Raincharm’s Weblog

We started our morning with a movie of the film noir persuasion. The movie of the title above was, “low budget from a second rate studio.” But it turned out to be a precursor of many others, and likely of the TV show Dragnet. Jack Webb played the CSI style scientist in the movie, and he obviously used much that was included in the movie in the TV show.

It was based on a true story – but I will let Wiki tell the story.

In addition to Cinema, we spent time looking at CPAPs on line, and looking for recipes for Cake Cookies, and thinking about Children. Most of these have to do with errands and future plans. The movie was not planned ahead of time, but was a nice diversion on a somewhat busy, yet quiet, day.

I will leave it at that for now. The Halibut is done (not a C word, but we don’t want it to sit in the refrigerator).

Gotta love minor league baseball in the great northwest. It started raining in the first inning. The rain has steadily increased and there was some consideration of calling it after 7-1/2, but it just continues. 

Minor League entertainment in the early between innings. 

Entertainment at the later innings 

That’s diamond dry, or something similar. 

We moved from row 9 to 15 just to get under a sort of roof. 

I am ready for some warm sunny days, but I’m not holding my breath, except to keep from drowning. 

We made it to a show this week, only one week late.

Having tickets to a series of plays has its benefits, such as being able to replace your tickets when you completely space out the show on the day of the show. Even with this benefit I think we are going to forego renewing this particular ticket package. Maybe try one of the many other venues or just pick a few individual plays. 

That said, we really enjoyed this performance. The girl playing Mary had a great voice and a great attitude for the part. A nice midweek diversion. 

This morning was my 2nd of 4 Saturday morning classes. Good information, but I do miss waking up without an alarm.

We are on our way to Tacoma now. Going to a Rainiers game. I generally enjoy the Rainiers,  but I would not choose a cool, potentially rainy evening as the time to go. But the Garfield High School baseball team has a group of tickets,  and so we are going in April. 

[Carl says I can call for an early departure if the weather goes south.] [[such a wimp]]

Monday has dawned bright and grey. The ground is wet, light precipitation in the air and needing to wear sunglasses. There was nothing wrong with the weekend, but it feels lost because I did not get to any of my usual catch up weekend tasks. 

Like sleeping in or paying bills or yard work. And this is the season where things grow inches in a day. Ignore at your peril.

The Mariners are out of town this week, but I have a meeting scheduled to run late today, and  a play scheduled on Wednesday. Our tickets to The Secret Garden were for last week, but we completely forgot we had tickets until I got an email noting we had missed the show. Blame it on Ichiro. That was the day Kevin caught his home run and everything else faded to the background. 

Onward into the week. 

Continuing from yesterday we visited a park beyond the school. 

My personal favorite. 

She did not follow through.

And then the rain began. And we had to return home. Newspaper and dinner and early to bed. Pretty tired for a different kind of weekend. 

Saturday started dry. And I went to class. Four Saturday mornings are to be spent learning how to better use Project software. It appears to be a good class, a professor from UW spending extra credit time, relatively small size with folks that know how to use programs, and a good pace. And it was raining when class ended.

Three of us carpooled to class and Carl had the car running when we pulled up to the house for adventure number 2.

We are being trusted with Carl’s two charges overnight. As I noted, it was raining so Lego dominated the early afternoon. When the sun finally made an appearance Audrey suggested we should be outside,  and so we went. To their neighborhood school’s playgrounds. 

It was windy, which helped to dry things up a bit. Audrey collected about 15 pieces of dropped clothing that they hung on the play structures to dry and be refund.

We finally retired to the house for pizza and some books. 

Dean was stacking hats on top of Carl, and we recalled the book Caps for Sale. I found it via the internet on my phone. Oh those silly monkeys. 

(It’s Sunday morning now and Carl and the kids are outside once more. I am drinking coffee in the relative warmth of the house. I think the kids view me as the alternative playmate to Carl, there when THEY decide I can be entertaining. Which works out well for all of us. )

It’s spring and not supposed to rain today. The younger neighbors have arranged an occasional front porch gathering. Sort of a mini block party. And it appears the weather may cooperate for the block 2017 opener. 

And it was a dry fun gathering. I didn’t realize how many kids lived on our block! And 2 or 3 that appeared over the winter. Aside from chatting with the adults Carl had four toddlers chasing and throwing balls. 

No pictures. Busy being part of it all.

I went to work yesterday. 

I did not go to the final game of the Mariner homestand. It was a day game. 

Ichiro says he will be back, but it might be his last game in Seattle. 

First pitch of the 9th inning and he hits a home run to our seats.

Kevin caught it. The stadium was rocking, “Ichiro, Ichiro, …”

And Ichiro wanted the ball, so Kevin traded up.

So much fun!

Sometimes I start a sentence with, “I think we should  …”. To which Carl will respond, “Uh oh,” before I even get my thought out.

On this ride to work my thoughts were leaning towards 1) how can I squeeze in some work this weekend when I have a class on Saturday and we have an overnight gig with Carl’s kids, 2) I really should get some plants in if we want a crop this year, and 3) my project to really get the basement cleaned and organized needs a kickoff. Then we drove on to the bridge and it changed to 4) how can I arrange a walk through a wetland or along a shoreline. 

Maybe I should try for a lunchtime walk by the storm detention pond. If the rain breaks at the right time. 

That’s Lake Sammamish, not the storm pond, but it’s more picturesque. 

Since April 10th about all I have done is work and go to baseball games. 

Work has been continuously continuous. 

The games have gotten better on the whole. There was the Griffey game. 

[I’m not certain who won that game. But I think it was the Mariners. The games tend to blend together. ]

Saturday was early entrance after working the first part of the day. It was also Jackie Robinson day. And Paxton was pitching. I’m not going to explain Robinson,  but all of the players wear his number, which makes keeping score just a little more challenging. 

Paxton is a Canada born pitcher for the Mariners. He seems to be coming into his own this year.  

A little background to set the stage. When Felix Hernandez (the King) pitches they have a “K” section where the fans have placards with a K on them. When Felix gets 2 strikes on a batter they wave their cards and chant “K, K, K, K”.

Some time last year we made smaller cards for Paxton,  except they bore a maple leaf and the letters EH. (Think the end of many phrases spoken by a Canadian,  Eh?) We resurrected them for the game and Paxton pitched a great game, 9 strikeouts in all. We ended up with a bit of airtime. The more fun part was getting others in the area to join in on the “EH, EH, EH, EH” chants.

Sunday was an Easter day game. We got to sit in a suite. Fun to have a different view, and we met some very nice people. 

And the Mariners won. As they did yesterday. I have not been as cold since I pulled out my big double jacket. This used to be reserved for kids November soccer games. 

Time for work…