Friday's disappointments...

Ugh. Not sure what's wrong with me. I was feeling terrible all Friday afternoon, having weird hot flashes and sudden sweats throughout the day. It wasn't a very good week, work-wise: a gigaton of meetings shattered any attempt I might have made at attention.

Cargo ships stacked up on Puget Sound

One of the meetings was on the seventh floor. While I was there I saw four cargo ships, the really big kind that get stacked to the gills with containers, sitting out on Puget Sound, just waiting there. The sight reminded me of an article solarbird posted about recently, Ship Rates Plunge as Credit Freeze Strands Cargo. I can't help but wonder if those ships are there because their backers are telling the Captains not to trust the credit papers being presented to them. That would suck.

After work, I headed up to Capitol Hill for my monthly haircut with Lancer, who did the usual excellent job. On the way up, though, I was tortured by a young woman who had a small child, maybe 15 months old, who was screaming and bawling in that "I'm upset because I don't know how to stop being upset!" moods that, fortunately, rarely affected Kouryou-chan at that age. I made my saving throws versus coffee and avoided spending any more cash than I had to. I know, I'm not exactly helping the economy by being frugal (not that using a salon is exactly "frugal," but...)

Hillary 20082012

Walking through Seattle, you often see all types of crazy stuff. There was a badly photoshopped model on the side of the Bon Marche that I wanted to capture, but the bus came by too quickly. There was also this sign, left next to a dumpster outside the Crypt. I'm not sure what the rest of the sign refers to, but it was just kinda there, looking sad and forlorn.

On the way home, I caught the 11 heading back into town and that same damned baby was on there, still screaming her lungs out. I was just having no luck. I pulled out my book, The Also People, and kept reading. I reached downtown. I actually love downtown Seattle; there's so much to see. Westlake Center was filled with young punks, hairstyles like rainbows, clothes like a circus.

At the corner of First and Pike, I discovered that the Seattle's Best Coffee had closed. I didn't feel bad; there are three other cafe's within sight of this one, and this SBC had taken over from my favorite store. Back in the mid-90's, this storefront had hosted Fantasy Unlimited, one of the best kink stores in the Seattle Area. Since it was just across the street from Pike Place Market, the bottom floor was couples-friendly lingere, and upstairs had had the floggers, dildos, and other toys. I was very disappointed to see it all go, and the story was that it had been driven out of the area by the city.

Larouchites!

With no one to drive them away, the Larouchites had taken over the area on the corner and were handing out their drivel. How can anyone take Lyndon Larouche seriously? His stuff is even weirder than the Bilderberger/Trilateralist/Ninja conspiracy theory wackiness. Wasn't he telling us that last year's collapse was so bad that we should all be starving to death right now? I mean, when the guy invokes the idea that Dick Cheney is possessed, you know he's gone over the top.

There was a handballing party (and no, not the sport) that night, but I wasn't feeling good at all by the time I got home. The pre-party ritual didn't appeal to me at all in my condition, so I stayed home with the family. Omaha cooked a wonderful meatloaf. We played a round of Monopoly with Kouryou-chan, and went to bed early.

Saturday, still overworked and under-rested

Despite going to bed at 10:00 the night before, I wasn't awake until almost 9:00. Eleven hours of sleep must have been the wrong thing to do, because I've been dragging all day. And it was quite a busy day.

For one thing, this is the one Saturday a month Omaha and I give up to helping maintain Kouryou-chan's school grounds. That means, you guessed it, gutter work for me and weeding for Omaha. We had one extra volunteer show up, and she helped garden. That was it.

Most of the weekend volunteers were on a different project, tearing up all the concrete in front of the elementary school building, to put in more greenery and a new walkway and all that. I watch two mothers from the school using a jackhammer and wondered, amazed, at what can be rented these days.

We were there almost six hours. We got home around four, showered, and I lay down briefly... and didn't get up again until seven. And I still felt like I'd been run over. Omaha and I made dinner-- she cooked, I chopped-- and we enjoyed some delicious (and pretty inexpensive) hard ciders. We played more Monopoly toward the end of the evening. Y'know, I should have introduced Kouryou-chan to this game before; the math is interesting enough to keep her going, and the scheming entertains her a lot.

Bleah. I feel like I should go back to bed, but after that nap I don't.