The Seattle Sobriety Test

In Seattle, when you get pulled over because they suspect you've been drinking, the cops take you around to the back of their car and show you five bins of different sizes and colors, one of which is segmented into three sections with moveable partitions, two of which are lined with plastic bags. The officer hands you a box. If you can successfully sort all of the trash in the box into the compostables, landfill, glass bottles (separating dark colors, bright colors, and clear), paper, and plastic, then you're free to go.

The unemployment numbers are worse than you think...

The U-6 is defined as the "Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers. Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule."

That number, of which I am part, currently stands at 17.5%

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The well-sweetened Kouryou-chan.

Sunday consisted almost entirely of a crash-course in Catalyst, followed by me and Kouryou-chan hurtling up to Greenlake to pick up Omaha, who had gone out to meet some friends, and then on to the ice-skating rink in Shoreline for a birthday party with one of her friends.

Kouryou-chan and I were delayed twenty minutes getting out of the house because one of her teeth fell out. That's four in the past two months. The kid has noticeable gaps now. What delayed us was not the tooth-- all of her teeth have fallen out without pain or drama-- but she dropped it down the sink. Fortunately, it was still in the trap, but that was a gross job.

At the skating rink, Omaha and I hung out with the parents while we watched the kids go round. The little girl who is Kouryou-chan's friend has a big brother, who has his own friends, who are all at the savage ape stage of teenagerhood. I mean, they're okay young men in their own right, but they're also not quite ready to think coherently about anything. Listening to them josh about girls was almost exactly like listening to Yamaraashi-chan josh about boys, only less coherent, despite their being two years older.

I had an odd moment at the ice skating rink. While there, I saw a man with his wife and children skating, and it took me forever to identify him. He was Mr. K., lawyer for the defendant, in that personal injury case where I was the jury foreman. It was weird, a kind of out-of-context error.

After the skating, we drove back up to another friend's house to celebrate his 40th birthday, to eat "authentic British cuisine"-- which seems to not include any vegetables whatsoever, and listen to him and his lovely wife play ancient music, in which they are both highly versed.

We got home around 8:30pm, at which point we all just headed straight to bed.