Raincharm’s Weblog

We spent most of the day going here and there, mostly there.
First up the Seattle Women’s Chorus matinee. A great show with lots of Broadway tunes.
For the evenings entertainment we saw the Seattle Sounders – LOSE for the first time. Really it was a pretty good game, but they red-carded the first string goalie at 30 minutes in for handling the ball outside of the box. A red-card offense. I don’t really fault the call. But it meant that not only did we have the second string goalie,  they had to play with one less player for the rest of the game.

No walk around the lake today, but we did walk to and from the afternoon show, and parked a ways away from the stadium so we would have a good walk to and from the soccer game as well.

That and calls from both kids and it is time to call it a day.

Got home a little later tonight and chatted with the Boy. The Carl surprised me by asking me if I wanted to go for a walk. Of course I said yes. It was 7:30 ish (missing Jeopardy!) so it was a bit later than our other walks.

Back to Green Lake for a quick walk around. Now Carl is a counter, and he inquired as to what we should count. I decided that it was probably a bit late for strollers (the wheeled variety), and went with Cell Phones. Carl chose dogs. Amazingly, during the 3 mile walk we saw 10 dogs but only 3 Cell Phones in use. And 2 of the cell phones were really the same phone with the same talker as we passed her the second time. One cell phone a mile. I would never have guessed it would be such a small number. Now we did not count the total number of people passed in the three miles so can not report on the frequency of use per population. And certainly there were many fewer (figure that one out – it’s late) people than on our earlier walks, so while the cell phones per mile number would certainly be higher, perhaps the cell phones per person would be similar.

Anyway, that is probably a good thing (to not have so many cell phones). It’s not really a contest, but I would have had more to count if I had chosen I-pods.

I feel like I am awake.
The hair is washed, I’ve driven 25 miles (successfully) and I even had a discussion about emergency response.
But then I took a sip from my home travel coffee cup, set it down and poured creamer into a different cup. Now if I follow through I will have two cups at the same time.

We had the opportunity and weather for a quick 3 mile jaunt after work and before dinner. Once around the lake. Carl has done it by himself almost every day this week, but during the day. I was home, not early – but early enough, nothing else on the docket, and our rainy day was really lacking rain. (Weather people!) Well it did rain overnight, so they weren’t completely wrong. And I am not complaining. My favorite Carl moment was when we passed a couple with a small furry dog, and Carl muttered, “Swiffer”.

Hm, the news just said the stock market is not open tomorrow, Good Friday. Interesting choice for this type of institution.

Carl took one of his little ones to the zoo this afternoon. One of the exhibits they visited was the Gorillas where they found a mother and baby. The baby was riding piggyback on the mother.  As they walked away to the oohs and aahs of the on-lookers, the little one started peeing down the mothers back. Undaunted the mama did a  number two. (Carl said it looked like horses–t (think Mackinac Island)). Ah, fun at the zoo. It provided at least some additional conversation. [Note all three kids are in some stage of toilet training.]

I have spent my evening working on fundraising.
My current effort is writing reviews for a web-site.
They give you a small donation for each review, if they don’t have too many for the place, no chains, yada, yada, yada. Between 0.25 and $1.50 per review.
It’s not too bad, but I realize that I don’t get out too much.

Upstairs – AM radio with Mariners v Twins on KIRO 710 (Seattle feed)
Downstairs – XM radio with Twins v Mariners on Minneapolis Fee
TV in dining room – CBS with Final 2 of MarchApril Madness (MSU is a bit down) (no sound)
TV in living room – ABC with Jeopardy (for another minute or two)
Computer in living room – WordPress (obviously) and whatever other
Newspaper in the dining room – love being able to do the crossword while brain dead

OK, we could probably turn off one of the TVs at this point. I think I have settled in for the evening.

Finally.
We took a walk (at last) where I had on a long sleeved t-shirt and fleece. I should have left the fleece at home so I wouldn’t have had to carry it. Wow – so many people out. We walked from home around Green Lake – packed with white bodies (not all were white really, but the Seattle Winter White), up to Mae’s Phinney Ridge Diner for brunch, and then through the Zoo (also packed – parking lots full). We actually just cut through the zoo and didn’t look for animals too much (so many people). Carl is a counter, and if only we had thought to count strollers, we would have been into the hundreds.

And – the taxes are finally filed! We are even getting a return, and despite my starting them months ago, I just got around to figuring out where to put the 529+Coverdell information. Turbo doesn’t quite lead you down that road, but I knew it was somewhere. Thank god its the last year I have to go through the Coverdell gyrations. That account has been drained. The latest info didn’t change anything on the amount of the refund, but I feel better knowing it is correctly reported….

Time for BASEBALL. The Major League opener starts in less than 1 hour.
Carl will surface again in October.

That has been my day today.

Started with a soccer game. Temperature at kickoff – 37 degrees. Temperature a the final whistle – 52 degrees. In between a game in the sun. Turns out our team was short two players, and the other team had 4-5 substitutes. But we won! 3-2 I am not sure why they were not able to wear us down so that they could just run wild. And they did score both of their goals in the second half. One of our high school kids saved the day with an amazing goal in the closing minutes. Oh, to be eighteen again (and to have played soccer for most of your life before turning 18).

From the soccer pitch I went to a co-worker/friends house to bide my time for number three on my hit parade (proximity and both of us going). On the good side it was her six-year old son’s birthday – PARTY. This was their family party, with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even a great-grandmother. Lego and K-Nex and some books, and several vegetable starts with tools. And yes, he was excited about the gardening (although not as much as the Lego). Had some good food too. His kid party is next weekend with one of his good friends who also has a birthday this month. Nice folks, and Sam was very gracious for a 6-year old with lots of new toys.

Part 3 – The funeral, or really more like a memorial service/party. One of our Board of Commissioners passed due to cancer, and we wanted to pay our respects. It was good to hear a bit more of his life story as well. I think they appreciated our presence even if we had not been a huge part of his life outside of water and sewer. The party was held at an Elks Aerie. I don’t know if I have ever been inside an Aerie, although I seem to remember walking by one on Huron, north of the split. An interesting place. Reminded me a bit of a dive bar, but maybe that was the smell of smoke that we just don’t have anywhere around here anymore. [I don’t miss the smokey bar!]

Part 4: MSU up by 8 10 as I type, with 7 minutes to go..
I drew UConn, but have really been rooting for MSU.
I am actually finding it hard to watch (although I might miss a sighting)
Now that they have a bit larger lead than tied maybe I will draw myself back to the tube.

Later

I had the privilege of spending the last two days in a class. Resource management for Emergency situations sort of a class. The instructor did  a great job. There was a real mix of attendees, and she kept us listening, working, switching groups, even a snowball fight. (By this time the snow had all melted so we used wadded up paper.) And – I think I really learned something. I had felt the need to not miss two days of work, but after the class I do not have the feeling of lost time. Some just work out that way.

And – the sun is shining, and is supposed to shine through most of the weekend – woohoo