onomatoblog

Alright, I am not going to actually review the place here, because that wouldn’t end well.

We (and by ‘we’, I mean at least half of the people at my workplace) all went for lunch at the opening day – perhaps, in retrospect, not the best of ideas. We arrived around noon, and waited a bit in line before ordering – but not too long, considering it was lunch hour. . I ordered an American style with veggie burger, a chocolate malt, and fries. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. I know it was opening day, I know they seemed to be short on staff, but over an hour for a burger? Not so much fun. Food was OK, worth the money if not the wait. I’ll wait a few weeks, have Kevin go back for lunch, and if he’s liking it, come back later. Then I’ll review.

But, like Joe says, there were free cookies. Albeit peanut.

Hooray for our bathroom!

No, honestly.

We have been wanting to un-yellow it for quite forever now. I would show pictures, but none quite made the horrible justice. It was a bad color to begin with, and a matte one that soaked up water and let go of pigment and looked terrible with just about everything. Said and done, Saturday morning we went to Daly’s for paint and that other, less pricy, place for buckets and trays and whatnot. Fortunately we had quite a bit of supplies left since last time – the price was upped a bit by having to buy whole extra quarts of the colours we have in the living room (and C2 isn’t cheap shit) for some very minor touch-ups, since that was the smallest size it came in. Oh well. Once the walls were scrubbed down and the industrial-strength fan Lucas had brought home from work was in place it was time for a very appreciated delivery pizza, and then the painting ensued.

I did the majority of the painting, with Lucas helping with running to get me thing and with the tallest parts. What surprises me is that it took three full coats to cover the yellow – white is normally the most opaque of pigments. I suppose it could have to do with the quality of the paint – the that I am comparing to C2 is one of the absolute better brands. In any case, our bathroom is now white and lovely, the floor is very dotted, but I want to do something about that anyway, and there’s enough paint to do the window sills in the living room if I really feel like it. Additionally, the touch-ups went smooth, which means that the dent in the hallway wall caused by me being upset at something (honestly, American walls! You’d think that in a wall vs. glass fight, the wall would win) is gone gone gone, and the lines around the accent wall are much smoother. Hooray for painting.

In conclusion, I’d like to give the following advice for to-be-homepainters:

  :: See if you can somehow get hold of a really strong fan- borrow, rent etc. It helps enormously with drying time and smell.
  :: Don’t be stingy with the tape – the blue stuff is really good, pay extra for it. Using the cheapo tape is not worth any money.
  :: Spackle will apparently kill you, so gloves, face mask, wet sandpapering. And do that extra round of spackle-and-sandpaper. It pays off (the kind with color-indication is good, too.)
  ::More layers. Don’t stop until it’s good enough.

Name: Pasta Bella
Location: On 15th Avenue and 59th St. in Ballard, Seattle.
Serves: Italian.

Location: ##
Eh. When one thinks of Ballard, one (I) think(s) of Market Street and historic Ballard Avenue, not five blocks off that, on 15th (and area I associate with being on my way somewhere else.) Nevertheless, people seem to find it, so it can’t be too bad.

Look and Feel: ####
Small and insignificant from the outside, nice and cozy on the inside – this place has it all, with the exception of the red-and-white tablecloths, when it comes to Italian dining. It’s the look of the outside, and the fact that we saw straight into a work area through an open door as we were waiting to be seated, that prevented it from reaching a five.

Service: ###
Seating was fast, despite it being a Friday night. The initial ordering was fast, but then we had to wait for rather a long time before we had the chance to order our entrées. There was also a significant wait while we tried to see the dessert menu, but I believe our waiter had some sort of hearing impediment , so he’ll be forgiven for not noticing when we tried to get his attention. The service we did get was polite and attendant, and we felt welcome.

Food: ######
Score! Granted, I rarely take chances with restaurants (I don’t have the financial means or patience), but this was very, very good. Even with a stomach ache, I enjoyed my pesto tortellini immensely. Lucas had a seafood capellini which, he claims, was very good (I sort of doubt I’d like it.) Not to mention the creme caramel we had for dessert… Prices are a few bucks over chain restaurants, but not a lot, and the difference in feeling and quality more than makes up for it.

Did people really have seventies mustaches in the Wild West, or do we just think so as a result of all the seventies’ westerns?

Oh dear me if it isn’t great to be home. Ballard smells like the ocean, you know. Seaweed, fish, salt and wind. The humid Washington air is quite welcome after five days in Helena, Montana, where Lucas’ family lives. Back when we were making wedding plans, we promised out (his) family that since they couldn’t come to our legal wedding, we were going to have another one, with family, cake and flowers – the deal, if small and without most of the traditional ridiculousness.

That happened this weekend.

After two days with almost a hundred degrees, Saturday came with thunder and rain, which fit us perfectly. We used our own rewritten version of ‘Til Derrida do us part and utterly confused all the guests (my dear Lucas has quite a lot of family on his dad’s side, and his maternal grandmother from New Mexico was up too. I had my mother, aunt and uncle, and the latter two insisted on inviting everyone to Germany, like they always do.) It was fun, though, except for the part where the heat and dryness make my normally quite oily skin dry as parchment – it wasn’t even a beauty issue, the dry skin was cracking despite frequent application of moisturizer, and it hurt. Bad.

In other news, I’ve started the job and it exceeds at awesome. More about that soon, I hope. And I guess I ought to rename Kevin in the link list. Also, a redesign is still very needed and on the list.

Oh.

Yeah.

A job :)

YAY!!!!!!

Plus impeding more posting here, due to life. It’s all good. I am going to go have my hair cut now.

I have one.

This is awesome in most ways.

Not, let’s hope SC still want me.

Dear Comcast,

me

Sigh. The never ending process with work permit has been prolonged- after I’ve been offered a job once it is through. I do hope the wait won’t prove disastrous, it’s a job I reallyreally want. Really. Really.

In other news, we still don’t have the couch we should had here by early March. However, at least now it’s in in production. The people in the store have been most accommodating, it’s not their fault that the factory are slowpokes. Unrelated, but still on the same line for no good reason, I finally installed some extensions for Firefox that makes Swedish easier – a spell check and inserters for å, ä and ö. It’s not all that relevant here, but it does make a difference for Tätortstimotej.

And I like cake.

Not much is new; Sweden still has dumb naming laws, which I wrote about here, I still don’t have my paperwork done, although the biometrics part is all set, which is good, and life does the proceeding thing.

Oh, and Lucas managed to get boiling water over his hand yesterday, which lead to a break in the blueberry cobbler (needed ice cream) for me, and two huge blisters and those funny fabric finger condoms for him. Seriously.

Don’t know why I bother with this place, really.

But! We might get the couch next week! This is worthy of celebration.