Here I am in Seattle. I twisted my knee getting into my seat on the plane (ha ha) so I hobbled around yesterday in one of Jenny’s many flavors of knee brace. I followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day, baaa, I’m a little lamb. Uh. Ahem. She had class for 1.5 hours so I sat around and looked at the internets on her computer in a “breakout” on her floor. You know how in Soda there are some random “lobbies” with tables and chairs on each floor near the elevators? They call them “breakouts” in that building. Do they call them “breakouts” in Soda too? Anyway, her building is really nice. There’s a huge open space in the middle of the building illuminated by skylights so you never feel like you’re in a cave. Jenny has a view of a gorgeous lake and snowcapped mountains in the distance. We ate pizza at “the hub.” I sat around trying to complete a “put these 14 logs of different length back into the box” puzzle that Ratoul told me to do while Jenny had her office hour during which I was not disruptive. We played foosball. People who Jenny introduced me to said “what did you do to your knee? what is it with jenny and her friends being injured all the time???” We picked up Susumu and Yong-joon (spellings?) and went to the Triple Door to see Vienna Teng. At this time I think it is appropriate to create a paragraph break.

The Triple Door is an awesome venue. In fact, here is a link so you can all imagine its awesomeness: http://www.thetripledoor.net/ There is a lounge area/restaurant thing, and then downstairs there’s a concert area with a nice stage. The concert area was filled with tiered layers of tables and booths–you’re supposed to eat before/during the concert. It was really nice. I had mongolian pork chops and choked on szhechuan pepper (however you spell schezhaun). We had appetizers of yummy black pepper squid and some deepfried shrimp, and Jenny got “dragon and phoenix” (prawns and… scallops?), Susumu got pork, Yong-joon got pad thai. Jenny was fascinated by the bottles that the water came in–glass, with a metal-and-plastic apparatus-plug at the top. Paragraph break number 2 inserted.

I liked David Berkeley, the opening act, who sang and played guitar and had songs about New York and railroads and how we are worn like river stones. His voice is the trembly (not weak, I mean sort of vibrato-y swing-around-y) folkish sort of kind. Vienna Teng played with her cellist and a drummer and they were really good and of course Vienna Teng was wonderful. I’ve noticed that I like her live a lot more than her recordings–not to say that I don’t like her recordings, of course. I do. She is just awesome live. Last time I saw her, I liked “momentum” a lot more after hearing it live. This time it was “hope on fire,” which may have been partly becuase she had a drumkit on stage with her. “Blue blue caravan” is awesome, as were the other new songs she sang, and I can’t wait for her next CD to come out. Hey Jenny’s back from class. I haven’t played civ4… oh well