This past week brought some sweet & sour news to my little part of Seattle. Ryan, Jaime and the kids are all moving to Ithaca so that Ryan can get his masters degree and become a real life teacher of children. It’s sweet because it’s what he wants to do and he’d be quite good at it. But it’s a bit sour because I’m going to miss like like crazy.

We kicked around the idea of moving away ourselves, especially since RyJa are moving. But the likelihood of that happening, especially since Smartz just got an awesome job at a printshop, is nil.

They are doing it the right way with a big trip across the country. I’m helping in the planning of the trip, but mostly I would like them to stay.

Since I can’t really put it into words, I thought I’d let Mary Jo, Bobo and Brain Guy do it for me.

Hurry.

Nikki visited Seattle this past weekend and we all had a ball. We took her on a short tour of Seattle and the out lying areas. It was quite a bit of fun and we took pictures!

Check them out here.

Yesterday morning, I got a message from Ryan asking if I wanted to head down with them to Seattle Center (where the Space Needle lives) to check out the train layout and, apparently, the cold. Of course, I said “sure!”

He picked me up and wound our way down Aurora Ave to the Worlds Fair Grounds. We parked across the street from Bamboo Gardens, walked around a parking garage and across 5th Street. Ryan had Arkaedi stuffed in backpack and Taviri was spazzing out a few paces behind us.

In the park, there’s a water fountain that’s a gigantic crater with a huge metal ball in it. The metal ball fountains the water, though mostly in summer. Arkaedi saw it first and pointed, saying “ball! ball! ball!” We peeked over the crater’s edge to stare in awe at the ball ball ball.

Though the temperature was 45, it was a bit chillier than I had anticipated. I was only wearing a hoodie. Arkaedi and I were the only ones with hats.

After the ball, we went inside one of the old Fair buildings. They’ve turned it into a huge foodcourt minus the mall. It’s got strange things strewn about the place, including a huge chunk of the Berlin Wall. This is where the train layout was.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m all for trains. As far as model trains go, I’m more into the HO scale. Even the Lionel scale is quite nice. This layout was larger than that, however, it was very well done. Congratulations, Seattle!

The set up was a town from maybe the 1920s with a fire hall, a theater, blacksmith shop and many Norman Rockwell kinds of homes. Several trains, all old locomotives, run through the town, over bridges and through inexplicable tunnels.

Having quite a bit of the train, the kids sat down, Arkaedi in a pink chair and Taviri in a blue one. Arkaedi made sure that we all knew that she was in a pink chair and “baba” (brother? Bubba?) had blue.

Also in the foodcourt was a giant Christmas tree. As we walked the kids over, we got several very pleased nods from “progressive” Seattleites who thought we were a gay couple. If they only knew.

At the Christmas Tree, Taviri told me about his own Christmas tree while Arkaedi told me about the blue birds on the tree in front of us. She then became a cat, dropped to all fours and began meowing. This tickled a few folks around us, but held us up a bit.

What were we late for? We were late for heartbreak.

Another part of this park is the carousel. Being a two year old girl, Arkaedi loves horses. As we approached the carousel, she giggled and said “nay! nay! nay!!” But she was too small to ride, so while Ryan took Taviri, I got to hang out with Arkaedi, who was very seriously not happy about this. I picked her up in my arms so she could get a better view.

“Baba ride.” she says to me.

“Yep, Baba’s riding the horse.” I reply.

“Me ride?” she asks.

“Well… let’s just watch Baba ride,” I said trying to avoid what I knew what coming.

She paused for a bit and looked at me, just a little sad. “Me ride…. Me ride?”

“Look! It’s Papa and Baba! Wave to them!” What else could I say here?

“No… down.” She was serious now. I was clearly to blame for this.

“You want me to put you down?”

“Hmph!” When she says “hmph!” you’ve been cut off. She really means it.

So I put her down beside me. She was this close to crying. I gave her a little hug and stayed on her level.
I asked her if she wanted me to pick her up again.

She very sadly answered, “No.”

“Do you want to hold my hand?”

“No.”

“Well… how about my finger?” (Sometimes she’s ok with that.)

“No.”

She was still very close to tears, so I ask, “Did I break your heart?”

“…. No.” She had to think about it.

“Can I stay here and talk to you?”

More thought and then, “….. yeah.”

Ryan and Taviri exited the ride and she was clearly heartbroken that I was so mean that I didn’t let her ride on the horses.

Ryan carried Arkaedi who was now scowling at me. Taviri was spazzing around us and when I looked to see exactly where, I saw him going for a couple of very used cigarettes in a nasty ashtray. I shout out to him “Oh no! Tavari! That’s nasty! It’s like… poop! Don’t touch it!”

I usually don’t raise my voice (because, you know, why would I have to?), so Taviri suddenly got shy and really sad that I “yelled.” He wouldn’t talk to me, either. He wasn’t mad, but just too sad to talk.

So there you go, I broke two warm little hearts in a matter of minutes.

By the time we got to the car, Taviri was fine with me, but Arkaedi was still not thrilled. I talked to her a little bit and finally got a high five out of her. She wouldn’t give me a hug, but a high five means I’m once again on the road to her good graces.

I guess this was my Christmas outing. Good friends and trains, heartbreak and high fives – that about sums it up.

