Last night was exactly what I needed, a wonderful warm evening with great people where I had a chance to just relax and let go at least for a while of all the things I've been carrying these last few weeks. I got home from work and stretched out for a while, and then Jim and I went to OSH to pick up gardening supplies. They didn't have any bulbs, but I got a hand trowel and some seeds (carrot and radish) and African violet food (Tien gave me two a year ago, in pots, and one is still alive), and Jim got some Miracle Gro for his bonsai and also plastic tubing and a fountain pump so he can try building a fountain. The best part though was that we went through the nursery, breathing all the growing things and looking at citrus trees and little plants with bright purple-red flowers and it was just wonderful. We ended up finding a section of herbs and I carefully didn't go crazy but limited myself to four; apple mint, sorrel, basil, and garlic. Jim got himself some thyme and some mint, and we picked up some small pots to move them into and some potting soil to put them in. I was really pleased with the trip even without bulbs.

We got home a little after eight, so it'd cooled down a lot outside and was getting darker. I was really tempted to go ahead and repot things now, but I was also starving and we'd talked about going out to dinner, so I found Chuck (the wonderful Coyote Angel who lives in the studio attached to our house) and called up Chrisber and arranged to get everyone in the same place to go out for dinner. I paged Cat, who's visiting from Pasadena, and while waiting for a reply I got a phone call from Lisa, one of the therapists in my group. The stuff she had to tell me was unfortunately sad and disappointing, but I talked to her about it and by the time we got off the phone I was sad/angry but not the complete mess I was afraid of being. Chrisber had arrived while I was on the phone, so I hugged him, and we all trooped over to Chuck's and stood over him until he was ready to go.

Dinner was at Cafe Pro Bono, which is an absolutely wonderful place in Palo Alto. This was the second time I'd been there, and just as before the staff welcomed our group like we were old friends they were thrilled to see again. The service was excellent throughout the entire meal, and the food was really, really good, high-priced but definitely worth it. We took our time about it, too, starting with appetizers -- carpaccio with capers and red onions and dijon mustward, which I enjoyed, and some wild boar sausages that smelled great but were of course nonkosher, so I just watched the others eat it. There was soup or salad with the entrees; I had the red pepper soup, which was sour-sweet and absolutely delicious, and then helped Jim finish his salad. I don't remember all the entrees, but I had lamb in a sauce of mushrooms and roasted garlic, and Jim had the duck in orange-thyme sauce. We kept trading bites -- the duck was good even though I don't usually like orange -- and Jim ended up finishing my lamb so I'd have room for dessert. I got a glass of merlot at the beginning of the meal and sipped it really slowly, since while I love the taste and needed some of the relaxation I hate the out-of-control that can come with the wine.

Dessert for Jim and I was ice cream and berries with a zabligione topping, light and sharp-sweet with a combination of some sort of alcohol and pure sugar. Chrisber has spumoni, and a glass of muscat, which is a very sweet white dessert wine. I sipped at it and liked it, but it was so sweet I felt like there should be sugar crusted around the glass. It doesn't have the depth that I love in port, nor the sort of mellow clarity I get from drinking really good white grape juice. Jim and I still have the bottle of black muscat from CostPlus waiting patiently for next Passover; I wonder if I'll like that better.

All through this wonderful food we talked, but not about anything that sticks firmly in my mind. Chrisber told me about a really neat dream he'd had, and the four of us talked some about OryCon, and I went on at great length about Brust, and there was much other conversation about many other things... but I just don't really remember the details. Only that it was nice and fun and relaxing in a deep way, and by the time we were done eating I was floating on a warm glow of friendship and wine and food. Chuck mentioned, in response to my babbling about Brust, that Bookbuyers (the nifty huge used bookstore in downtown Mountain View) had a copy of Five Hundred Years After, so after dinner I dragged everyone there -- it wasn't very hard -- and picked it up. Then I wandered around for a while in my well-fed haze, noting Jim looting the used software section. Somehow I ended up sitting in front of the paperback poetry anthologies, looking for the Dorothy Sayers translation of Dante. I didn't find it, but I did (with Jim's help, once he was done with software) find her version of The Song of Roland and about a dozen other things. Ezra Pound. 17th Century Plays. A plethora of other things which I now don't remember, as they were $2 impulse buys and won't stick in my head until I go slowly through the bag of books and am alternately delighted and dismayed at what I bought.

Today is warm and sunny, so I'm going to spend the afternoon repotting my herbs and perhaps planting some carrots, if there's a part of the backyard that gets enough sun for vegetables. Tonight we're going to Shreck's party, since the Ista Hatching got moved and I suddenly have the evening free. I'm not overly excited about the party itself, but beforehand there'll be dinner with Paul, and that's always something to look forward to.

Now it's much later, and I'm about to crawl into bed. The party was about as flat as I expected it to be, but we only stayed for about ten minutes so I didn't mind it too much. Dinner was made somewhat weird by the addition of Julie, who is Paul's very good friend and Jim's -- somewhat friend? mild acquaintance? -- and almost a complete stranger to me, and definitely a stranger to Justin. Julie is nice but brittle; I choose my words carefully around her, always afraid she'll crack in some unexpected way. There was good sushi, though, and Justin was sweet and entertaining, as well as seeming to care a lot about Paul. I approved.

After we bailed so quickly on the party we took Paul and Justin home. I wanted ice cream; for some reason eating good sushi frequently leaves me hungry for milk and chocolate -- probably because Tara and I used to constantly hit Sono Sushi for dinner and then Double Rainbow for dessert, four years back when we were housemates. Anyway, I was starving for ice cream, and the party hadn't even had any sugar beyond the alcohol, so Jim took me to Mitchell's Ice Cream. He had Thai tea and pear sorbet; I had double chocolate truffle and kahlua cream. Yum. We also took home a half-gallon of the Thai tea, and a pint of rum raisin for Vivek (my officemate), who has been bemoaning the lack of it on the peninsula for the last year. I think he'll be very pleasantly surprised on Monday.

I think I'll go play MM7 for a while, until my brain slows down, and then I'll crawl into bed with Five Hundred Years After and read until my eyes close.