A better Valentine’s Day than I am used to

February 17, 2005

I had a grand old plan last week to post every day using the name of the day in the post title (Super Monday, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, etc.), but Thursday night as I was lying in bed drifting off to sleep I realized I’d screwed up and not posted that day. Probably for the better–all I could think of for that day was “Thirsty Thursday” and that particular event won’t be happening for a good four or five months when the baseball season starts up again.

Erika has expressed a bit of dismay at my plans to take her to a baseball game or three this summer, though I think she’ll see how much fun they can actually be. I’m fairly certain that most, if not all, of her experience with baseball comes from the television, and let’s face it, unless you’re truly interested in the teams or the game, baseball is pretty damn boring on TV. But once you’re sitting in a crowd of 10,000 people (more at a pro game) with the sun shining on the field, a hot dog in your stomach, and a beer in hand, the game gets a lot more interesting. There’s just something about the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd that’s incredible to be around. Those warm summer nights are always fantastic. Since my office will be right downtown, it will be a cinch to get there, and I’ll probably end up going to more than a few games this summer. Hey, at $10 a pop, it’s a good deal as far as entertainment goes. Adding in food always adds a bit more, but the Goose Hollow Inn with its great beer selection, excellent pizza and sandwiches, and abysmal service is just up the street. Plus they have an outdoor deck, and in the summertime if you can find a seat it’s a nice place to relax.

Valentine’s Day for me has always had a certain understated value, both for me as a person and for society as a whole. Every year I bitch about it on my site one way or another, so I shouldn’t disappoint. I’ll keep it brief, though.

1) It’s a contrived holiday that the greeting card and chocolate companies use to pull themselves out of the post-Christmas doldrums.

2) It’s a sorry excuse for people to make up for a year of doing nothing for their significant other by thinking that one night will make things better.

3) Despite the fact that we all recognize both of those, we fall prey to the “I’m alone on Valentine’s Day” or “Thank goodness I’m with someone on Valentine’s Day” crap.

See? All better. Because I’m not much one for the holiday, I’m typically loathe to celebrate it in traditional fashions, though I made sure that Erika and I had a good night nonetheless, violating #3 above. No matter how much I loathe the day, I still fall victim to its rosy-red hooks Since it fell on a Monday, we celebrated it last Saturday instead so that we wouldn’t have to get up early the next morning, and that worked out just fine. She came over Saturday evening and I made her a nice dinner of rock cornish game hen, wild rice, and steamed broccoli. and we had some good white wine. We dined, we talked, we ate a lot of food. Flowers were given, chocolates were received, and all in all, I’d say it was probably the most memorable Valentine’s Day that I’ve had in years. Last year I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d done something for Valentine’s Day and Heather D. had to remind me that I’d done something for her when we were dating in college. Eh. I didn’t remember it then, and I don’t remember it now, so it can’t have been that memorable. Even looking in past years of my blog provided no help to what I actually did.

On the actual day of Valentine’s Day, Erika took me out to eat since I’d made her a nice dinner on Saturday, and so we visited the Bridgepot Ale House over in SW Portland. The Bridgeport Brewery I frequent so often in the Pearl District is closed for renovations, but they also run an actual restaurant across the river, and since I’d missed out on a dinner with her and her parents there last week when I was tired and not feeling so well, she offered to go back with me knowing how much I like their beer and pizza. So I ended up having one of their pizzas, and I made sure to take notes–instead of tomato sauce, it had a garlic oil sauce, then it was topped with cheese, pepperoni, ham, and pepper bacon. I could have done without the ham and bacon, but it was extraordinarily yummy anyway. Combined with the fact that they had a special going on pints of their IPA that I like so much, I was in (no pun intended given the toppings of the pizza) hog heaven. Erika sure knows what buttons to push with me–pizza and beer. I guess the old saying IS true, that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

She also gave me Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow on DVD. She said she had to go to three different stores to find a widescreen copy of it for me. And what did I do for her? Just made her dinner? Ug. I hate being shown up. That must be rectified.

Last Friday I went with Erika and her roommate out to dinner at a Mexican food place they both liked, and while the food itself was sort of generic, I washed it down with a couple of margaritas that had way too much ice. Besides, the company was good, and I geuss that’s what really matters. Erika’s roommate is coming off a bad breakup and so it’s good for her to get out, and since Erika and I spend so much time together during the week and weekends, I’m happy to share her with, you know, the person she actually lives with. After dinner, we headed over to the Bagdad Theater and saw a second-run show of The Incredibles. What a great theater.

This week has flown by, thankfully. It began with a discovery that I didn’t get paid on Monday as I thought I would, and instead ended this pay period with $5.24 in my checking account. Methinks I’m cutting things a bit too close to the bone for comfort. I’ll see what I can do this next paycheck to ease up on the spending. I still owe my Dad $50 to pay for half his TiVo that I pledged for his birthday. I think he’s enjoying it, though. I set it up to record every episode of “Perry Mason” every day, so he’ll always have something to watch either when he’s working with pictures or records after work, or when he’s awake at 3:30 AM.

Work is going well, though I’m sort of in a slump and a period of time when my current projects are ending and I’m waiting for something different and interesting. I feel like I’ve been working on this current project forever, though thinking back, I guess it has been about three months now, almost exclusively. Our plans to move have been mostly finalized, and it looks like we’ll be moving in mid-April. I haven’t seen the office yet, but my boss said that we’ll probably be taking a day to go look at the new office before we get settled in. I’m looking forward to a change in scenery, that’s for sure. I really dislike this part of town. My office is about a quarter-mile off I-5, right on a busy road at the back of one of those generic business parks that you see everywhere. We’re right next to train tracks, and so we get trains rumbling past on a regular basis blowing their whistles, and regularly I see…unsavory characters…that I can only assume have debarked from a train. As far as food goes, my selections are fairly limited within walking distance, consiting of Subway, Teriyaki Express, Burgerville, and a Mexican food place that’s sit-down. A little further away, there’s Big Town Hero. Driving distance there are a lot more places, but I don’t like driving somewhere for lunch unless I’m either meeting soemone or grabbing the SW Chicken Fajita sandwich from Big Town Hero that has a tendency to soak through the bread if I don’t get it back fairly quickly. Downtown, I’ll have dozens and dozens of additional choices, not to mention places to stay after work and grab a beer or some dinner. As it stands now, I usually like to take a 30-minute lunch and get out of here as quickly as possible so that I can avoid traffic on 217, not to mention that I’d like to get back to a part of town where there are things to do. Being downtown and taking MAX home means that I can avoid all that.

That’s coming up in April. I’m looking forward to it a lot, especially with a free transit pass to save me a bundle on gas. I’ll cut down on at least 100 miles/week in driving, and since my car goes about 250 miles on a tank of gas with primarily driving to and from work, I’ll save quite a bit of money.

So that’s about where I stand for the time being. I’m still playing Star Wars Galaxies, though I’ve managed to find time both for playing and spending time with my girlfriend. I haven’t jogged in a couple of weeks, though…perhaps I should do that today.

Posted in Beer, Beloit, Erika, Food, Geekery, General, Movies, Work