The weekend
I'm waiting for the dryer to finish a load and I hate going to bed and having to get back up before falling asleep, so I'm sitting at the dining room table writing this while I wait.
The rest of the tour was neat. The tour was fun and the weather held out pretty nicely. Dinner was sort of a train wreck at first but it was SO much fun. So Jon forgot to pack socks, and the rest of the weekend he didn't need them so then we went to get dressed up and he didn't have any. So we thought maybe we could stop at a store downtown on the way to dinner. Then there was no iron for his dress shirt and I couldn't find the innkeeper to ask for one so he wore his polo instead and I fretted about him being underdressed. All the stores downtown were closed at 5 (fucking tourist towns, right?!) so he went without socks, and his pants were long enough that you couldn't tell. Well then we got there for a 7pm reservation and it turns out I made the reservation for 7:30, so I felt like a doofus. We waited around and were eventually seated at a very nice table by the window. (It wasn't busy at all!) There were two spoons and two forks and two plates and wine glasses and goblets for water and we felt quite out of place! There was a lot of nervous laughter! The host/waiter was very nice but also sort of unnerving in his demeanor/professionalism/hoity-toitiness. Jon got a glass of Riesling and the guy did the whole "show you the bottle to approve, pour you a sip to try first" thing. Jon swirled and sniffed and slurped like a champ. :-) I wasn't going to have any because I don't normally like wine but it was actually really good so we just each got a glass instead of a whole bottle. So then there was a different guy who came out and actually explained the menu instead of a paper menu. We wanted to do the three-course but somehow got into the five-course and said ah what the hell. So we each had a soup (Lake Superior Chowder; French Onion), a salad (house Cobb with BACON VINAIGRETTE HOLY SHIT; bitter greens with blueberries, blue cheese, & candied pecans YEEEEEEAH!), sorbet (strawberry champagne), entree (rare bison steak OMG; champagne chicken), and dessert (raspberry cheesecake; creme brûlée). It was all very good. I should have gotten the bison steak too though...holy crap. Just...amazing. And I've never had creme brûlée before!
So then we went back to the hotel and took another Jacuzzi bath. All in all a VERY satisfying anniversary!
We decided to drive back via Duluth today (instead of rural Wisconsin highways like Saturday) so we stopped at the Grace for lunch and also went to Duluth Pack to buy Jon a gym bag. He's going in tomorrow to renew our gym membership, which died a lonely but understandable death after his surgery.
Speaking of which! We got the bill today for the surgery. It's under $300. I was SO worried that they were going to fuck us over somehow (it's new insurance) or that he wouldn't be covered as a dependent or whatever, or just that we would have a larger out-of-pocket amount (it's $3000 per person yearly). So just a few hundred is a mighty relief.
Back to work tomorrow. Shit's gonna get real. We're supposed to have the health inspection tomorrow at 11 but unless A LOT of work got done this weekend/today, it's not ready. I really hope it just stuns me when I get there tomorrow instead of having to scramble around tomorrow morning trying to get it together. I guess we'll see. I am unbelievably stressed out.
Oh, books! I got 'Earth Unaware' (OSC) and 'The Blind Watchmaker' (Dawkins) from the library Saturday before we left. I am nearly done with 'Earth Unaware'; it's super easy but it's also a story I've wanted to read since before it was published/I knew about it, so I'm pretty voracious. 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' is also on hold for me at the library as of yesterday.
Um...yeah.
G'night.
The rest of the tour was neat. The tour was fun and the weather held out pretty nicely. Dinner was sort of a train wreck at first but it was SO much fun. So Jon forgot to pack socks, and the rest of the weekend he didn't need them so then we went to get dressed up and he didn't have any. So we thought maybe we could stop at a store downtown on the way to dinner. Then there was no iron for his dress shirt and I couldn't find the innkeeper to ask for one so he wore his polo instead and I fretted about him being underdressed. All the stores downtown were closed at 5 (fucking tourist towns, right?!) so he went without socks, and his pants were long enough that you couldn't tell. Well then we got there for a 7pm reservation and it turns out I made the reservation for 7:30, so I felt like a doofus. We waited around and were eventually seated at a very nice table by the window. (It wasn't busy at all!) There were two spoons and two forks and two plates and wine glasses and goblets for water and we felt quite out of place! There was a lot of nervous laughter! The host/waiter was very nice but also sort of unnerving in his demeanor/professionalism/hoity-toitiness. Jon got a glass of Riesling and the guy did the whole "show you the bottle to approve, pour you a sip to try first" thing. Jon swirled and sniffed and slurped like a champ. :-) I wasn't going to have any because I don't normally like wine but it was actually really good so we just each got a glass instead of a whole bottle. So then there was a different guy who came out and actually explained the menu instead of a paper menu. We wanted to do the three-course but somehow got into the five-course and said ah what the hell. So we each had a soup (Lake Superior Chowder; French Onion), a salad (house Cobb with BACON VINAIGRETTE HOLY SHIT; bitter greens with blueberries, blue cheese, & candied pecans YEEEEEEAH!), sorbet (strawberry champagne), entree (rare bison steak OMG; champagne chicken), and dessert (raspberry cheesecake; creme brûlée). It was all very good. I should have gotten the bison steak too though...holy crap. Just...amazing. And I've never had creme brûlée before!
So then we went back to the hotel and took another Jacuzzi bath. All in all a VERY satisfying anniversary!
We decided to drive back via Duluth today (instead of rural Wisconsin highways like Saturday) so we stopped at the Grace for lunch and also went to Duluth Pack to buy Jon a gym bag. He's going in tomorrow to renew our gym membership, which died a lonely but understandable death after his surgery.
Speaking of which! We got the bill today for the surgery. It's under $300. I was SO worried that they were going to fuck us over somehow (it's new insurance) or that he wouldn't be covered as a dependent or whatever, or just that we would have a larger out-of-pocket amount (it's $3000 per person yearly). So just a few hundred is a mighty relief.
Back to work tomorrow. Shit's gonna get real. We're supposed to have the health inspection tomorrow at 11 but unless A LOT of work got done this weekend/today, it's not ready. I really hope it just stuns me when I get there tomorrow instead of having to scramble around tomorrow morning trying to get it together. I guess we'll see. I am unbelievably stressed out.
Oh, books! I got 'Earth Unaware' (OSC) and 'The Blind Watchmaker' (Dawkins) from the library Saturday before we left. I am nearly done with 'Earth Unaware'; it's super easy but it's also a story I've wanted to read since before it was published/I knew about it, so I'm pretty voracious. 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' is also on hold for me at the library as of yesterday.
Um...yeah.
G'night.