Raincharm’s Weblog

Left work – complicated carpooling. It was raining.
One work-mate going to the game. Mate’s husband bringing son by for another work-mate to watch. Husband going to game. They have two cars, want to drop one at a park and ride, so only one goes into Seattle. Other work-mate going to Seattle. Wants a rider for carpool as the soccer game traffic was sure to snarl things. Much discussion and we all take off. Baaad traffic. What could be 10 minutes is 45.

Missed Train(Bus)
The grand plans was for Carl & I to enjoy a soccer game and then wander to the train station adjacent to the  stadium and pick up Ashlan, arriving from Vancouver. Got a call indicating said plan was kaput, since she missed the Train(Bus) by about 2 minutes. Apparently the No. 3 Vancouver bus broke down, had to wait 5 minutes for another and …..

Noodle stop. It was raining.
After meeting up downtown the 3 game goers stopped at a noodle house in the International District and got hot to-go noodles. I got 2 since meeting Carl later.

Made Train(Train) – but short of goal
Call from Ashlan – on the Train(Train) that left 45 minutes after the Train(Bus), but could only get a ticket as far as Everett. Hmmm. Supposed to arrive at 9:50 PM. We should be able to make that (quick calculations = 6:30 game + 2 hours + bus ride home + 30 minutes to Everett)

Picnic in the stadium. It was raining.
Arrived at the stadium. Once inside the lower concourse was full of people. Many took advantage of open floor space to eat dinner in the dry. So did the three of us and our noodle boxes. Mmmmm.

Soccer game. It was raining hard.
10 minutes to game time, should get to seats. Start down the tunnel to the seating – WOW, LOOK AT THAT RAIN. Back into the concourse to add a poncho layer on top of my long sleeved shirt, short sleeved Sounders t-shirt, jacket, outer jacket (longer & warmer) and scarf. Finally Carl arrives. Dry off seats with towel provided by the Sounders and sit until the opening whistle. Forgot about the pre-game festivities. About 1/2 hour to get started, which puts the plan for Everett a bit in jeopardy.

1st half – it was raining hard. The Philadelphia Union started quickly, picking off balls and looking like they meant business. But by the end of the 1st have the Sounders scored twice. My these guys can move quickly. A few missed traps due to skidding balls along the sideline, but when they string 3-4 quick passes together it is a thing of beauty.

2nd half – it was raining harder.
It was also a little colder. A few people had left and that lowered the cushion of warmth provided by all the other bodies. Not really too cold, however. My layers were doing their job, helped a lot by the poncho. (Thanks Shelley)

Bus home – It was raining.
We made it to the bus tunnel, with all of the other soccer fans, and packed onto our bus home. Usually we get an express bus. I guess after 9 at night they mostly run locals. So, after a while we were making some progress towards home and dry clothes. Call Ashlan. Inform her I will definitely be late. Walking the four blocks from the bus Ashlan calls. She is in Everett.

Dump outer layers. – It was raining lightly.
First things first – get off the wet outer layer of jackets and ponchos. Going to change pants too.
Phone rings – Ashlan says the train station closes at 10 PM and she will be outside. It is 9:45 and there is no way I can be there before 10. Find directions to the Everett train station, forget changing clothes and jump into the car. Brought the leftover noodles.

Finally rendezvous. Sprinkling lightly?
Two phone calls on the way north. (Yes, I had my earpiece in – not breaking laws here). Gave her my coordinates. The last call I was almost in sight. Turns out there had been a creepy man hanging about. Said something to her once (she just smiled in reply). Whenever he was around or staring at her she would call. The security guard had said they had cameras on the front area, and she hoped he was in an office watching. She did let him know she wasn’t entirely comfortable. (He also said to stand on the spotlights in the pavement as they gave off some warmth) A family in the same area helped for a bit, and there were a few taxis about (don’t know if they would have been helpful, other than getting into one). A cleaning lady was in view in the station part of the time. I suggested next time she offer to help clean if they let her stay inside. But I am finally there.

