Mon 1 Jan 2007
We kicked off the new year with good friends Kimberly and Justin. For the record, we met them back when Kimberly was a wee 21 in the summer of 2000 when the four of us were living in Capitol Hill. We hit the streets of Seattle early enough for Josh to exchange his fancy snowboard pants for a different color. While browsing the racks of pants we found this incredible print and convinced Josh to model it for us:
Not to be outshopped by Josh, Kimberly and I really, really wanted these fold up ballet flats from Nine West to work for us. We tried them in various colors, parading up and down Macy’s, and yet we couldn’t get over how poorly constructed they were. Sure the little pouch that came with them was cute, and yeah, we were enthralled by the idea of wearing gold lame’. The shoes were split sole, something borrowed straight from the dancewear world, but they gouged our heels painfully.
Kimberly fought off her boot-obsession and did not purchase the giraffe print boots on sale for $300. We headed off to the legendary Crocodile Cafe in Belltown so we could take in a cheap performance from “Awesome” the band. I haven’t been to the Croc in probably six years, and it was the same old dive it’s always been. From the strange paper mache beehives hanging from the ceiling to the hideous bathrooms I once hid in as a way to sneak into over-21 shows. For some reason we began to act like a bunch of kids who have never played with a black light before: 
Josh even excitedly remarked, “WOW, I need to buy a black light now.”
We even took some time to take several “artsy” black light photos:
“Awesome” was truly magnificent, regalling the underage crowd with a nose flute solo and a cameo appearance of Sean Nelson from Harvey Danger. Here’s a nice picture of Kimberly and Justin at the show:
We returned home on the early side, having already decided to spend New Year’s in the comfort of our own home. We pulled out all the liquor we could find in our cabinets… it was a meek but effective selection:
I even broke my cardinal no-drinking rule by succumbing to a tasty gin martini with olives specially prepared by Kimberly. We ate a bowl of peanuts, appetizers from Trader Joe’s (including the incredibly sinful chocolate lava cakes), and drank. While reflecting on our New Year’s I realized we did a lot of this: 
and some of this: 
But mostly we just enjoyed each other’s company. Eventually a deck of cards came out and Kimberly and Josh tried to teach me (and Justin) how to play Texas Hold Em’. We became so engrossed in our card game that we narrowly made the count down. At one point Kimberly–quite inebriated at this point–said, “Do we CARE about the count down? Do we even want to bother with it?” I think she said this largely because she was kicking all of our asses in Texas Hold Em’. At any rate, we rushed to the TV right when the count down started, making the whole thing rather unimpressive. We did spend some time smooching our partners and toasting with some very nice champaign–the real deal not Cook’s sparkling wine.
This morning I awoke to hear Kimberly’s laughter: “Omigod, I’m still DRUNK, how did that happen?” We had brunch at the Broadway Grill, an old favorite from our Cap Hill Days and watched Josh install a stain glass lamp in our kitchen before Kimberly and Justin headed back out to Eugene. Josh and I are hanging out, dreading our return to work, and realizing that the week went by way too fast.