Kris and I had a great time last night joining Eila for her 32nd birthday. We met her and Sam, and four other friends, at Mudai, an Ethiopian restaurant near Lloyd Center.

This was my first taste of Ethiopian food. I like it. I cannot say whether Mudai's offerings are representative of all Ethiopian cuisine, or if they represent only a subset of the region's food. Mudai serves its dishes in huge, shallow bowls which are lined with enjera, a pancake-like bread. The rest of the meal is served on top of the enjera. In fact, it is eaten with the enjera; there are no utensils on the table. To eat your meal, you tear off a piece of bread and use it to pick up your food, placing the whole wad in your mouth at once. Has there ever been a more J.D.-like food?

I had the Kay Wat which is a spicy red Beef Stew (with very little liquid) reminiscent of curry. Kris also had a beef dish, with a name I cannot recall. Hers was milder, almost citrus flavored. Both of our meals were served in the same bowl (I mean it: these bowls are huge) which we thought was fun.

Dinner was tasty. The conversation was good. After dinner we all joined Sam and Eila at their hotel. The place was deserted; late January is not a busy time for hotels. We went down to the empty lounge to play games. The staff was loafing around the bar, watching the snow.

We sat around a table, drinking our cosmopolitans and our Mexican coffees, and we played UNO while pumping dollar bills into the jukebox, listening to Styx and Wham! and Lauryn Hill and Ace of Bass and Deep Purple. It seemed we were the only people in the entire hotel, and we had a good time.

As Kris and I drove home, the snow began to come down harder. Though we were only traveling 30mph, it seemed we were cruising at light-speed.

We woke this morning to a couple of inches of snow.

Canby doesn't often get snow. Accumulations of snow are rare. (The period between January 21st and February 10th is when we're most likely to see snowfall, though.) We'll get two or three inches every couple of years. Once a decade a storm will deposit a foot of the stuff. Mostly we just get rain.

After Kris left for work, I bundled up and grabbed my cameras. Instead of going to the gym for exercise today, I walked to the Canby Community Park and back around the bluff. I spent some time framing photographs with both my digital camera and my Nikon. Very few of the framed shots actually ended up on film, but I was patient and I learned a little more about photography. I need to take a class.

Here are four of the shots. Click on a thumbnail to get a full-sized picture.

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On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Moonshowers   When I turned down Gribble Road this morning — the final leg of my drive to work — I was struck by an oddness about the scene before me.

2004 — Red Right Ankle   Kris and I watch Life as a House, and I like it in spite of myself. I am swamped with computer work. I'm getting thinner and I've lost my belt, so my pants keep falling down. I *love* the song Red Right Ankle by The Decemberists.

2003 — Holding Pattern   Nothing much to say.