I make myself giggle. I’m going on and on in my last post about missing 5 days, and then I don’t post for almost two months. A little cheese with that whine, Mr. Moment?

Where have I been? Well, I’ve been hard at work avoiding anything that occured to me like extra drudgery, which includes housework, cleaning up my desk, exercising, and posting to my blog. For the last month I’ve been working on just cleaning up my projects and watching Buffy/Angel episodes wherever humanly possible. Those two things take up more time than you’d realize. Add to that cooking all of our meals in-house (we usually go out to eat all the time) and helping Janece here and there with Amira, and it’s pretty much a full slate. I did do a couple of cool things, tho.

Eric, my friend and work partner in Trivekta, and 3 of his relations came up on a West Coast power stint following Porcupine Tree for three or four shows. They stayed a weekend here and followed the band down to Portland, and then San Fransisco. It sounded like a succesful week-long pilgrimage. I went to the PT show with them here in Seattle at the Croc. The band is tight, and their songs creep into your head, but I find it hard to fully embrace their nouveau-Pink-Floyd progressive vibe. I’d say they’re great in a mix, but a touch too much all in one go. But it was cool to catch a show — probably the first in 4+ years — and meet the band in their bus afterwards (which we got to do since Eric and co. built and maintain their web site). We also went to Thai Bistro in Mill Creek (recommended) and The Rock (wood-fired pizza and good beer, also recommended).

I also actually went on a hike for the first time in ages. Janece, Amira, Ris (Janece’s cousin’s wife) and I went on a hike Ris found in the Seattle Times’ Outdoors section. The hike was a “hike of the week” pick, and it’s to Lake Dorothy, the first lake in a series of lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness near Stevens Pass. It’s a steep hike, but short — 800+ elevation gain in 1.5 miles. It’s a very well-kept trail with a lot of man-made steps and other pieces, as well as a bridge in the middle of the hike that lets you pause and enjoy the view of three streams running together to form the east fork of the Miller River. It was a cloudy/rainy day, but we hit the bridge right at a sunbreak which made the view even more beautiful. Lake Dorothy is also really picturesque, even in the rain, and we were up high enough that we were watching clouds drift past the peaks and right over the lake. We took the dogs — Tova and Ris’ two beagles — and they had a great time playing trail leaders. Amira was great, too. We toted her in the Baby Bjorn and she did famously — only fussing a little at Lake Dorothy towards the end of our time there and a little on the way back because she was hungry. The only difficult thing about carrying here was that on the way down, I was trying to navigate the steep drop that was muddy and wet, trying to not to hit any slick roots and what not, while trying to see the trail past her little head right in my line of sight. But we did fine. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and looking heart-breakingly beautiful. I also did pretty well for a fat-assed web designer who hasn’t excercised in months. I wasn’t even sore. All in all, a great time and I’m looking forward to the next jaunt.

Oh yeah, and I’m also going back to church to be a worship leader. But more on that in my next post.