Home. Rain almost done.
Sports – BUTLER WINS. My No. 5 continues over a No. 1. My No. 1 Duke plays today.
Chat for a bit, but really time to get out of all of the wet clothes.

Morning. Up – sprinkling on and off.

Happiness.
Driving to work, I was just feeling happy. First time in a bit, getting kids home safe is always good.

Eagle flying with crow in hot pursuit.
Along the lake drive spotted an Eagle. Always nice. It was fairly low and right over the road. It finally turned out over the lake and the crow left, back to its own doings.

Work

Late to bed
And early to rise
Makes you grumpy, listless
and having red eyes.

Spring has sprung and we are looking forward to warmer days. I don’t know why I can’t grow plants like my Mom. Maybe she got the gene because she was born at the start of Spring.

Green Thumb Gene Relaxing

Happy Day Mom.

Today I basically watched basketball, did a little filing and other homey stuff. Did not help the world in any discernible fashion. tomorrow will be a more productive day I’m sure.

Only two more teams through on Friday. – Duke (a 1 seed) and Maryland (a 4 seed)

Now Saturday has been interesting from a basketball perspective. So far I have lost my 2 seed Villanova, but my 9 seed Northern Iowa took out Ashlan’s No. 1 seed, Kansas. Washington (an 11 seed) continued by knocking off Carl’s No. 3 seed New Mexico, and Butler (No. 5 seed) prevailed over upstart Murray St. (Ashlan again).

I still have to have my No. 1 seed Duke take on Cal (Ashlan again), and more importantly Maryland (No. 4 seed) play Michigan State (No. 5 seed). Now I am a bit torn on this one, since it is MSU. But MSU is for Ashlan (again – we seem to be locking horns alot).

One other interesting bit of our family bracket is that Rey has all but 1 team left in the West, and only my Butler remains as a threat to Rey. I don’t know if that is the best strategy. But then there really wasn’t any strategy in our drawing so …

We took a walk in the 60+ degree wheather today in which we

Walked past the husky baseball game (when the husky basketball game was starting)
Found a baseball that was dry (past the fence is a Lake Washington inlet)
Found a new (to us) nature preserve to explore (Union Bay Nature Preserve)
Climbed a fence to get out to the road, it was short, but still my shoes did not fit into the chain link so I had to balance on my hands on top of the fence.
Found a new Liquor store and bought Carolans and Crown Royale. (2/3 of a Duck Fart)
Walked up through the Ravenna ravine and saw where a friend had been doing ivy removal work earlier in the day.

Find car
Parked on the street yesterday so that Carl could get to the kid-seat laden car to take a tyke home. It was further away than I remembered.

How to clean car
Scraper or squeegee. I carried them both but managed most with the squeegee. It has a longer handle and wider swipe. Temperature around 37 at home. But warmer than Denver where it is snowing (but they had the 60’s yesterday)

Eagle slowdown?
On the floating bridge there was one of those brief slowdowns for no apparent reason. I am thinking perhaps the eagle was perched there for a while, but had flown away before I arrived.

Backlit mountains
The sun outlining every slope and undulation of the Cascades, with a brighter area showing where the sun would soon be peeking over.

Many layers of hillside trees with varying levels of fog, haze and clarity
Evergreens on the steep slopes from lake to plateau, grey to green.

Sunshine on the houses across the lake
Windows glinting and the painted colors popping.

Blinding sun
Streaming over the roofs of houses less than 15 years old, stabbing the eyes. I predicted this when it was a stand of tall evergreens.

Limited Edgar
Followed a fellow into the office from parking, but the door was still locked. Edgar was limited by his lack of metal key device. He said he would prefer to be a corporation.

Timesheet
It is time to figure yesterdays work and plot todays.

March Madness first day – my teams through = University of Washington (11 seed), Northern Iowa (9 seed), Butler (5 seed) and Villanova (2 seed). I think I lost 5 teams.

