elfs | A nice, quiet day...

Burien, WA, 160th & 1st.

It was an interesting Friday here at the Villa. My car had been acting up, so I took it into the shop this morning around 9, only to discover that the next bus to take me home was at 10. Since I had an hour, I pulled out my book and read Michael Flynn's Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth.

It's a good story, a novella I think, that was nominated for a Hugo. It's set in Seattle-- I didn't know that when I started reading it-- but as a "Seattle story" it completely works. There's no plot; it's a series of vignettes about how a skiffy disaster, an intermittent Bermuda-triangle-like event opening up in the middle of Elliot Bay, affect the lives of various people in Seattle. It starts with the disappearance of a Washington State Ferry with a thousand people on board. It very effective-- as a long-time Seatttle resident, I probably knew someone from every frame Flynn describes, including the angsty professor writing the woo-laden essay and the playwright writing the equally angsty coming-out story (told by Flynn actually writing act one of the play). Seattle is a city full of angst, on-line bulletin boards and woo-woo hypotheses, and Flynn successfully described them all.

It was chilly this morning, but there were zero clouds in the sky and it's hard to emphasize just how blue it all was. I ran into the Starbucks for a coffee about halfway to combat the chill, but mostly I sat and read. I also took a pano shot of my bus stop.

When I got home, I coded my brains out, mastering the delicate ins and outs of guiding users through the filter selections on our website (genre, length, rating, country of origin), fixing a few typos (the "Intended Audience" rating wasn't capitalized correctly), and adding film counts to director's names with a single SQL-fu, which is way cheaper than a SQL hit for each and every goddamn director, which is how Django wants to do it.

I had a lox sandwich for lunch. With capers, red onion, sliced tomatoes, and cream cheese. And a kosher Coke. I feel all Fort Lauderdale Jewish all of a sudden.

Around four, I went to get the car, which needed about $300 worth of work to fix a broken air intake that had spewed unfiltered air into my engine. That explained the chronic stalling in city traffic. Sucks, but what can you do?

I rode my bike. It's about 2.3 miles, using the Ambaum Cutoff, which is a much safer road than 1st avenue. I'm in surprisingly good shape after all.

When I got home, I took some of the seedlings I've been tending for the past three weeks and repotted them on the porch out back. Most of what I potted was the basil, which is a staple of my summers. I need to till some of the soil in the raised beds on the west side before I plant the carrots & tomatoes, though. I have no idea where to put the parsley.

I made marinara sauce & spaghetti for dinner.

Now that's a pretty good birthday.