Friday night Aylett, Meghan & I had our (finally scheduled) dinner and drinks! Woo! We went to Shabu-Shabu, which I’d heard about, but hadn’t managed to visit yet. Mmmmmmmm! The restaurant has a Thai side and a Japanese side; we ate on the Japanese one. I had some fruity drink involving pineapple and vodka and midori, while Meghan and Aylett had something like a Bellini, but with pineapple juice thrown in the mix too. I ate some nummy little spring rolls (with crushed pineapple for dipping), some sushi and some tempura. Interesting concept on the tempura — you can order one piece (a single shrimp, for example, or three slices of sweet potato), which makes it easy to satisfy a craving without bingeing. All good there; must go again soon. (OK, one not-so-goodness: the trip-hop *really* started to wear on my nerves after a while.

Saturday I went to Diana’s baby shower, which was a very girlie affair — much fun & silly games. (I won the model-a-baby-out-of-clay contest!). The shower was at Nancy & Brad’s house, which I’ve been to once before. They have two small dogs that are of the theoretically hypoallerginic variety (husband is quite allergic to cats and dogs, but has no problem with these puppies, plus many articles on the web suggested that these are not the sneezy sort of dog.

Now I’m violently allergic to most furry/fuzzy things: cats, dogs, birds, llamas, sheep, you name it. Always have been, which is an ongoing source of distress for me. I’ve done allergy shots (two different rounds of them) and have tried every anti-allergy medicine on the planet to no avail. I really, really want a dog. (Remind me sometime to tell you about my Snoopy). So, I was hoping that I could spend some QT with the non-allergy-producing dog without reacting, which would bode well for me being able to have one of my own.

No dice. I had been holding Caroline (a Maltese for about 30 minutes, when I broke out in horrible, itchy hives. Interestingly, I only got hives where she’d licked me, though I suspect that I’d eventually get them anywhere she touched me. So, I washed off, applied the hydrocortisone (I had taken a Clarinex beforehand) and waited for the itching to stop. Ow. And darn. Jeff’s emailing a friend of his who had some miracle allergy doctor who made a super-special serum that for some reason works quickly (rather than the years of shots I’d have to take), so maybe there’s hope yet.

Meanwhile, I still want to find a hedgehog locally so I can see if I’m allergic to them (another theoretically hypoallergenic critter). Anyone know someone who has one?

Saturday evening, Jeff & I went to see Spellbound, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We were wondering afterwards how many of the kids they had to follow in order to get one (of the eight in the movie) actually be the winner. And how did they pick the ones they’d follow… seems rather like betting on horse races. Dinner after at Nantucket Cafe & Grill, where the clam chowder is surprisingly good. And it’s the right type of clam chowder, too (the red stuff is just plain wrong).

Then I had one of those terrible “OMG, my credit card isn’t in my wallet” things happen. Jeff was a trouper, and stayed calm and reassuring. He also remembered that I’d gotten gas that afternon and that I hadn’t been anywhere else save my car and my house (we were actually talking on the cell while I was pumping the gas about which movie to see). Well, we checked the car (no dice) and decided to swing by the gas station on the way home as a “oh well it can’t hurt” kind of thing. Some weird instinct made me say “Check the top of the pump” (though Jeff said he’d have looked there anyway), and guess what was there?!

Whee!!! Crisis averted! I figured out that I must’ve run out of hands while pumping the gas and dealing with the card and the phone and the pump, so I just put the card down on the nearest flat surface (had no pockets… girl clothes) — DUMMY!

This also led to the discussion of a realization I’d had not too much long ago: really organized people (like me) rarely lose things (because everything has its place) but when we do, we’re completely flummoxed; whereas people who lose (or more accurately, misplace) things all the time have much better search algorythms, and are therefore more likely to find things.

So, for anyone who’s interested, here’s a link to some of the photos from the recent trip to Europe I took with Jeff: Europe Trip ’03

This is just a few of the digital photos (I think I took about 600) and none of the “dead tree media” ones… still have to get those put up somewhere.

The trip itself was *fabulous* — one of those vacations where the worst thing about it was that it ended. Weather was great, bike worked out fine, food was *mmmmmmmmmmm*, met nice people — life is grand.