Disneyland!

Sort of... Yesterday I went to my type of Disneyland... a cute neighborhood (Queen Anne) in the States where I could get Peet's Coffee, Top Pot Doughnuts and hang out with good friends. I was so excited the night before I had trouble getting to sleep.

(I cannot stand Walt Disney's Disneyland - it should be razed and turned into a giant doughnut factory.)

I zipped down to Seattle to see friends and enjoy a beautiful summer day. And when I say zipped, I mean I zipped down to the border where traffic slammed to a stop for an hour as four thousand other day-trippers and I waited to cross into America.

Being Canada Day - imaginative title, eh? - lots of people went south to play. Canada Day is much like the U.S.'s 4th of July - a holiday spent grilling meats, lighting fireworks and getting shitty drunk in your front yard.

The weird thing is, they take the day off right there in the middle of the week. No 3-day weekend where you have a whole other day to stay drunk then another day on top of that to recover before you have to go back to work. No, you get that one day to live it up and make the most of your holiday before you call in sick to drag your ass into work the next day.

The guy behind me at the border made the most of his holiday by hosting his very own Nostril Drilling Festival. I wish I hadn't seen this but unfortunately I did, and it was a fantastic disaster.

He had no shame. He went to town on both nostrils oftentimes using both the index finger and the thumb. When I first caught sight of him in my rear view mirror I thought he was going for a quick grab and it would be over in a flash. It was amazing to see him keep going at it like a booger-loving badger. Ah-mazing.

A strange way to start the holiday, but my excitement for Peet's could not be dampened. On top of getting a delicious cup of java, I also got to see an Andrew Wyeth exhibit at the SAM, enjoyed a lovely mojito at Shmick's and later, a satisfying maple glazed old fashioned at Top Pot. Yup - Disneyland. Thank you Linda, Alan & Miriam - wonderful day!


t-bird headed south




"Likeaflex Superzoom" late 1970s
Ceramic w/ glaze, metal and leather strap
Fred Bauer, American, born 1937


bootleg phone photo of the exhibit (shhhhh)

Doing Nothing...

...Has meant doing way more this weekend than I'd planned. Took Ninja to the vet where we had to leave him for 5 hours until he would give up a wee urine sample for testing. Now we're enduring the hissing and aggression as the other cats try to detect that old familiar Ass Monkey smell underneath the scary vet odors.

Then there was weeding, raking, sorting, cooking, driving, shopping, removing the old Dish hardware off the house (worst customer service experiences, ever), and cleaning the backyard - not nearly as much sleeping as I'd planned.

I grabbed some pics off my phone from last week, taken before and while at the conference in Seattle. The 415 flashbacks were everywhere.


The only open (reserved) parking place left that morning at the Bart lot.


A number posted inside the Bart car I was in that afternoon.


The number of a room in the Seattle Library where we attended the conference.
A fun coincidence, but a tad eerie.

I BOUGHT A NEW COAT!!!

Forgetting my coat was a great mistake - I now have a beautiful new black, camel hair coat that looks like it was made for me AND it was on sale.

Went to Nordie's flagship store with Cameron and our good friend, Patricia Belyea, and they were the best personal shoppers I could have asked for.

We were in & out of there in 5 minutes. It would have taken me a half an hour to even find the coats, and likely another half hour to find a coat I might like. We then went to an amazing dinner at The Oceanaire Seafood Room.

Had a dreamy cup of lobster bisque, a few tasty apps and a smooth bottle of... Wait for it... wait for it... pinot noir from the Cameron Winery in Oregon.

Time to get back to the conference & then head back home.
WITH MY NEW COAT!!!

Layers of Fleece

Tonight I'm off to Seattle to attend a usability design conference and I'm looking forward to it - to using my brain for something other than spreadsheets and process. What I'm not looking forward to is 20 degree weather.

When it was confirmed I would be attending this conference, I thought what great timing - it would be nice in Seattle. A little chillier than here, but still mild. Wrong.

Now all of a sudden freezing cold air that was settled over Alaska is going to drift down to the Bay Area, which means Seattle's going to be freezing ass cold. Great. Shmick's will have to keep me warm with Happy Hour specials.

But for now, Happy Valentine's Day! We had our little celebration last night, and David was sweet enough to save me halves of some of the chocolate: