Getting Smashed

Don’t smash your food. Unless it happens to be Sashimi Napolean (aka Hali’imaile).

Enjoyed recently with the Happy Wife at Jens. A delightful restaurant tucked away in what might be regarded as a strip mall in the midtown area of our quirky city. I like it for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is its afternoon coziness that permits, nay invites, guilt-free wine consumption at an early afternoon hour, which, I realize, may raise a puritanical eyebrow or two. It’s adjacent to a Scandinavian design furniture store where Happy Wife wanted to show me a desk, a shopping experience that doubles as an irresistible segue to afternoon wine consumption. Actually, knowing us, WalMart would probably do the trick too.

It’s rare at 3:30 to find the bar full at Jens. On this day it was empty save for one patron who I thought looked a bit like John Goodman, although neither the Happy Wife nor the bartender thought so. I couldn’t let it go so I asked him if anyone had told him he looked like John Goodman. No, he said, but some have said Bill Clinton. Okay, I could see that, the thick rough of silver-gray hair, but his cheek pouch and drawn features said Goodman all the way.

Yesterday the Happy Wife and I mounted our mountain bikes and set out on the snow packed trails that weave through our neighborhood and beyond. It may have been the last time we’ll be able to do that this year. We’re off to Seattle for a few days on Thursday (getting fitted for a new road bike! and Happy Wife (birthday girl) is looking to buy a new Sea Kayak) and given the temperature is expected to be in the forties while we’re gone the snow won’t last too much longer.

On the way to Jens, a minute from our house, looking east at the Chugach mountains.