Friday - whatever adjective you want

Rainy Friday is more like it – it’s been steadily raining and windy today. I woke up just before 8, got the fire started, and headed in to town for Yoga. I was a little nervous because last night at dinner Rhonda said she’d gone and really disliked the teacher. This made me nervous because we’ve had two other teachers before and had the same feeling about them both – one we liked, one we didn’t. But I went anyway, and it was the same teacher from this summer and I like her. The class was very full – more and more people kept coming and squishing in – so you had to be careful when you were moving your arms and taking up lots of space not to also take out your neighbor. I practiced carefully and had a very nice time. It was mimosa day in Cannon Beach, so after class the teacher popped open some champagne and OJ, but I needed to get back to Rustlewood so I didn’t have any.

When I got back Dave and Tim were both up and the fire was roaring away. Dave was sitting on the porch watching the waves and rain. The porch would be a perfect place to do that, since it’s entirely closed in, except that it has these two small open places right under the roof, so it is a little chilly. I got changed and we went back in to town to meet Rhonda and Tracy at Bill’s. (I think two cars might have been a better idea – I wouldn’t have minded taking clothes to change into and staying in town). I feel about Bill’s the way Dave and Tim feel about Pig’n – I enjoy it well enough, but I wouldn’t mind skipping it either. The seasonal beer called “Yule Mule” was pretty good though – I enjoyed my glass and my burger.  Tim was there, but he was much happier taking the picture than being in it.

After lunch we went to Bruce’s for a little taffy, licorice wheels, and an assortment of salted licorice to take to work. I’m just addicted to the stuff. The Tim went to the car and Dave and I went to La Luna Loco where I got another pair of fabulous pants for half off. I would have gotten several pairs, but they didn’t have a very large selection of colors. The ones I got are very, very pink. Driving home through the heavy wind and rain we realized that the bolt that holds the pop top down had come loose again and the top was just being held down by the safety catch, so when we got back I opened the roof and screwed it back in. The final step involves hanging from the handle and putting your feet on the roof in front of the pop top and pushing with your feet while you’re upside down, an impressive gymnastics move that we did not get a picture of. And will not get a picture of.

When I got in Dave was restarting the fire, and we had a nice relaxing afternoon. Mostly relaxing – at one point all the downstairs smoke detectors went off. Tim and I were just going to sit there and let them make noise, but Dave actually got up and said we should get out of the house. In the rain, really? I was slowly gathering my things (laptop, shoes, a jacket, things like that) but by then the door Dave had opened had de-smoked the room and the alarms stopped going off. Then I opened the window by the table to let more smoke out (we hadn’t realized how smoky it had gotten), which was a mistake because all the wood in the house has swollen up in the humidity and it wasn’t clear we’d get it closed again. Then it was back to relaxing, except for a short time of helping the FGSC meet director figure out a problem with the Xmas meet.

About 2:30 the Irish Table called and said that they did not have room for us tonight. This made both me and Dave very crabby, because here’s what: there’s no good food in Cannon Beach that takes reservations and isn’t expensive. Newman’s, Stephanie Inn, Inn at Arch Cape – all very good, all spendy. Sweet Basil café, Castaway, Irish Table – all reasonably priced, no reservations. Gah. We finally decided to take our chances on Sweet Basil, where we haven’t been since they upscaled their menu (but will have to try for sure). So we texted Tracy, and then Dave grumped off to walk on the beach in the pouring rain and I grumped out to the front porch to do BodyFit day 4. Tim was already napping in his room. So I got about 2/3 of the way through my exercises before Dave got back. He was very wet but less crabby and went to get more firewood (we go through an amazing amount of it). While he was in the woodshed Irish Table called and said they had space for us at 5:30, which was about half an hour earlier than we wanted, but it is guaranteed good food. The conversation was a little difficult with Shawn, because I was panting a lot. Also when I lay down to stretch afterwards in the cool damp front porch steam was rising from my body. But it was all good. Dave got in touch with Tracy again and he was able to make the earlier time but said no more changes. We hope not.

Once we’d all warmed up (Dave) or cooled down (me) or woken up (Tim), there were showers all around and we headed to Irish Table. Dinner was very good, although maybe not quite as good as it has been in the past – the recipe for the broth for the curried mussels had definitely changed. Still, my favorite dinner so far. And the desserts were super yummy. Unfortunately since we had to eat a half hour early, we were left with an awkward amount of time between when we got done and when the show started. We headed back to the house, then back into town. Fortunately the rain had slowed down so the driving wasn’t too bad.

The reason we went to see Scrooge, aside from the part where we really like the story, is that Rhonda plays the piano in it. We’d never been inside the Coaster theater before, and it’s smaller than I thought, but very comfortable. We had nice seats in the middle, and when the lights went down it turned out we could see Rhonda through the scrim, so that was fun. But I have to take a moment to talk about this particular adaptation, which is an adaptation of the 1970 movie starring Albert Finney, which is of course an adaptation of Dickens’ famous book. The interpretation in the movie with all the singing and dancing was strange enough, but this version added on a whole other layer of weirdness, including a scene where Marley comes back and tells Scrooge that his chain isn’t ready because they had to hire extra devils to work on it. That being said, it was a totally enjoyable show with some very funny and also some very touching moments, and we all had a good time. Well, Dave and I did. Tim was bemused by much of it, particularly the dancing phantoms. I can feel a new tradition coming on.

We didn’t get home until after 10:30, but decided to make a fire anyway while we got caught up on our evening. One thing about the giant fireplace is that it makes us all just want to sit and stare at it, so we haven’t played any games and only Dave has flown his helicopter. It’s worse than TV!