BIG BIG RECAP UPDATE -- last week
I'm backdating this so as to emphasize the most recent two entries, about Relay and Dark Crystal. That is all. now, sit back a while.
David arrived Monday night. His flight landed before I even got to the airport, but the Arrival board said "on time" and never changed to "arrived," so I kept watching the exit from the inter-terminal train. We spent an hour and a half waiting for each other in the wrong places. I finally had him paged and we found each other while I was on the phone with Z freaking out.
We got to my place and he says, "Do you have a backyard?" We went outside in the 3am darkness and lay on the grass for a while until he crashed for real.
The next morning was spent strolling around Belmar, where we had to drop Dad so we got the car. He translated hieroglyphs on the MMA store's ancient Egyptian artifacts, and I dragged him all around the Whole Foods. We came home and spent some time looking at pictures. Midmorning we saw dark clouds over Morrison, so we scrapped Red Rocks. When it started to rain at the house, he again asked to go outside to experience clean rain. Then we cuddled up on the couch downstairs (just as promised for months) and watched Fraggle Rock. That night brought his first bout of impressing the hell out of the family, from his family's connections with Cesar Chavez to having taken a class with Tom Lehrer. That night, we watched Pan's Labyrinth with the fam and some of Z's friends.
The next day, we got to Dinosaur Ridge, Red Rocks and up I-70 as well. I took him to Good Times for lunch. I'm still waiting for the Best Picture Ever to be posted on facebook. I'll put it up here as soon as he does there. He and I were chatting as we approached the buffalo overlook until I stopped him: "Shh. Shhh, just look."
and Red Rocks:
In the evening, I showed him the first episode of Firefly rather than poker with Z and the kids. Fun times.
Thursday was Travel Day! After lunch at Chipotle, we ventured to the Coors brewery in Golden, and from there all the way up to Boulder. It took us much longer than expected to get to the Celestial Seasonings factory, and we missed the last tour by an hour but did still get to sample as many teas as we wanted.
He had an experience with the Vanilla Rose Decaf black tea. He gave it a sniff and said, "Wait, wait, this reminds me of something my mom used to cook when I was a kid." He couldn't put his finger on it, though. "It's got bread... DOUGH! And fruit." I thought, "Ooh, some Mexican dish his mom made when he was a kid. How exciting." He kept sniffing, but no dice. A full eight minutes later, he smelled the tea again and went "APPLE COBBLER! Cherry cobbler." I was surprised and amused.
After hanging at Celestial Seasonings for a while and each buying a box of the cherry cobbler tea (which only smells, not tastes, like cobbler), we headed to Pearl Street to browse. He bought chocolate. I partook. We browsed tons of bookstores, It's Your Move, and In the Air, which sells kites, toys, and kitsch. Then we hustled home, making it back by 8:45ish. By 9pm, we were on our way, totally snazzed out, to 240 Union (the local fancy restaurant) for an amazingly classy dinner. We sizzled with so much class that they didn't even card us. Other highlights included his steak and our creme brulee. I wore my strapless dress along with the shawl he brought me from Egypt, and he broke out the tailored suit. Awwwww yeah.
Friday was supposed to bring plans with Emma, but her phone died so we couldn't coordinate tea together. That didn't stop me from taking him to Burger Plus, where he had his first bacon in almost a year and a Scarlett Johansson-lookalike waitress with a huge hickey served us. With no word from Emma, we came back home to share more pictures. That's when I heard (and posted) about TCD.
We went downtown, then, for happy hour at Zengo (a fusion place I've talked about twice before). His first sushi since Thailand in March (and I got some pretty awesome reaction shots). Emma agreed to bring her David in a while, and to pass the time my David and I walked along the shore of Cherry Creek, finding awesome photo ops, new angles of the DCPA sculptures, and a trick photo I'm still waiting for.
From there, we made our way towards Fado to meet up with Emma and her David. We drank, we chatted, Em was blasted on two ciders, and she and I talked French while the Davids talked Middle East politics.
Friday night was David's last night here. My parents had said we'd have a TCD champagne toast when we got home, but they'd gone to bed by the time we got back (20 minutes after they said they'd be back) and the next morning they decided that this champagne was too classy to mix with orange juice for mimosas. It's still sitting in our fridge. Mom showed it to me in January as the champagne we'd open when I got into grad school. It's a good bottle.
David left on Saturday morning. We hit a long detour on the way to the airport, but he still got there with plenty of time to check in. A "ciao" and a kiss, and he was on his way. Regular LJing resumed from then.
