Raincharm’s Weblog

Mariners: Yesterday’s game, at over 3 hours, was not as quick as the day before  (2 hrs 35 mins), but it was a win. The win came on a single with the winning run scoring from second. It was cold, but not wet, and there were all sorts of dogs in the park for Bark in the Park. Although if they weren’t shown on the big screen,  and you weren’t seated near their section, you could have missed it entirely. 

What is not going to be enjoyed in person is tonight’s game. I had made all sorts of special arrangements to get to and from work without needing to park downtown. And then found out we don’t have tickets for tonight’s game. So I bailed on my arrangements and drove to work myself. 

Traffic: The idea to get in early part of the arrangement stuck, so I left about 1/2 hour earlier than normal. OMG it was more like a video game than a commute. Cars changing lanes, speeding around, driving fast enough for a few to be sitting on the side of the road with flashing light friends. 

Mistaken: Carl was walking to the stadium from his parking spot a few days ago and had dodged one street off of the main street to avoid bothering a man who was dancing on the sidewalk to his own tunes. On the parallel less traveled road he noticed a pile of aerosol can caps and cans without their sprayers. Remembering our encounter with a huffer from a few days earlier he stopped to take a picture.  While he was fumbling with his phone a van pulled up,  opened their door, and asked if he needed anything. When he stood up and looked at the van they said, “you’re not homeless!” Carl agreed and thanked them for asking.

This reminded us of the time Rey arrived home from school with a bag of clothes given to him as he got on the school bus. He always wore sweatpants,  and sometimes holey ones …

Sunny day and time for work. 

I don’t even know how many days it has been without at least some rain. Later this week it may happen. My carpooler told me we could double our sunny days for the year in the next week. 

We did have the pleasure of meeting Tim, Allen’s father, who is Ashlan’s boyfriend. Dinner Thursday and the Mariners game on Monday,  which they won. A really nice guy and I can’t believe how much he packed into his time in Seattle, including a U2 concert. It would have worn me out.

Monday’s Mariner game was a win, but it wound into more than the game. One of our friends started feeling poorly, which morphed into meeting the stadium medics, a hunt for a strange car on the streets of Seattle,  driving a Saab with lots of warning messages and breaking through police barricades. In the end everybody is okay and the car survived. 

Carl went solo to the Mariners last night. He caught the losing home run, and no he didn’t throw it back. (See the ball in the end of his mitt)

I will be joining him tonight.  Hoping for warmer weather and a win.

We’ve been busy. And the Mariners were in town. At least through last weekend. Then the rain left for two days, but now it’s back. 

Yesterday after work we took advantage of the dry. Carl mowed the lawn, and we took a walk to get our hair cut. On our walk we watched some very young kids playing t-ball, and a not so young person huffing. 

The huffer was in the same place when we passed on our way home,  only he was passing out. When he didn’t respond to repeated questions I called 911. He finally came to and the medic dispatcher asked if he wanted help. He shook his head no, so we moved along.

This is the prettier sight.

I think we did the right thing, even if he may not have appreciated the gesture. 

Update: All went per plan, except the Mariners game went 11 innings, ending shortly after midnight. That meant the car retrieval was after 12:30, and bedtime after 1 am!
Our current logistics dance of the cars started last night. I had a 4 o’clock meeting that ended a bit after 6:30, finally leaving after 7 PM. As soon as I got home we left to drop my car off for regular maintenance. 

Not a big deal, and we stopped at Rock’s for dinner. 

This morning my carpooler picked me up for a ride to work, and that will be the last normal part of the schedule. 

Tonight’s meeting doesn’t start until 6:30. But my carpooler is leaving in the afternoon for Kennewick. So late at night at work with no car.

I am fairly certain my boss will allow me to take a vehicle home for the evening. Or pull out our emergency beds. Or wait for the Mariner game to end and have Carl come pick me up. (A 50 mile addition to his trip. ) 

So tomorrow morning I will have a work vehicle to get to work, but no car to get home. Likely solution is to take the bus home  (or to the Wednesday night Mariner game).

What’s missing from this is retrieving my car post maintenance. I will need it by Thursday morning. Carl’s schedule is central to getting to the shop to pay the bill and retrieve the key. Field trip with the kids?? 

A perfect storm of cars and drivers.

Each child has certain nicknames when they are young. For Ashlan, mine was Little One. Carl was going through one of our closets and came upon some boxes that include a few items left behind by Little One. We don’t mind storing a bit or two. We have a large house, and both kids are in apartments, and still fairly mobile.

In addition to Kitty and Kitty’s box friends, there was a small photo album. Here is a selection from that album.

I don’t know why she is always trying to get her hair to be straight.

Big Eyes

The last one is included because she has the “look”. And then there’s Bob.

Happy Birthday Little One!

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.