the hearts of everyone in London to the extent that a proctor in Westminster Abbey (where no photography is allowed) took us behind a roped-in area and let us take a quick picture on Queen Elizabeth’s chair because Laylee was such a “gorgeous baby” (insert British accent here).

Who asks me if I’m “saturated” when I finish eating a big meal.

Who has the best imagination around.

Who spontaneously tells people she loves them.

Who scares me.

Who loves and cares for her brother.

Who makes me work harder, play harder and care more than I ever knew I could.

This is a terribly incomplete list of all the things that make Laylee who she is. Since we don’t use our kids’ real names or exact birth dates on this blog and she “turned 3” January 1st, this is her “birthday” post. We love her. She is darling, hilarious, sweet and wonderful. We couldn’t have picked a better one.

Yes, today was better.

I am a closet (well not anymore, I guess) Josh Groban fan. This evening while running errands, I was listening to that song “Remember When it Rained” on repeat. I LOVE that song. What I love most about it is how passionate it sounds. It always makes me think of smooching in the rain.

I know that’s not what that song’s about but that’s what I think of every time. While listening, I always write book chapters in my head where two people come to each other in the rain and admit their feelings for the first time without saying a word……ahhhh…

This is the little slice of dreamland that caused me to miss my exit as I was driving to the church bookstore tonight to have my new scriptures engraved with my name.

You probably think that since Dan and I live in Seattle, all we ever do is kiss and schmoozle out in the rain. Not so, my friends, not so. In fact, I have never been kissed in the rain. The idea of it seems strangely appealing but in practice, I’m not so sure.

I once saw an interview with Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire where they said that the upside-down-kissing-in-the-rain scene from Spiderman was the least romantic, most awful kissing scene in the history of film. They say he nearly drowned, hanging upside down like that with rain running up his nose.

Aaanny-who. I like the thought.

The post I had been working on for today was a tender tribute to the first three years of Laylee’s life. It is cute and sweet but I feel uncomfortable posting it after she spent today as a screaming ball of chaos (to steal a phrase from Stephanie), was sent to bed an hour early for kicking me and then peed on the floor purposefully as I was helping put on her pajamas. She has been so unbelievably sweet the past few weeks.

A fickle hood is toddler-hood. Maybe tomorrow will be better.