The Friday Four, Part 9

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We bought more baby chicks on Wednesday afternoon, making us the proud owners of an even ten(!) chickens.  I can't remember when I've seen my boys more excited than when they each got to pick out their two baby chicks! Evan went with a Silver Wyandotte he named "Forty-Niner" and a Black Sex-Link named "Charger".  Josh settled on two (more) Buff Orpingtons and called one "Buffy the Third" and the other one "Brownie".  Will chose a Rhode Island Red and a New Hampshire Red, and they have been christened "Rhody" and "Red-head" respectively.  They are safely and warmly ensconced in a large box in our laundry room until they're big enough to go outside and the boys were up at 6:00 Thursday morning to play with them and, even with the extra half-hour of late-start day, they were so distracted they almost missed the bus.  We had one close call when the cat got in the laundry room (I warned the boys that Scrimper would view those cute little chicks as a delicious snack of chicken nuggets), but were able to get her back out without any harm done.  So we should be drowning in extra eggs sometime this summer.  If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll put you on the list...

Aren't they so cuuuuuuuuuute?

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For my Spokane friends looking for a nice restaurant downtown, put Herbal Essence (yes, just like the shampoo) on your list.  I love supporting locally owned businesses, and especially stand-alone restaurants, and we discovered this small establishment several years ago, almost a decade now, I think.  They're just a block away from the INB Performing Arts Center, and while they're not the cheapest place in town, they are competitively priced for the high-quality food and a pleasant experience they provide.  Many of their dishes are Northwest-inspired and are often sourced locally.  I still have daydreams about a huckleberry-glazed salmon I ate there a while back.  And oh my goodness, their crab cakes...sorry, let me clean up that drool really quick...  Wednesday night we stopped by before going to a concert (see below) and it was delicious as always.  Of course, we ordered crab cakes for the appetizer.  Gene had a bacon-and-date-stuffed pork chop and I had prawns with linguine in a butter garlic white wine sauce.  Oh my yumminess!

Right now, they have a Groupon special going, for $20 you get a voucher for $40 off your total bill.  I don't know how long it'll last, so snatch it up while you can!

This is their signature salad with pears, gorgonzola, walnuts, and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Yum!
And it's pretty, too!

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After dinner at Herbal Essence, we went to our final Historic Homes concert of the season, put on by Allegro, Baroque, and Beyond.  Allegro is a non-profit organization here in Spokane that produces period music and other arts events.  Gene and I have subscribed to their Music in Historic Homes series for a past few years and it's a perfect outing for the both of us.  I enjoy hearing a variety of beautifully performed classical music in a small, intimate chamber setting, and having a set-in-stone fancy date night at least those four times a year.  He likes that it's short (the concerts only last about 30-45 minutes) and that he gets to wander through some of Spokane's historic homes and admire the craftsmanship of an earlier time.  We both have learned tons about the history of Spokane from the brief presentations the homes' owners give after the concerts and before touring the houses, too.

The concert this past Wednesday was incredible.  Nancy and James Schoepflin performed on the piano and clarinet respectively to great effect.  They closed the program with a beautiful piece by Richard Rodney Bennett called "Ballad in Memory of Shirley Horn."  It was written in 2005 in honor of the amazing jazz singer (I just spent waaaaay too much time on youtube listening to her music - she's stunning!)  It was a gorgeous, moving ballad with just a hint of a jazz flare.  Wonderful way to finish out the season!

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Have you ever been arguing with someone - in person, over the phone, on the internetz - when they make some ridiculous argument that you just can't even respond to because of its sheer level of ludicrousness? (That's totally a word, right?)  You need to bookmark Your Logical Fallacy Is....  I love, love, love this site! It provides brief explanations and appropriate examples for 24 fallacious arguing tactics from "The Gambler's Fallacy" to "Bandwagon" and "Ad Hominem" to "Burden of Proof".  Being able to put names to these commonly used methods has helped me to recognize them in real life, to strengthen my explanations of my own positions and root out some arguments I'd been using that don't hold water as well as I initially thought they did.  (There are definitely some that I am more likely to fall prey to than others.)  You can even purchase (or download for free) a poster that shows all 24 logical fallacies, if you like, perhaps as a passive-aggressive gift for that special someone?