As in, I have not posted for a few days here.
Some busy times, some not so busy.
Definitely some highlights that I want to go on about, but probably won’t tonight.

Trip to Vancouver – again.
Paralympics – Sledge hockey rocks
Work – getting to a new normal which means everything is in change mode
Sports – (non-Olympic) – in a moment in time which is pre-seasons of Pro-Soccer, very amateur soccer, pro-baseball, and March Madness.

Tonight we are venturing into a homegrown database about the Kingdome and domeruns. We have set a deadline for ourselves and it may take some effort to get there. I may even have to start Carlos on a great computer adventure by teaching Access before any other programs in the MS Office suite. We shall see.

It feels like winter in my head.
It is finally acting like winter in the forecast as well. At least a northwest winter. Rain. Coldish.

At work we are down a person, and there is training going on that reduces the number available for customers further. The training is just for a few days. But I am not in the training, I am supposed to be working.

It must be spring because a lot of the summer projects are walking in the door. Which means I spent the afternoon at the front counter. I have not had a front counter day in a long time. But I was just not in the mood.

Put a smile on your face and it shows in your voice. I don’t know if any of the customers caught on, but when I had 2 people in my office, one on the intercom and a joke about a previous non-joking e-mail about routing the weekly newspapers correctly led me to say, “Yes, one of the day’s irritants,” I think I may have hurt the feelings of one of those in my office.

Grrrrrr. I was not targeting anyone in particular, just my mood and the day.

I have been less than good about keeping up posting for the past few days.
Part of it was mood, but most of it was lack of energy upon finishing whatever else was on the menu for the day.

There is this “race” thing on Sunday coming up. Really a jog/run, or more likely for me a jog/walk. It is to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and raise money for something (can’t remember what off the top of my head).  I have been making a two week effort to get to a point where there will be more jog than walk for me. With mixed results.

I know I can go a mile without stopping, but will she? Hills seem to have a fairly big impact on my mind’s ability to keep going. I just know the world will not end if I stop and walk a bit, and my brain is good at allowing me to do just that. I try to get to the, “it will be over sooner if you just keep moving,” point of view, but the immediate relief at moving to a walking pace generally wins out.

Three more training days, so it will all be over soon regardless. Saturday is a travel day, so rest the day before. Except for the old daylight savings thingie, which means we lose an hour of sleep. Love spring, hate to spring forward.

I am eating peanut butter toast. Creamy I believe.

I started the morning attempting to do some running, with mixed success.
Next week I have signed up to do a 5K (3 mile) St. Patrick’s Day run. This is a follow-up to my Jingle Bell 5K in December. 3 months should be more than enough to get ready. NOT.

I have been able to run for more than a mile, most of the time, and did almost 2 miles Friday evening. This morning the plan was to start from home, run to a track, do 1 – 1-1/2 miles at the track, buy some eggs (supermarket next door), and walk home. The run to the track (~1/2 mile) started OK, but much of it is an upward incline, and about a block before the track I was losing steam. Since there was no one around to chastise me – I walked – to the track. Once at the track I ran “My one damn mile.” That is what I called it. I decided I could limit myself to just one, since I had many other things to do this morning.

After finishing the plodding One Damn Mile, I walked a lap (1/4 mile) and then did 3 more laps walking the curves and running the straights. Off to the market, and home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

Back to peanut butter. Yesterday, before our walk to Red Robin (see prior post), we were trying to cover up a blister Carl had developed the previous day. He wanted to pop it (yes we know you are not supposed to pop, but …). So out with a needle and find a match. Very old school. Matches, where are the matches.

Into a high cupboard, towards the back – a jar with several matchbooks, some more than 25 years old, from our Colorado days. We reminisced a bit, and then Carlos noted the jar. It was a peanut butter jar. Lots of people store things in peanut butter jars. We have many around the house with various collections of toys.

This jar was a Skippy Super Chunk variety, and it is glass.