best weekend in a long time!

morganlf has come and gone, and it was so wonderful to get a chance to see her and hang out with people!! The last three weeks have been busy with work, but there hasn't been much to do outside of the office, so it was wonderful to have my best friend back, even if she's now off to Victoria for the week.

Some of the weekend highlights:

* Checking out cafes, antique shops, and used bookstores near the Junction in West Seattle -- The sheer number of used bookstores continues to amaze me. Being the bookaholic I am, I love it!

* Gardening! We have a small garden plot that I started the weekend I arrived here with a variety of lettuce and greens. Now we've expanded it to include four tomato varieties, three varieties of pepper, long neck squash, zucchini, kale, chard, basil, thyme, oregano, my transplanted mexican tarragon, sage, italian parsley, and cilantro! Whew. My lemon verbena plant that I moved from LA is coming back, and the baby bay trees are also doing fine. The syrah grapes? Not so much. I think the trip all but killed two of the three, and the third has only one green leaf left. Yikes. Still, not bad overall! And the new garden will be producing before too long, although just greens at first. I hope we have tomatoes by August....

* A late night mint-chocolate malt at the Luna Park Cafe -- OMG. So good. I think I would have liked a bit more malt powder, but wow. The cafe is really cute and kitschy as a kind of a 50s pastiche.

* Dim sum in the International District with jmpava and coraa -- Only my second time experiencing dim sum. Overall, it was really good. I love the rice noodle dumplings!

* Exploring Uwajimaya after dim sum -- I definitely have to go back here. The food selection is amazing; for example, they have three different types of kecap manis, my favorite type of soy sauce. Plus, I saw my first geoduck!

* A 5 mile walk around Lincoln Park with my babe! This wasn't supposed to be quite so far, but it was still fun.