Country girls’ day in the city…. chocolate factory tour of course!

By now you probably know my propensity for girl’s nights.  Or girl’s days.  Or girl’s moments.  Whatever.  And yes what we’re really talking about here is women.  Women getting together with women.  It’s the best kind of medicine.  It’s good for the soul.  Essential.  No matter how great your man is (and I’ve got a good one), you need this.  Men getting together with men is just the same.  Although they likely drink too much and perhaps tell sexist/fart jokes, not the same sort of medicine women need, which is why occasionally we should keep to ourselves and let loose.  Women chat… and go to the chocolate factory!  At least that’s what we did.  And art.

On Saturday Renee and I (also mentioned here) took a city day for ourselves.  Both of us being country girls– her in Port Townsend, and me on Vashon– that’s saying something.

Our first stop: Theo Chocolate Factory tour.  Doesn’t that just sound like the perfect stop for ladies!?  My husband would probably describe chocolate as one of my medicines.  Every morning I drink hot cooca- for starters.  And I also notice that at certain times of the month, eh-hum, I crave it a lot.

It reminds me of what one woman once told me about her husband.  It was an endearment, couched in a benign statement, with the tone of, “Sigh, he’s the best!”  She said, “And every month [at a certain point in her cycle], he brings me chocolate and red wine.”  Sigh.  Smile.  Perhaps TMI if you are a man reading this– but if you are a smart man who likes ladies, you’ll use this information later.

So chocolate factory tour it was.  $10 and worth it.  I actually learned a lot of interesting things about chocolate.  For example the fruit of a cocao tree ripens at all different times.  So you might have one tree with a blossom, baby, adolescent and fully ripe pod.  This means that cacao always needs to be processed by hand, using a machine would destroy future crops.  Also, the fruit grows off of the trunk, not on the branches.

Anyway, of course the best part was the tasting.  Go if you’re in Seattle.  It’s totally worth the $10.  Aside from the tasty samples you get your own bar at the end too.

So other than some bits of time driving around not knowing exactly where we were going, (as country girls in the city are want to do) one of our other highlights was sitting in the Seattle Olympic Sculpture Park in the autumn sun, doing art in our journals.  To think on it now it sounds heavenly.  And it was.  I don’t have any pictures of it, but you can imagine.

Renee is really into Zentangles and she’s inspiring me into them too.  What’s a Zentangle?

For more, Zentangle examples look here.