use real butter

I’m in, you guessed it, Silicon Valley. I’m visiting with Elena and my grandma, which is kind of fun since I get to chill out with two people I really love and care about. Elena picked me up from the airport last night and we had 45 minutes to spend her birthday together. We talked until 2 am, in the dark, just sharing lots of thoughts and stories. That was pretty special.

This morning we picked up some coffee for grandma and went over to her place. For lunch, we had sushi at Umi Sushi – they remembered me and Grandma from the last time Jeremy and I took her there in December! The wife of the owner said she remembered us and that her husband (the head chef) was coming to work any minute to prepare our order (instead of letting the other chef do it). We felt so special. He loaded our order with such generous portions and special kinds of fish that we couldn’t finish all of the food (unheard of for me and Elena when it comes to sushi!). At the end of the meal, he asked if he could see the iphone – hee hee.

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Don’t ever count on purchasing a new electronic gadget and getting to bed by a reasonable hour that same night. Won’t happen in our house anyway. Jeremy was noodling with the iphone while I gathered information for our trip to Seattle and before we knew it, midnight was fast approaching by the time we were done packing. Not a big deal, getting to bed at midnight, except we had to get on the road in three and a half hours. Oy!

The drive to the airport and subsequent zombie walk through security went off without a hitch, hurrah! I was planning to get about 2 more hours of sleep on the flight, but I was seated next to a talker – a very friendly talker at that – but a talker nonetheless. Jeremy admonished me in the car on the way to Tacoma that I should have shut down the conversation to get a nap, “You’re very good at that, I’m surprised you didn’t.” Yeah, I couldn’t find it to shut this woman off though, she was so nice and knew so much about both Boulder and Seattle. Besides, she wanted to know why there were volcanoes in the Pacific NW, and I can’t pass up an opportunity to turn someone on to science!

We drove to Tacoma because I had been wanting to see Chihuly’s work for a few years now. Remember that I, the parrot, am dazzled by bright, colorful objects – particularly glass. That would be Chihuly. I dragged Jeremy to Tacoma to see the Bridge of Glass and then the Museum of Glass. We got there a little before the museum opened.

Drizzle came down steadily as we made our way into the fog on a familiar route. We were hiking Echo Mountain, the trail behind our old house in Altadena that we used to do twice a week. I know that trail better than any trail… every turn and hill and switchback and even where certain plants bloomed. We were supposed to go with Ro, but the poor thing has been exhausting herself working like a madwoman on research, wedding, moving, in addition to the daily stresses of being an OCD. She slept through her alarm and decided she needed to sleep. So after our hike, we met Ro at a local coffeehouse to chat and juice ourselves up. It’s important to get QT with your pals.

When we arrived at Melinda’s house, the door swung open with Kevin and Thomas shouting out of unison, “Jennifer! Germany!” Kevin gave me a big hug and Thomas played coy. Aaron was getting BBQ from the doctor (Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas BBQ). We enjoyed an energetic lunch and then moved to the backyard for Easter projects.

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