Last night Joshy and I drove to downtown Seattle in the crisp cold air to a lovely Italian restaurant for my old old old old old old friend Christy’s birthday party. The parking garage was packed–we had to park on the 7th floor and there was no elevator, so poor Josh had to hoof it down (and later up) seven flights of stairs after running 30 miles earlier in the day. Good thing he is full of stromph.

Completely unplanned, the birthday girl and I both had on matching outfits: black and gold dresses with gold accessories, black tights and black knee-high boots. Our hair was even parted on the same side. Twinsies!

Josh said, “Some girls would be offended by a guest at their party dressed exactly like them,” but Christy seemed delighted. We also both had glitter all over our eyelids. I mean, why mess with something good?

The party consisted of several people Christy had met recently through meet-ups, some people she knew from the school she teaches at, as well as some REALLY old party kids that I hadn’t seen in years: Devin and Billy. Josh and I met Devin’s new girlfriend Holly, who was 100% charming and adorable. I completely understand why Devin is moving to Tacoma to live with her and her two children. I would!

What a cutie! Christy had a bit of a rough start when she first moved to Seattle (as did I), but she has adjusted now and is doing great. She was positively glowing last night.

The food was decadent–I had gnocchi with a Gorgonzola cream sauce and couldn’t even finish the small serving, and two glasses of “bar” ginger ale. Josh had some sort of seafood pasta and his favorite drinky-poo, the Old Fashioned. We both turned down dessert, although I suspect the dessert would have been tasty. My gift to Christy was a floral teal and green porcelain muffin pan, which I told her I would happy to keep if she didn’t like it. She liked it!

One of the restaurant employees stood on a bucket to take these two group shots. He wasn’t particularly stoked to take more than one, but Christy was persuasive. Her camera failed so we used mine instead.

There’s no way my iphone 4 could have handled these low light conditions–this would have been a very beautiful schmear!

Happy birthday girl!

All in all, downtown Seattle this time of year with all the Christmas lights everywhere (when it’s not pouring rain) is a really magical sight, the food was delicious, it was nice catching up with old friends, and I always enjoy spending time with Christy. We should just hang out MORE. What’s the point of having friends live near you if you never hang out, right? Right.

Now! Time for me to think about making dinner. We spent all day today doing some things that were 0% fun, like cleaning the refrigerator/stove/microwave at the old house (I don’t even want to talk about all the dog hair that was in that refrigerator…the horror, the horror), going to Lowe’s for house supplies (that was 34% fun) and then going to the grocery store for flank steak for tomorrow night’s steak fajitas (23% fun, but I did buy some chocolate). We’ve been so busy lately we promised ourselves tomorrow night we aren’t going to do ANYTHING: “Do Nothing After Work Monday“, and I am looking forward to it!