Thursday, April 10, 2003
It's Patrick's birthday! We started celebrating last Saturday by going to Kabuki Springs. Today we go to dinner at 2223 Market. And this coming Saturday we spend the morning having brunch at Harbor Village with friends, then a party at Jamie's in the evening. Double-backed up then upgraded Joel's computer to Windows XP to resolve problems with the character letterforms appearing too sharp and jagged after he switched from a CRT monitor to a digital LCD flat panel monitor. He absolutely loves it! Lunch with Joel and Ena at Crepevine. I had the Florentine—a spinach crepe, Ena had a big salad, Joel had the Santa Rosa scramble. Delicious! Finished a lot of Style Guide work. Dinner at 2223 was a fine experience. Our server's name was Todd, who was pleasant and made us feel welcome. The server's assistants were particularly efficient. Patrick started with a hearts of romaine salad. We had fizzy water (a bottle for $6.50?!) and Patrick had a glass of white wine. For entrees, Patrick had a seafood sampler (shrimp, mussels, and I don't know what else), and I had free-range chicken over mashed potatoes and under a towering stack of onion rings with a side of green beans. The gravy in this dish is particularly tasty and mouth-watering. The chicken was cooked perfectly. For dessert we shared a slice of moist German chocolate cake with coconut cream, Patrick had a cup of coffee. The bill came to $67 before a $10 tip. The entire experience was great save that the restaurant tends to be quite noisy from all the people talking. We were quite tired after and rode the Muni home. During the day, Patrick had spoken with Mitchell and is reconsidering St. Martin's Press now. Sam and Dianne gave Patrick some birthday gifts: From Dianne: a $30 gift card to Barnes and Noble. From Sam: a martial arts DVD called Arhats in Fury, a cloth condom for Patrick's Shao-Lin sword, and a book called Karate II by Goju-Ryu. When we got home after dinner, Patrick opened the gift I got him: the book called All About Us by Philipp Keel, wrapped in pear wrapping paper that I made myself! We got birthday greetings on the answering machine from Patrick's mom, his brother Carey, and his brother Terry.