Mar. 30: Spring break adventures

We went to Seattle for part of spring vacation this year. We go up there several times a year, actually, and Victor lived up there forEVER, but it had been a long time since we’d played for-realsies tourists. It was a quick, jam-packed trip. Here are the deets. (Most of the images are clickable.)

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Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…

After leaving Portland, our first stop was the Nike Clearance Store in Centralia.
It’s different than the Nike stores at most outlet malls
—better deals, better selection—
and is always Jack’s favorite part of heading up I-5.
He even talked us into stopping again on the way home.

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We drove on to Lacey and I got to visit Shipwreck Beads, the biggest bead store you ever did see,
while the rest of my family wandered a preferable (to them) bead-free shopping center.

The massive store was completely overwhelming, and I didn’t even spend much $$.
I can’t promise that the next time I go, though.

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We had dinner at BBQ Pete’s, a Kent restaurant that’s been around for years.
You don’t think of Kent as being a city of good eateries, but WOW, Pete’s was fantastic.
I mean, ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork, delicious sauces… it’s all good.
We might have had another meal there before we left for home.

Jake had a track meet in Woodinville one afternoon,
which was actually the event that led us to Seattle in the first place.
It was fun to see him compete, especially because he (and his team) won every dash and relay in which he ran.
We were a proud uncle, aunt, and cousins.

 

We were grateful for rare nice weather, and spent as much time as we could out in it.
One day was all about Pike Place Market.

 

 

We tried the world’s best macaroni and cheese,
saw a very long line at the original Starbucks,
watched those dudes toss fish until I couldn’t stand the stench anymore,
and spent way too much time searching for the Gum Wall.

  

 

It was disgusting and funny.
(We didn’t create the “K & J” but couldn’t resist taking a pic of it.)
Katie tried to put a piece of her gum on the wall but it fell right off.
Oh well. At least we tried to play along.

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We made a quick detour to Wallingford to shop at Archie McPhee,
where Katie got a handicorn and I bought a silly Jane Austen treat for Mother Mary.

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Jack and I visited the Seattle Aquarium.
I loves me some otters.
They have river otters and sea otters, and in case you don’t know the difference, here’s a pic of the sign.
(The only river otter I’ve seen before was at the High Desert Museum and he was a dick.)
The Seattle river otters wouldn’t sit still for a pic, but they sure did poop everywhere.
The sea otters were silly little goofballs and fun to watch.
I’m pretty sure they love putting on The Show.

  

The jellyfish were mesmerizing,
and the harbor seals were cute.
Not sea otter-cute, but not I-want-to-club-them ugly.
Lucky for them.

 

I thought the Seattle Great Wheel would be huge, like the wheels in London and Paris.
This thing was puny, like it was borrowed from a parking lot carnival.
Vic, who is not a fan of heights, thought it was pa-lenty big.

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We did the CenturyLink Field tour, and while the field was
disappointingly set up as a soccer pitch, the tour was still fascinating.
Our guide showed us how to see into the Seahawks’ locker room:
put a camera phone up to the crack in the door and zoom in.
Sure enough, it worked!

     

“The State of Football” was a really cool display of all
the high school football helmets of Washington State.
My favorite moment of stadium-related things was being on Edgar Martinez Drive.
Edgar is my all-time favorite Mariner.
(“It’s a light bat!”)

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Thoughts on Seattle:

• OMG, the traffic sucks. It is soooo much worse than Portland, and at all times of day, and turned us into potty-mouths. Someday I want to make the trip by Amtrak.
• Seattle kinda seems like Portland on steroids—the environmentalism, overall pride in its weird-ness, Starbucks saturation, weather. (I don’t hate that.)
• There were “12”s everywhere, on everything. I like seeing the city band together as fans of their team. (No wonder Loveliest Lori hates Seattle!)
• They sure do miss their NBA team. You make the mistake of mentioning it to the wrong person and get a lot of bitterness tossed back atcha. Jack got a Gary Payton jersey at one of the many, many team gear stores we visited. There’s still a LOT of Sonics stuff around. I don’t get that, but whatevs.
• There are a lot of casinos in the outlying areas of Seattle. Just… a lot.
• Mt. Rainier is beautiful and majestic, but nothing beats Portland’s beautiful peak. Mt. Hood was all aglow as we crossed the I-205 bridge, almost like she was welcoming us home by reminding us how pretty she is.

One of the best ways to end a vacation like this is to have your husband drop you off at Val’s house before you even get home. That way you don’t have to help unload the car AND you get to see your best girls and clink many glasses. Then the next day you’re reminded that vodka is your enemy but still don’t wish you’d gone straight home. And then the NEXT day, when your sides are still aching from Buddha-knows-what, you have to have someone drive you over to Val’s to pick up your eyeglasses and wonder if MAYBE you should’ve gone straight home from Seattle after all. In fact, how did you even get home from Val’s? You don’t want to know. (But some pathetic person might have puked in Vic’s car and Val’s driveway at the same time. Someone might have really bad aim. Someone might regret so many, many things.)

