elfs | Saturday: Great start, miserable finish.

Feb 2: Ballard Docks

Saturday morning, I woke early and took Kouryou-chan to an early rehearsal. She seemed up for it, and as we drove to the show she said, "I know my lines all the way through scene 5. I won't need my script at all!" We were a little late, getting stopped on the Ballard Bridge, which gave me an opportunity to shoot this photograph.

After dropping her off, I found a quite cafe' with "free wifi" (which just sucked; upload rates were tragic) but it was enough to finish proofing Decadence in December and get the whole set ready for uploading. I had to wait to do the actual uploading until I got home. The coffee was okay (Tully's, rather than Starbucks) but you can really tell when you're in a dubious part of town; the coffee shop was in that transition zone between the marine industrial and the northern residential; a place that used to have lots of hookers, and the door to the bathroom at the coffee shop has a lock and a "For customers only" sign on it. The one down in Greenlake has much better seating, lighting, and no such warnings.

Burien Dad & Daughters Dance

I picked up Kouryou-chan and headed back home. I started to feel a scratch in the back of my throat, and my sinuses started to fill up. It wasn't too bad at 5:30, when I was scheduled to take the girls to the Burien Annual Valentine's Dad & Daughters Dance, which was such a silly exercise in civil community, but it was still fun. I got to meet some of the other men in my community, and the girls immediately formed their own little cliques and groups. Yamaraashi-chan's best friend showed up, and they had a good time. It was blissfully short, 90 minutes or so, and they took the lame Polaroid, and had cookies and punch, and played the Hokey-Pokey and limbo and the Macarena. I wore my kilt; the looks from others were fun, especially one little girl who engaged her father in a very serious discussion of it.

But I couldn't deny, halfway through the dance, that I was getting sick. I was coming down with Omaha's cold.

I had had a date scheduled that night. Something far more vigorous. Something that involved ropes and pullies and hoods and a beautiful young woman, who I had to call and sadly tell her that I was cancelling. I downed pseudephedrine and ibuprophen and fexofenadine, and nothing held the aches and runny nose and all that at bay. I tried flushing my sinuses, and that didn't help. I begged Omaha to take on the responsibility of watering the cat, and went to bed early.