May 3, 2000

Today would be a busy day. First off, I had a doctor's appointment. No biggie really, it's a regular thing, but it's something that I have to keep my mind on, otherwise I'd forget.

I also had dinner plans tonight. I had plans to have dinner with Pam, Jenna, and her friend. We would be having dinner at one of my favorite Indian restaurants, Shamiana. The plan was meet back at my place around 7:30pm or so. This means that I would be going to pick up Pam at her place sometime around 7pm.

Okay, at this point, you might have noticed a couple of things. First, I live about five minutes from where I work. Second, I'm going to pick her up. Pam seems to have developed this rather strong aversion to driving, particularly in the highway. We've been together for a number of months now, and I have yet to seen her drive. No kidding. She has a car; I've driven it. She just doesn't want to drive. Strange.

Meanwhile, I'm doing all of the driving. It's not that bad really… I like driving. However there's driving and there's dealing the Seattle population who to-this-day still don't know how to properly merge. It's a bit of a strange affliction, really.

Tonight would not be an exception. I was starting to drive across the 520 expressway, and found out almost immediately that it was congested. I don't mean the typical run of the mill congested, I'm talking about not moving congested. I decided to take a detour to I-90, which runs parallel to 520, although it does so a bit south. I'd have to double back a little bit, but with this traffic…

I got to Pam's right about on time. She needed a couple of more minutes, but we were then on our way. We decided to drive her SUV, the one with the expired plates. Why? Call me a wildman. I still haven't put the stickers on my plates, which now read as two months expired. I'm such a rebel! The drive from Seattle to the Eastside is pretty tame comparatively. We made it back to my place on time.

I introduced my girlfriend to Jenna and her friend. Naturally, Pam knew that I was having a houseguest, and that it is someone I had just met a couple of days ago. We all exchanged greetings and hanged out for a few minutes. We were pretty hungry though and we left pretty quickly.

We decided to drive Pam's car, expired plates and all. This naturally made Pam a little nervous, but the trip was relatively short. There were no less than three police cars in the parking lot to the restaurant. I was very amused. No, we didn't get a ticket.

The food at Shamiana is exceptional as it always it. I get what I always get, the Major Grey Chicken Curry. It is an excellent dish… Really! I can't recommend it enough. What I wasn't quite expecting is for everyone else to get the same thing, but everyone did. We also got the vegetable samosas, and the standard naan (bread) and pulao (rice).

During dinner, we talked about how we all met. I met Pam on the web actually. No, it wasn't the personals or a chat room. She just wandered into my site one day and we started exchanging mail. We met one day… dated for a while… and now we're an item. Jenna and her friend met online as well, but under different circumstances, the details of which I'll carefully avoid. [Ha!]

Naturally, Pam and I finished dinner with their coconut ice cream pie, which is also exceptional. I'm not sure which one I'd recommend more, but they're both rank very high on my list. Jenna and her friend elected not not have dessert; they even agree on disliking coconut.

Blasphemy!

May 3, 2000