Happy spring! :)

Sept. 30: Month in review

Tis the last day of September. That fact does not suck.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

Goodness, and also gracious. There were lots of good days worth celebrating this month.

• It made me ever-so-happy to write “Ladies Liquor Luncheon” on my calendar for Sept. 2. Theresa hosted a first day of school party; after we all shoved our kids out the door, we crazy-relieved moms gathered for good fun. While there’s a rumor that the best parties are the ones no one can remember afterward, this one was an exception—I remember all of it. I remember spending several hours with many of my dearest friends, and I remember thinking I AM SO LUCKY to know these women. I also remember stuffing my face with Cassie’s breakfast frittata and and Jenn K’s delicious salad-y goodness while across the room a bunch of people blathered on about Cross Fit and YES, I felt like a rhinoceros but YES, the bloody Marys and mimosas made it better and NO, I don’t have a problem.
• (I might have a problem.)
• September 6 is always a big birthday day on my calendar—my fave cousin Deanna, Kim F’n-W, Dan K, and Trevor L all got older that day. I celebrated by going to Jack’s first football game and seeing exactly zero of those birthday peoples.
• Our niece and nephew, Julianne and Jacob, each celebrated milestone birthdays this month. Before we ate cake with them, we went to Jack’s football game. Seems going to Jack’s football games is the new way to celebrate birthdays. To me, this is not ideal.
• My own birthday celebration went on for many days, as all the best ones do. Mother Mary was here and treated us to a lovely dinner… Vic worked his magic on the grill another night… Apple released a new iOS (I consider this my personal gift every September)… Val shoved a yummy lit cupcake in my face… and surprise, surprise, we went to a football game. While there was nothing exceptional about the age I turned this year, I appreciate that I did indeed have another birthday.

I’ll bet you a gazillion $$ that Dina
doesn’t remember writing this on our calendar :)

• Mack, April, Lafe, Tina, Margaret, and Hawaii Laura had birthdays this month too. September is a good month for a birthday. Pretty sure.
• Somebody planned a farewell dinner for a few of the important people in Jenn K’s life, and we begrudgingly went:

There are so many things I love about this picture that I don’t know where to begin!
But the good-bye part of it super-sucked.

i saw things with my eyes:

Movies:

• Kinky Boots (Amazon Instant Video). I loved this so much more than I expected to. It reminded me of other wonderfully acted but underrated British films like The Full Monty, Waking Ned Devine, and Saving Grace.  
• Say Anything… (Netflix). As a proud child of the 80s, I’m embarrassed to say I had never seen Say Anything start-to-finish until last week.
• A Single Man.  I was slightly disappointed in this one, possibly because I’d heard such raves and my expectations were high. The look of the movie was incredible; the story bummed me out. Colin Firth was all kinds of fab, but Julianne Moore’s portrayal of her character reminded me of Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest—it seemed like it was all a big, over-the-top, pathetic attempt at an Oscar nomination. I don’t especially love or hate her, but her performance here was ridic.
• We watched Iron Man 3 approximately 12 times this past week. I’m not exaggerating.
• Bad Words. Slightly sad, but laugh-out-loud funny.

Television:

• I’m all caught up with Veep (HBO) and can’t wait for season four. I adore this show. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has earned her three Emmys for this show, for sure. The truly unlikeable yet insanely hilarious characters on Veep make Seinfeld’s horrendous four seem like BFF material.
• Transparent. This is a new original series on Amazon and its cast is definitely worth watching. I’m not too far into the series yet, but they just posted the entire season. Here’s how Slate describes the premise of Transparent: “The title is a pun: As the show begins, the patriarch of the Pfeffermans, a close-knit, affluent, Jewish clan of Los Angelinos, begins to come out as transgender to her children.”
• New seasons of lots of good shows are finally starting! Yay!

Books:

I’m getting better about putting books down if I’m not enjoying them. This used to make me feel like a failure or that I didn’t give the book a chance, but I also hate wasting my time reading trash. Although I felt like I was reading a LOT more than usual this month, it turns out that many of the books I read went unfinished.

• Looking for Alaska, by John Green. I read this in honor of Banned Books Week, as lots of concerned parents have tried to get this out of kids’ hands. I loved the book, but I can see why there have been attempts to ban it. I will refrain from going into a long rant about censorship and the (lack of) logic behind banning books, but I will say this: MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS, FOLKS. Geez.
• Girl Walks into a Bar...: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle, by Rachel Dratch. This was a fun read. 
• The Group, by Mary McCarthy. Do you ever read the synopsis of a book and feel positive that you’ve read it before but then you start reading just in case and suddenly nothing seems familiar? And then just when you think you were wrong, that the book is new to you, it starts sounding familiar again? That. That’s where I am with this book.

