Toilet-Based Lunch Party

People in the group I work in are allowed to work at home on Fridays. Not surprisingly, most choose to do that. For a variety of reasons (in my case, trying to get work done while the two grandkids do their best to trigger a major earthquake is pretty much impossible), a few of us show up to the office anyway. So we have a Friday Lunch Club where we all go to lunch at some exotic local restaurant. Like Subway.

Yesterday we were all invited to Mik's (not her real name) house to see her new bathroom and eat falafels, gyros, baba-ghannouj, some salad things, and baklava.

First, the bathroom is nothing short of stunning. Mik worked hard and spent an amazing amount of time choosing the tiles, fixtures, and lights. Where I would just go to Home Hardware and Depot Supply and grab a few things, she scoured the Bay Area for exactly the right bits and pieces. (Yes, she's a nut. Although a nut with excellent taste.) I stole the picture up top from her blog since my own pictures did not do this bathroom justice.

Now for some other pictures.


Here we see Esor-Yarm underneath this gorgeous tree thing. The mass of hair off to the left, quietly waiting his turn, is Paco (his real name - it's French for "fierce tangles"), an adorable bundle of energy that was hugely disappointed that we weren't sloppier eaters.


This picture shows Mik (on the left), Xila, and Arual poking around a very entertaining backyard. For the record, the others that were there were Yma and Nosila. (Note: If you have access to a super-computer and are clever with decoding complex coding schemes like the one I use for the names, you will realize that our department has a LOT of people whose first name begins with "A." Yes, the "A Team" lives.)


The very back of Mik's backyard has a huge outdoor fireplace with several random doors built into it. This is an upper door that hides a mummified squirrel and some carefully stacked, well-gnawed logs, implying that a beaver that shares Mik's design sense has called the fireplace home at some point. Note the medieval-themed tiles - this is all pretty old stuff and very cool.


A funny thing - when we pulled up we saw this sign in her front yard. Kram is Mik's husband. As far as we knew, he was not running for anything, and I tend to doubt that a city as large as San Jose has a "Town Council." It turns out that they saw the sign a year or two ago in some small town where they were vacationing, and Kram, ummmm, borrowed it. And now random neighborhood people are dropping off campaign donations and one large oil company has promised to trade "personal favors" involving the city's permit process for special "considerations" should he be elected.

It was a fun lunch and a great break from work-based stuff. I just hope it doesn't give Mrs Notthat any ideas about our bathroom.

That's it - move along...