Grind Grind Grind

I'm a grinder. A tooth grinder that is. I first learned that I grind my teeth at night when I went to college and had a roommate for the first time. Anna used to tell me how she would wake up to the really large crunching sound, as if "I were chewing on marbles". Eeks. Strangely, I never really realized it. I never woke up with soreness around my jaw nor felt my teeth really rubbed (although a cavity here or there suspiciously may be a result of my grinding). I spoke to my dentist about it recently---and today, I picked up my custom-made night mouth guard, which is a hard plastic mold fit perfectly to my mouth so that when I grind at night, I grind against plastic instead of my own teeth. I'll be sleeping with it for the first time tonight. Hmmm. I found an interesting thread online about the use of night mouth guards---I guess bruxism (the acto of grinding one's teeth) is a more common issue than I realized.

Review: Veil Restaurant

I forgot to mention that Matt and I checked out the Veil Restaurant in Queen Anne Saturday night. First impressions upon walking in: very chichi, very Bada Lounge like, slightly reminiscent of the decor at Crush with all white tables and seats. We had made reservations for 9pm and walked in right on time but had to wait in the lounge (which looked very nice). Although the cocktails we drank while waiting were yummy, we still waited half an hour---the good news is that the host was apologetic and comp'ed our drinks. To start for appetizers, Matt got some diver sea scallops while I tried the foie gras w/bing cherries, which literally melted in my mouth. This is how good it was: Matt doesn't like foie gras. He liked this foie gras. For an entree, Matt and I both got halibut served with this interesting cous cous with lobster side which was absolutely delicious. Finally, for dessert, we shared their salted peanut butter ice cream, which is to die for. If anything, come to Veil for a drink in their lounge and snack on this ice cream. Matt and I left very satisfied, impressed by the food and very happy with the service. We highly recommend it.

"Turn Around, Don't Drown"

I woke up this morning to hear the radio DJ saying "Turn Around, Don't Drown". I'm in Houston, TX where I arrived super late last night to torrential rainfall---and I mean TORRENTIAL. Like, I haven't seen this sort of rain since a tornado was nearby in Kansas. I checked into my hotel and kept waking up to the pounding of the rain against the window. In the morning, I found out that parts of Houston was flooded and some of the major highways were closed off. I heard that at one point, an inch of rain fell in 11 minutes. Sheesh--that tells you how hard and fast this rain was coming down. Unfortunately, half of the people we came to meet (I'm on a customer site visit for MS) had to postpone today because they either couldn't make it into work with the highways or their homes were flooded and, well, prioritized that over meeting with a bunch of mobility people from Microsoft.

Off to the South!

I leave for Houston in a couple hours for a business trip (my first with Microsoft!) to visit one of our customers/partners and conduct a mobility usability study. It looks hot in Houston---like upper 80's/90's everyday. I'm not looking forward to the flight over---7 hours long as I go through Phoenix (a direct flight was way out of MS policy). Will be arriving late tonight at 11pm. I'll be back in Seattle on Wednesday!

Who wants an Ikea doormat?

Someone stole my cheap Ikea doormat at my condo. Bastards. How random is that?

One of my favorite reality cooking shows is back, Hell's Kitchen.

And I have to admit, although I had absolutely no interest in it the first time around, I'm starting to really like So You Think You Can Dance?. It's really amazing to see a trained swing dancer shakin' his booty to hip hop...or a popper attempt the Viennese Waltz.

busy busy busy

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've been busy either with work (got slammed after returning from Portugal) or crazy wedding planning. I've been talking to my mom almost every night---which is insanely frequent. Matt and I have now visited NINE potential wedding sites in the Seattle area...and the good news is that we think we still like the first one we visited (Newcastle). Our main goal is to have both the ceremony and reception at the same place...and a lot of places we've seen are either awesome ceremony sites (i.e. Woodmark Hotel) or awesome reception sites (i.e. Fairmont). We have about another week with the contract from Newcastle to make a decision.

Otherwise, Matt's friend, Tom Frank, is in town visiting from San Francisco for a wedding---he's going to be one of Matt's groomsmen. That's one thing that Matt's way ahead of me on: deciding on his set of groomsmen. He's already asked all of them except for 2---Brad, the guy who introduced us back in 2001, is going to be the Best Man. I don't know when I'm going to come up with my bridal party at all. Ack.

Some fun news: the new bellydancing troupe that I'm in, Nomaditude, had its debut performance at the Hafla Durga last night up at the Phinney Ridge Community Center, dancing to Groove Armada. I think the performance went really well and we were all psyched. This new troupe formed while I was in Portugal and it's made up of select dancers from Sharon Moore's intermediate class. I'm really psyched about actually being able to perform on a regular basis (the previous troupe, Shaia Tribe, seemed to only get together to perform once a year at the Phinney Ridge Winter Festival). Our next performance is supposed to be at one of the Pacific Northwest's largest bellydance festivals, MedFest. Yay!

wedding planning begins...

This last weekend was the first time that Matt and I took a tour of potential wedding sites. I've learned that Seattle brides plan WAY ahead of time and start booking places MORE than a year in advance. We saw Newcastle, Willows Lodge and the Columbia Winery---of those, we totally fell in love with Newcastle. We'll probably see a few more places this week and hopefully we can book a place soon!

After wedding site shopping, since we were at Willows Lodge, we grabbed a dinner at the Red Hook Brewery (yum!) and then hopped over to Marymoore Park to see Cirque du Soleil's Varekai show---as always, I totally enjoyed it and loved seeing all the acrobatic acts.

Tonight, I went to the High Dive bar in Fremont with Jigna and Asayo to check out Infusion Tribal for the Pyramid Lounge--an evening chock full of bellydancing! It was great seeing everyone as I've been out of commission for bellydancing for over a month! (so strange!) I haven't taken classes since before I left for Portugal....and ha, I've got a performance this weekend (with the new troupe that I'm a part of, Nomaditude). First rehearsal (for me) is this Thursday. Eeks!