Mortaine’s Blog

OK, I just have to say that Leonard Cohen TOTALLY ROCKS MY WORLD!!!

Last night was “Date Night” for my husband and me. Every week, we go on a date, just the two of us. We usually do it on Friday nights, but we’ve found lately that I’m so tired after work, that we’re not really doing anything on our dates.

So, this week we went out on Saturday because I had to work late. It was wonderful. We left the house at about 5:30 and went downtown. There was a street fair going on, but neither one of us had cash, so we just kind of walked through it on our way to other things. We went to Petroglyph, which is a paint-your-own ceramics place. It’s a fun thing that I really enjoy, but which John doesn’t enjoy as much, even though when he gets in there, he’s very creative and makes some very beautiful pieces.

We stopped in there, but John wanted to eat first. So we walked down to the other end of hte Pacific Garden Mall, to Zoccoli’s pasta house. It’s a nice little pasta house, but they over-did his steak, which was a little disappointing. We had a coupon, though, or he probably would have complained about the steak.

Before we got to the restaurant, though, I wanted to stop at Logo’s. My friend Susan posted in her LiveJournal recently that the library in Opuwano, Namibia, where she is currently working as a Peace Corps volunteer, is missing the second half of Paradise Lost. Since I couldn’t find the second half of PL to send, I bought a copy of the entire thing for $2, and am putting together a package to go out to her this week. Of course, shopping for books is an excellent activity to do on any date, but I do tend to become, um, distracted, and stop being a good date if we spend too long.

After dinner, we went back to Petroglyph, where John made a new cat food dish (I broke the other one he made last year), and I made a little serving bowl for chex mix and such. Then it was back to ScottsValley for ice cream and store-front shopping.

Because, you see, John has been going through a kind of mid-life transition, where he’s figuring out who he wants to be for the next 10 years or so. It’s really amazing to watch, because he’s not exactly the “adventurous” type, and yet he needs to try new things and find out what he likes doing. Anyway, last night, he suggested that he and I should open a bookstore/cafe/internetcafe together. Is this guy perfect for me, or what? Unfortunately, the best location for such a place in Scotts Valley is currently empty, which means it will probably be occupied when we have the money together and a real serious plan for it, 2-5 years down the road. If we opened that kind of place in SV, it would have to have a very strong kids’ section, because this is ultimately a place where Silicon Valley workers live and have their kids and commute to work from.

Another possible location would be somewhere downtown, because there are a lot of travellers/tourists who would want to check email while away from home. However, the competition for bookstores downtown is fierce. One of the advantages of opening in SV is that there is only one other bookstore in town, and it only sells Christian books and is attached to a church.

Anyway, John’s out of his shower now, and we’re heading off for our “bagels and mocha morning.”