In Which I Do A Lot Of Stuff I've Done Before But Never Seem To Tire Of

I know you all have probably seen enough lattes here to last a lifetime, but I just loved this one. If you've been watching my Flickr page, you know that Josey made it, and if you have been talking to me lately, you know that Josey is the latest addition to the long list of Baristas I Love. Every time I go into the Ballard Fiore, Josey says something quotable or does or wears something that I want to take a picture of. One day I'll write a post about him and tell you what he told me about the secret to love. It was good, I promise.

Today is one of those days when I am sitting down at the computer without any particular idea of what I'm going to blog about. I'm feeling all satiated as a result of my good weekend, and I could write about all that, but... well, maybe I will, a little. But then that would mean....

... posting another Sambar photo. Isn't Jay lucky? I bring him so many lovely ladies. These two, Lisa and Kathleen, definitely deserve their 15 minutes of fame. Way back in the day, we were in a book club together. Sort-of. They denied that the first book I read for that club could have been Harry Potter #1, but they did confess to remembering the time we read Valley of the Dolls. Good stuff. I was bummed that we abandoned the "book" part of the club before we got around to The Happy Hooker (and I'm not talking about crochet here, people). Come on, you know that's gotta be good, in its way. But yeah, we did abandon the books and briefly became "food and wine club", until we went camping (once) and became "camping club" and then we were all taking a lot of snapshots on that trip so we became "modeling club" and then it was just "club club". Mostly, though, it was just hilarity club, because we really did manage to crack each other up.

Which is pretty much what we did on Friday night, from the time Sambar opened at 5:30, until we bid each other farewell as Jay closed the door on the night.

We didn't actually spend the entire time at Sambar, we made a lot of side trips, met up with Lisa's friends and checked out Andrew's bar, Liberty. We all (predictably) liked Liberty, where Lisa and her entourage have given excellent secret nicknames to all the bartenders (I'm so not telling!) and if that was my neighborhood, it might be my official neighborhood bar. As it is, I'm going to reserve it for a secret getaway and Lisa stalking site and hope that one night I can get our old CapHi buddies out for some pre-basement-karaoke cocktails. I have a feeling I'm going to sing a lot better after a Liberty Fizz or two.

Love their little tea set-ups at Miro, a candle to warm the pot!

But I digress. I did branch out a little more on Saturday night, uh, AFTER I didn't branch out by going to Thaiku for dinner. The paint your own pottery place in Ballard has turned into a swanky teahouse called Miro Tea. It's pretty big space considering it's all about the tea, and that worries me a little, see, they also have crepes, and I really want the crepes to stay. Seattle folks need to help a girl out - go eat some crepes and keep the place in business.

Sunday was another habitual day. My friend Evan and I have been "writing" (aka gossiping about ourselves to each other) at Fiore on Sundays, which is extremely pleasant, I mean look at him:

Which photo do you think is prettier?

Sweet, tall, handsome, funny and mischevious. This photo doesn't do him justice, you can't see his cute dimples or get a sense for his raw animal magnetism. I think he'd look good on the cover of a romance novel. Hey 20-something Seattle girls! He's single too! Lucky for everyone he's ten years too young for me, otherwise I'd be fightin for him. I'm sure Perrin would love for me to tell you that you can find Evan serving up Radiant Flowers and Yohitos at Thaiku's bar, Fu Kun Wu, a few nights a week. That's where I found him, talent scout that I am.

That's the weekend report. Now, Ali, where the heck have you been?