hot and jammy

Today was, on the whole, quite excellent, beginning and ending on particularly good notes. I had brunch with Shedletsky and Joanna at Samovar in Yerba Buena; even though it was cold and overcast outside, the inside was still lovely, and it was great to catch up with them since I hadn't seen Shedletsky since my birthday and Joanna for even longer. We had the requisite masala chais and a variety of foodstuffs, and seeing them reminding me how much I'm missing by embracing my hermitage.

However, I promptly forgot the lesson and came home to embrace my hermitage. I cleaned up around the apartment, cleaned my room, Swiffered up all my hair in anticipation of Adit's return, and painted my toenails. I also talked to my parents for over an hour, which was nice; I'm really looking forward to the holidays, and there are many things to plan in anticipation of that time. Then, I took care of myriad tasks, and took a brief nap in anticipation of my unusually late Sunday night. And, I read part of a book set in an alternate-reality Victorian London -- I'm trying to read more, which is working out almost too well given that I have hundreds of books on my to-be-read list and it's way too easy to read instead of write.

Due to the book, I was almost late picking Adit up from the airport; however, I retrieved him successfully, and we met up with Katrina for a 10pm dinner at Flour + Water. The place is apparently a complete scene on busy nights, but on a slow Sunday night with rain coming down and an uncharacteristically cold 45-degree temperature outside, the place felt cozy and charming. We had a great bottle of wine (it was described to us as 'hot and jammy', hence the title) and some of the best pasta I've ever had. My dish was a ravioli-type pocket pasta filled with ground pork and onions that reminded me a lot of pelminis, if I could have had pelminis in Ukraine that were made with top-notch ingredients and cooked perfectly instead of the versions we actually had, which (while tasty) were likely made with flour that had only recently had the rat feces sifted out of it and pork that was just this side of trichinosis.

sssanyway, it was lovely to see Adit after what feels like weeks without him around, since he and I only overlapped for a couple of days between when I left for Thanksgiving and now. It was also lovely to see Katrina, whom I hadn't see in ages, and generally a good time seemed to be had by all. Now, though, I really need to go to bed -- since it will likely rain two inches in the next twenty-four hours, my commute tomorrow morning will be brutal. It rains two inches in Iowa like every other day, but here the people aren't equipped to drive and the infrastructure is so bad that there are already patches showing up on the 511 traffic site that are apparently stop-and-go even though traffic at midnight on a Sunday should be perfectly clear. Ridiculous. So I'm getting up at six and getting my ass in the car before all hell breaks loose; wish me luck!