klwilliams

The end of the holiday season isn't, in fact, New Year's Day. It's January 4, my husband's birthday. We'd talked about having a party for him, but we'd had a big End of Summer BBQ (where he worked the whole time, cooking) and a Tree Trimming Party in December (where he worked the whole time, cooking). The first time I spent Christmas with him in Newcastle I was able to stay for his birthday, where he held a party, and spent the whole time in the kitchen, cooking. (I spent the whole time in the living room, meeting his rather curious and somewhat confused guests, who had no idea who I was.)

You might have noticed a trend in my description of Parties We Have Held. Also, every year about this time the SCA Kingdom we're in holds their big Twelfth Night coronation and all-day cocktail party (just seems that way), which is a lot of fun if you've been in the SCA for 25 years and most of your friends also belong, but Chaz isn't and hasn't and doesn't want, so that was out. So I scooped him up and took him to San Francisco for the day, where we ate good fudz and saw Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna show, then had even better fudz, then went back to our hotel for a nightcap at the very top of the hotel, their View bar. And wow, the view.

Amaluna is a marvelous show, in a big top set up in the Giant's stadium parking lot in downtown San Francisco. It's based roughly on "The Tempest", and it has young men jumping on what we call teeter-totters but are more like balance boards. It has tiny young women spinning balls of light while being tossed around and balancing on young men. It has trapeze-artist-like shining women flying through the air. It has wonderful music, including an all-women band, though by "band" I mean musicians playing instruments at various times and places, including while flying through the air. Go see it. You'll be amazed and surprised and fascinated.

Dinner was also wonderful. We went to the Amber Restaurant, an local kind-of chain that's really high-quality Indian food. For the entree I went with the easy choice, butter chicken, but we had a lovely chaat and a yummy calamari for appetizers. Chaz's entree was a spicy lamb shank that was also yummy, but the butter chicken was listed as one of their specialties and was just what I wanted after a long day where fitbit reported I'd had over 8000 steps. (A personal record for me, at least since I got the fitbit.)

After dinner we went to the top floor of our hotel and found a table for two right next to the window right inside the door. This was lucky because we had a fabulous view, but unlucky because this spot by our table was the first view that people getting off the elevator had of the magnificent night sky over San Francisco. Still, we had a great time, and our waitress gave Chaz a delicious slice of chocolate cake for his birthday.

Then back downstairs for sleep (we had a good view out our room window, too, but we were too tired to enjoy it), then up this morning for the best hotel breakfast buffet I've ever had, then home to the boys. What a great weekend.