Other stuff:

• So. Much. Football. Our team is 3-1 with four games to go, which is the best record we’ve ever had, but this past weekend’s loss hurt bad. I’m enjoying watching the games more this season than I have in previous years, but my anxiety levels are still sky-high. Jack thinks it’s funny when I say that every injury makes me want to pull him out of the sport. I’m dead serious. It’s hard to see that stuff.
  
  It’s not just Jack’s team that’s playing all the football, though… it’s the high school games both kids want to go to at least once a week, plus all the games on TV, and every bit of it makes me want to throw things and curse loudly.
• Although I don’t mind the weather of this season, I really hate seeing leaves falling off trees. This is partly because I hate raking, partly because our yard is designed for spring and will be ugly for the next six months, and partly because, as mentioned above and in every post I’ve ever written this time of year, fall means there’s football on every single channel every single day. But will I use the cooler temps as a good excuse to prepare crock pot meals and wear boots and cozy sweaters? Of course I will.

this month’s good and bad:

• The kids went back to school. This is a very good thing. I’m still having a hard time believing that Katie is in high school, though—but she absolutely loves it. Jack, on the other hand, acts like every bit of the 12-year-old that he is, and I’m thankful to have a break from his eye-rolling for a few hours every day.
• Jenn K moved to Alaska. Pffftt.
• My orthopedist gave me permission to take off my walking cast! I’m wearing a transition brace for now, but it’s too bulky for most of my shoes, so truthfully, I’m playing risky and going ankle-nekkid most the time. So far, so good. Later this week I start physical therapy.

i likes to share pics I’ve found on the ‘net:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was real, September. Smell ya later.

Aug. 31: August in review

August 2014 is just about done. Septembers in the Northwest are usually quite lovely—still warm and sunny, but not god-awful hot. Also: KIDS IN SCHOOL AGAIN FINALLY OMG I’M SO GLAD I THOUGHT THEY’D NEVER GO BACK.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

• We had Victor’s birthday party. It rocked, mostly. We know a lot more nice/fun people than assholes, and that’s good when it’s time to throw parties.
• Katie registered for high school. Eek. I’m happy for her, but GEEZ, it seems like just a few days ago that we were trying to teach her to count.

i saw things with my eyes:

• We went up north to see our niece, Abby, perform in a musical. It was big, silly fun; Bellevue Youth Theater has a cool program.
• Welcome to Sweden and The Hotwives of Orlando are semi-amusing time-wasters.
• I think I would be soooo good at doing a Drunk History episode. Not actually being on the show, just recording one. My great-great-great grandchildren will be so very, very proud. What a legacy. :) 
• The Simpsons “every episode ever” marathon has been playing almost non-stop at The House of Manullang for the past ten days. LOVING. IT.
• This is exciting pretty much just to me: I got new dishes, and the full kitchen sink never looked so pretty. My mom gave me ten of the cheeriest, colorful-est gifts EVER:

• Sweet Maya. She’s adjusting so well in her new life as a Manullang. I think she loves us pretty good:

 

• My rock star nephew started a new band, Tetherball. They just released a single on iTunes. He’s also a goofball—check out the video teaser he stars in for the song (below). And if you care, the guy who sang lead for The Rouge has a new band too: The Almanacks. Stephen produced their album. Stephen, apparently, can do anything and is pretty much the greatest.

 

this month’s good and bad:

• We spent a LOT of time in doctors’ offices this month. I don’t know how all the appointments got scheduled like they did, but there was one week where every morning we were out the door EARLY to see one professional or another. None of them gave us bad news, so YAY!
• One of the appointments was an eye exam for Jack. You’ve probably noticed in photos that he wears his sports goggles as regular glasses, which has never made me very happy but at least I don’t have to worry about girls chasing him. ;) Since he’s been ready for a new prescription for a while now, we encouraged him to get regular glasses in addition to a new pair of goggles. He couldn’t find frames he liked, though, and I knew if I forced him to choose a pair he wouldn’t actually wear them. And THEN the optician suggested we check out the Nike line of frames. Jack’s grin went ear-to-ear, and $300 later he was wearing normal glasses again. (I have several four-letter words in my head over this, and the last one is “Nike.”) He was disappointed that the swoosh sticker on the store lenses weren’t on his prescription lenses, but there are swooshes on the temples, so that’ll do. <cue this mom’s eye roll>
• A new season of football has begun. Jack is on a junior varsity team this year, and practices until 9:30pm several days a week. Crazy. I am sooo glad Dina’s kid and mine are on the same team again this year. I’ve got our flasks all filled and ready for the first game next weekend!
• I worked quite a bit in June and July, but not at all in August. I really haven’t minded all that much. The free-ish time let me concentrate on other things, like…
• Katie decided to switch bedrooms. You think it’ll be a pretty simple, quick project, but then it goes all week long and you regret ever suggesting it when she complained that her room was too small. I think we’re finally done moving, but somehow a bunch of stuff ended up in the master bedroom and I hate when our room becomes a dumping ground. Grrr.

i likes to share the silly stuff:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For all the people who complain that smart phones have killed decent communication:

  

Well, that’s it for August. Bring it, September.