Six years on Saturday

All last week Hubbyfink and I were puzzling over what to do for our anniversary. Inspiration finally struck early Saturday afternoon as I prepped and primped for my pedicure and he prepped and primped for his excursion for more frog feet shoes in Frederick.

"Let's go to Old Town," I suggested and he said that sounded like a fine idea.

After foot-focused errands, late lunches, and a bit of napping, he donned snazzy summer clothes and I donned a sundress and new sandals. We zipped down to the Alexandria waterfront and noticed a tall ship moored on the Potomac. That looked interesting. We ambled over to The Chart House and put our name on the 2.5 hour wait list. We had no issue with waiting (see: late lunches) and wandered back over to the tall ship.

She turned out to be the Peacemaker and she was open for free dockside tours. We boarded and wandered up, down, and through her beautiful decks. I'm sad that we didn't think to bring a camera with us, but oh well. I wanted to know if you'd be able to pull a skier behind her, but I couldn't find a crew member to ask. Hubbyfink said that if I asked that question, he was going to pretend he didn't know me.

We left the ship and wandered back to King Street where throngs of people jammed the sidewalks. We explored a couple of funky little art stores and then ambled through the residential areas peeping in unshuttered windows and barely maintaining our balance on cobblestone and brick sidewalks. After an hour or so of walking, I suggested we go by the restaurant again and see how they were progressing with the dinner crowd. It turned out to be a fantastic idea because we were next on the list. We'd just ordered drinks at the bar when the hostess was ready to seat us.

We sat on the patio and watched boats go by and listened to a jazz quartet on the boardwalk below. We stuffed ourselves on lobster spring rolls, crab-stuffed shrimp, crab cake, seasonal veggies, and ginger rice. My two amaretto sours were the sneakiest amaretto sours I've ever enjoyed (I was in a [thankfully non-headachey] stupor until nearly noon on Sunday). Such a good dinner and wonderful company to boot.

We enjoyed a leisurely drive back down the GW parkway and then a significantly less leisurely drive west down 66. All in all, a beautiful evening with honey bunches of domesticated oats.

Bad habits

That icon? Margie and me while I ate lunch yesterday. Bad kitty!

I've mentioned that Oreo is a counter surfer. He's also found his way to the top of the fridge. We've had to hide the catnip baggie in a closed cupboard. Oreo has also displayed another bad habit: chewing cables. The power cord for Hubbyfink's electric toothbrush has been chewed clean through and the network cable to the management laptop is about to go. He seems to have a preference for white cables which makes Hubbyfink nervous for the Mac's power cable. I'm keeping a sharp eye on the extension cords in the sewing room.

Margie has completely stopped hissing and swatting at Oreo. They're great playmates and race each other all over the house. She's also teaching him the fun (for catfinks) game of try-to-slip-outside-between-the-monkey's-feet-as-the-monkey-enters-or-leaves-the-house.

He's a champion litterbox-goer and even though he gives Basil's old spots in the dining room a through sniffing, he's not tempted to, ahem, reactivate those spots. He's also quite the snuggler and loves nothing more than stretching out between Hubbyfink's and my heads in the wee hours of the morning and purring as loudly and jarringly as felinely possible in my ear. Hubbyfink was disturbed to learn that he's had cat butt on his head; I said he's lucky because at least that end is quiet!