Yesterday, Ryan, Smartz, the kids and I took a trip out to Issaquah, a small town just outside of Seattle. We hiked up Tiger Mountain, one of the Issquah Alps. It was a beautiful day and nice to get out of the city.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love living in Seattle. Even though our neighborhood is the home of crack deals and hooker motels, it’s a great place. Ok, maybe not great. We don’t go out at night, but we really don’t feel threatened or anything.

Seattle offers a ton of great things to do. You’ve probably heard me go on and on about all of these things over and over. It’s got everything I could ever want. Except countryside.

My passion, as you might have guessed, is riding. I’ve got two scooters and both are incredibly fun to ride. Riding in the city is alright, it’s much better than driving. But riding in the countryside is where the true passion of my passion resides.

Living where we do, we’re basically city-locked (sort of like being land-locked). We’ve got a huge lake to the east, the Sound to the west, more city to the north and even more city to the south. Getting to the open road is no easy task from where we are.

The thought of living in the Issaquah area is an interesting one. Ryan and Jamie are thinking of that area as well. It would be nice to continue living near them. It would also be nice to be near the countryside. In any one of the many number of towns around Seattle, you’re right up against a mountain or near a river or waterfalls. There are rolling hills and farms, country roads and history.

Seattle is great. I love living here. But maybe living near Seattle would be even better.

I secretly love county/state fairs. I can’t get to the Bloomsburg fair this year, but the Evergreen State Fair, just 20 miles north of Seattle is nearly as good!

Missing is the “freak show” and the hordes of strange people from the coal region. There’s no Stanky and the Coal Miners, either. But even without that stuff, it was a very fun day.

We spent much of the morning and afternoon walking the not-very-crowded fairgrounds, taking in the sights and eating fantastically greasy curly fries. We saw animals, tractors, a creepy ride that was at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch and had frozen lemonade.

I took tons of pictures and have them displayed for you with fun captions.

Click here for the pics!

Smartz snorted three times while looking at the pictures and reading the captions. Maybe you’ll snort too.

Ryan wrote about the day here.

And Samrtz writes about it here.

More info on the fair is here.

As some have noticed, I’ve not had a whole lot to say lately. I guess not a whole lot has been happening since seeing Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Since then, I’ve been working, so there’s not been a ton of time to do a lot of things. That didn’t stop me from a visit to Mighty O’s with Ryan and family.

Work has been better (or I’m growing more numb to it). I’m learning more about the store and am able to help customers more. It really bugged me when I was told to not really help anyone, just sit there and let customer service take care of it. That’s fun, but often they’re not there or busy, so that leaves me sitting there looking at a phone that doesn’t ring all that much.

But this past weekend, I was a problem solver and customer disarmer. Some customers get amazingly upset over the lack of service that this store provides. We are understaffed and make too many promises to customers. The “if more than three people are waiting at a register, we’ll call up more cashiers” idea is taken to heart. Customers really do expect them to show up. Funny, eh? And they really hate when someone promises them that something will be done “around noon” and it’s not done even by the end of the night. I had to clean up that little mess.

I’m fairly good at keeping customers from flipping out. Who knew?

I guess maybe I am good at retail. Not at selling, because honestly, you’d probably be better off if you’d not spend your money, but at helping people not be angry. Nifty.

Aside from work, I’ve been reading “I Rode With Stonewall” by Henry Kyd Douglas, which I thought I had read before, but now I don’t believe I have. I’m enjoying it. Douglas was an aide to Stonewall Jackson and his retelling of events is well done.

I also tried to read a couple of books full of essays about the big “what ifs” in American history. Like, “what if Washington didn’t cross the Delaware?” and “what if America lost the battle of New Orleans?” I should love stuff like this, but the book Almost America is completely unreadable. Horrible writing, poorly researched history and just really really bad.

In other news, I’ve discovered two shows that really aren’t half bad. The first is a new one called Glee about a teacher who takes over a Glee Club that covers classic rock songs. It’s quirky and doesn’t quite have its center yet (there’s only one episode), but I hope it takes off. It could be really good.

Another show that surprised me is the one with Molly Ringwald playing a mom. Secret Life of the American Teenager. I had only heard the title before and wrote it off as a reality show about teenagers – not something that would really interest me. Movies about teenagers are one thing (RIP, John Huges), but real life teenagers are a little scary. I’ll pass. (No offense to teenagers, of course – you’re a good lot.)

Oh, and the show Community with John McHale and Chevy Chase is really really funny. I hope it makes it.

I guess that’s all I have to say. Smartz returns from Pennsylvania on Tuesday. I’ve not really taken advantage of the otherwise empty apartment. No keggers, stag parties or scooter rallies so far. I have one more night to make it happen. Wish me luck.

Birthdays really aren’t something I “celebrate” all that much. I do my best not to expect anyone to really pay too much attention. Sure, I like the cake – who doesn’t? But I don’t obsess over the whole thing.

A couple of days ago, I celebrated my 34th birthday. The day before, Sarah and I headed over to Ryan and Jaime’s for brunch, which turned out to be more of a birthday lunch (bunch?). I wasn’t expecting that. Sarah documented events here.

She also made a cake and whoopie pies. I haven’t had whoopie pies in four or five decades!

The day of my birthday, I got emails, messages, phone calls, etc from more friends than I can count. I tried my best to thank them all, but I think I missed a few – it was a whirlwind thing.

Honestly, I was amazed by all of this. Like I said, birthdays aren’t a big deal for me, but friends certainly are.

So thanks, friends! It’s really wonderful to know that you’re loved. With friends like I’ve got, it’s easy to tell.

Thanks so much!