David arrived Monday night. His flight landed before I even got to the airport, but the Arrival board said "on time" and never changed to "arrived," so I kept watching the exit from the inter-terminal train. We spent an hour and a half waiting for each other in the wrong places. I finally had him paged and we found each other while I was on the phone with Z freaking out.
We got to my place and he says, "Do you have a backyard?" We went outside in the 3am darkness and lay on the grass for a while until he crashed for real.
The next morning was spent strolling around Belmar, where we had to drop Dad so we got the car. He translated hieroglyphs on the MMA store's ancient Egyptian artifacts, and I dragged him all around the Whole Foods. We came home and spent some time looking at pictures. Midmorning we saw dark clouds over Morrison, so we scrapped Red Rocks. When it started to rain at the house, he again asked to go outside to experience clean rain. Then we cuddled up on the couch downstairs (just as promised for months) and watched Fraggle Rock. That night brought his first bout of impressing the hell out of the family, from his family's connections with Cesar Chavez to having taken a class with Tom Lehrer. That night, we watched Pan's Labyrinth with the fam and some of Z's friends.
The next day, we got to Dinosaur Ridge, Red Rocks and up I-70 as well. I took him to Good Times for lunch. I'm still waiting for the Best Picture Ever to be posted on facebook. I'll put it up here as soon as he does there. He and I were chatting as we approached the buffalo overlook until I stopped him: "Shh. Shhh, just look."
and Red Rocks:
In the evening, I showed him the first episode of Firefly rather than poker with Z and the kids. Fun times.
Thursday was Travel Day! After lunch at Chipotle, we ventured to the Coors brewery in Golden, and from there all the way up to Boulder. It took us much longer than expected to get to the Celestial Seasonings factory, and we missed the last tour by an hour but did still get to sample as many teas as we wanted.
He had an experience with the Vanilla Rose Decaf black tea. He gave it a sniff and said, "Wait, wait, this reminds me of something my mom used to cook when I was a kid." He couldn't put his finger on it, though. "It's got bread... DOUGH! And fruit." I thought, "Ooh, some Mexican dish his mom made when he was a kid. How exciting." He kept sniffing, but no dice. A full eight minutes later, he smelled the tea again and went "APPLE COBBLER! Cherry cobbler." I was surprised and amused.
After hanging at Celestial Seasonings for a while and each buying a box of the cherry cobbler tea (which only smells, not tastes, like cobbler), we headed to Pearl Street to browse. He bought chocolate. I partook. We browsed tons of bookstores, It's Your Move, and In the Air, which sells kites, toys, and kitsch. Then we hustled home, making it back by 8:45ish. By 9pm, we were on our way, totally snazzed out, to 240 Union (the local fancy restaurant) for an amazingly classy dinner. We sizzled with so much class that they didn't even card us. Other highlights included his steak and our creme brulee. I wore my strapless dress along with the shawl he brought me from Egypt, and he broke out the tailored suit. Awwwww yeah.
Friday was supposed to bring plans with Emma, but her phone died so we couldn't coordinate tea together. That didn't stop me from taking him to Burger Plus, where he had his first bacon in almost a year and a Scarlett Johansson-lookalike waitress with a huge hickey served us. With no word from Emma, we came back home to share more pictures. That's when I heard (and posted) about TCD.
We went downtown, then, for happy hour at Zengo (a fusion place I've talked about twice before). His first sushi since Thailand in March (and I got some pretty awesome reaction shots). Emma agreed to bring her David in a while, and to pass the time my David and I walked along the shore of Cherry Creek, finding awesome photo ops, new angles of the DCPA sculptures, and a trick photo I'm still waiting for.
From there, we made our way towards Fado to meet up with Emma and her David. We drank, we chatted, Em was blasted on two ciders, and she and I talked French while the Davids talked Middle East politics.
Friday night was David's last night here. My parents had said we'd have a TCD champagne toast when we got home, but they'd gone to bed by the time we got back (20 minutes after they said they'd be back) and the next morning they decided that this champagne was too classy to mix with orange juice for mimosas. It's still sitting in our fridge. Mom showed it to me in January as the champagne we'd open when I got into grad school. It's a good bottle.
David left on Saturday morning. We hit a long detour on the way to the airport, but he still got there with plenty of time to check in. A "ciao" and a kiss, and he was on his way. Regular LJing resumed from then.