Retiring in Seattle

So, last week we went to Seattle for V's retirement party. It was a fabulous celebration of making it through to the other end of the working world. Retirement is just wonderful. No more getting up so dang early, and no more people telling you to do stuff that you think is stupid. From now on, all my stupid stuff will be self-initiated.
We flew from Raleigh to Dulles. They had these cardboard things of Obama and McCain. They were very popular. All of the tourists were taking pictures. We could not tell which candidate was getting more attention.




Decks in Seattle get mold. Before the party, the men had to bleach and scrub the deck. Part of the effort was to move the pots and then put them back. It's a big deck, there was a lot of bleach. There's also a lot of tree goo adding to the job.


Eventually, all was loveliess outside.


Inside the women were cooking for 60. This is how you do French potato salad. One dumps the hot drained potatoes on the counter and then sprinkles them with vinegar. They cool faster, and while cooling, they suck up the vinegar. This was the first of two batches, and was the smaller of the two.


Chicken marinating. It's a good marinade, hoison sauce. Mmmmmm.


But the main attraction are D's ribs. He makes the rub himself. There were 14 slabs of barbequed goodness.


Each foil package is a slab. Yes, we are meat central.


Is this not lovely? I like the colors of the Greek salad in the red serving bowl.


The party was a great success. Lot's of good food and nice people. We are really glad we went, it was fun. For some reason I did not get that many pictures of the actual party. And I'm still thinking about the ethics of putting peoples' pictures on the web without explicit permission. Of course, Jim is fair game. So, I'm leaving it primarily to food and scenery. There will be more later, I'll be clogging up the internet with more pictures.