Monday I had Nima, Caryn, Ryan, and Liana over for dinner and smores. They came over and we had some shakshuka that I had made with the peppers from our garden. It was very tasty and just the right amount. We then played a game Nima had brought that involved knocking over wooden blocks with short, thick wooden dowels. Ryan and I won all three games, but the second game was very close. We then sat around the fire and had a few smores, and chatted about life. Once it got a little too cool, we went inside and they tried out the VR game. It went over well, and I figured out a few ways that I can upgrade it. Stephanie wasn’t able to join, as she had to work late and see Riley.
For my actual birthday I wanted to do a paint nite. I chose a more advanced one and invited a few people that had gone with us before. Irene was the only one able to make it. We were doing a hummingbird painting. The example and walkthrough were of a highly stylized hummingbird, but Steph and I went way off script. Steph did a style of her own, and based it closely on a real hummingbird. I decided to make it as real looking as I could, and got pretty close. Irene’s looked like a hummingbird made of fire and silk. All of them were very different and pretty. We had Irene back to our place to see if we could get the fire pit to work (the previous attempts had failed). We managed to get it working and had a great conversation for nearly two hours just sitting around the fire. We roasted some marshmallows and warmed our feet when it started to get chilly. I really enjoyed the evening and would love to have more like it.
Stephanie, Stephany, Steven, and I went to EscapeSF and did their Escape the Antique Room on Monday.
We went to dinner at 21st amendment beforehand, and I got some delicious cider and jerk chicken. We grabbed a Lyft over to the EscapeSF location and jumped right into the room. It was really amazing, and the location based puzzles were really fun. The only puzzle we couldn’t do was one that wasn’t clear on how to approach it from the start. We did manage to escape, but needed a clue to get past that point.
We did an escape the room with George, with this one being themed ‘Escape the Jail’. I won’t say any particulars about it since that would be a huge spoiler, but we did really well. I was able to help out with multiple parts of it, and we made it out with 4 some odd minutes to spare. It was a really fun time, and I’ve also been enjoying the black letter lab puzzles that George and team are doing. We had a great lunch before the escape in Japan town, since we thought the escape was just next to there, but this one was a number of blocks away, so we just barely made it in time.
Steph and I were joined by Irene, Tina, and Jeremy for a nice paint nite. I got a mixed coffee drink, and decided to go way off from the guide once the background was done. I really liked how the kitties turned out and bonus points if anyone knows who the person is in my painting.
Steph and I went down to Cupertino to a Paint Nite of a diving scene. I did a side view, with most people and the original being a bottom up view. Steph had a lot of really well done fish, I went a little overboard with things to include in the painting. In my painting there is an otter, a turtle, a jellyfish, a trigger fish, a kelp forrest, and a diver looking at an octopus. Stephs is much more elegant, with the turtle being prettier and all the little fish and corals around the outside being more detailed. She also had a lot more contrast between the background and the silhouette, which I think is also nice.
Steph and I went to join Jeremy, Adam, Lindsay, Andrew, Brain, and Ilene at Jeremy’s place. We had a good time, and I really enjoyed singing a few of the songs. Du Hast is a really fun song even if I have no idea what is going on. I also like doing high falsetto in Take On Me. Ash sat in my lap while we were talking and it was really nice. He is very soft, but didn’t put up with much petting. He also started attacking his tail.
We went to the city to have a few drinks with Lisa before she leaves. The event was at an interesting bar, that was newspaper publication themed. There were a lot of people I didn’t know, and we talked to a few of them. We then went out to eat at a place called Asha, which had some amazing Thai food.
Steph and I met a lot of people at San Pedro Square Market for Brian’s 30th. We had dinner before going, so we only got an ice cream sandwich. It was very tasty. We talked with people when we could hear. A somewhat jazzy band was playing and had the speakers turned up way too loud. They weren’t particularly good, and I could hardly understand what the singer was saying. Her voice was good, but the diction was terrible. I ended up getting a headache from the music, but the 
rest of the evening was nice.
It's an Exciting World 