Seattle and my (looming) Birthday

This will be a two-parter. 1) A briefing on my trip to Seattle. 2) Mostly for family and friends who keep bugging me about birthday and xmas wish lists. I don’t really have one…but I did take the time this morning to update my amazon wishlist for those who feel so inclined to read it.

1) Seattle

Friday morning I woke with a start, realizing my alarm hadn’t gone off, and jeezuzfook, it was 7am, and my flight had taken off at 6am. I called united, and was terrified that since I’d booked the flight on my miles, I wouldn’t have any other option other than the flight that got into Seattle at 1am Saturday morning…not optimal, considering I was already losing most of the day. United booked me on a 1pm flight, but I had to pay a $75 fee in order to guarantee a seat. Otherwise, I could fly standby…which wouldn’t work. I left plenty of time to get to the airport, but hadn’t accounted for the torrential downpour dumping on the Bay Area all day Friday, and it took me an hour just to get out of the city. I looked down and realized if I used the cheapy parking lot option I’d booked a reservation for…I’d probably miss my flight.

Another burst of expletives soared from my mouth as I realized…damn, I’d have to park at the airport. What’s worse, they changed the configuration at SFO so now you can’t just guide your car into Long Term Parking once you get up to the terminals…so I had to park in the HOURLY (yes, #!@$ me gently with a Chainsaw) parking, at a max of $33 a day. The bill came to $85 for three days when I finally got back on Sunday. Ouch.

What’s worse, when I finally got into the airport and checked in, my flight was delayed. I could have saved the money and the trouble… even worse, it kept getting MORE delayed. Like…four hours. Finally I hopped over to another United flight and got on standby for a 5:30pm departure. All that, and if I’d flown standby I could have saved the $75 to begin with…not to mention, the $85 for parking. Ugh. No Seattle trinkets for me.

JC picked me up from the airport and we headed straight to dinner downtown. He’d gotten a list of recommendations from having spent the better part of three days there already on business, so he was keen on checking out this place called Cascadia on 1st avenue. We didn’t have a reservation, were slightly underdressed, but the host still managed to fit us in to the last table available (which was still being cleared at the time). The service was fantastic, too. We had a 3 course pre-fix menu with a wine paring that was just out of this world - fresh pan seared cod with ginger marinated udon noodles, pumpkin bisque with some kind of anise froth that was just amazing, and we were so full by desert that we could only sample what was brought to us, though it was incredibly good - a coconut canoli-like spring roll that was rather phallic looking.

The next day drove into Seattle with Bruce Springstein's new album at medium blast (we are getting old, after all) and checked out the Pike Fish Market, wandering around through the various spice, fish, and flower booths. We walked all over town, and headed to Pioneer Square where we opted to take the historic "underground" tour, which was supposed to be littered with tales of debauchery and prostitution...but was mostly a history lesson (including the prostitution bit) on how seattle was built. Not much but a bunch of old junk and dank/dusty hallways for 90 minutes, but our guide was entertaining enough to keep us interested and clued in using our imaginations, more than the scenery.

After that, we were pretty spent on walking long distances, so we decided to drive over to the beach, as it was gloriously sunny and clear out (oh the irony). We walked along the beach, which was pebbly and pleasant, and decided to dip our toes and hands in the water to see how cold it was. I kid you not, the water was actually at least 10-15 degrees warmer than what I surf in during the summer months here in Nor-Cal. Weird!

We were getting hungry, so we headed back down to the Pike Market and hit Lowells for some fresh seafood platters (mmmm...fried clams, shrimp, fish and chips), which were so incredibly worth it. We thought it would be fun to try and find the Lighthouse that was recommended to us as a good spot to watch the sunset - but our maps were really, really bad.

After getting lost somewhere along Magnolia Park, we flagged down a park service guy in a truck, who was apparently pretty drunk, but gave us another map and another set of directions. After a few wrong turns, we found Discovery Park, and made our way towards what the signs said could show us the lighthouse. Unfortunately, it's situated on an Army Reserve, and the signs aren't really clear as to letting the average tourist know you aren't supposed to go there. When we passed through the gates, we realized we should probably turn around.

It was still early, but at that point we were too pooped to pip, so we headed back to the hotel and called it an early night.

Sunday it was back to the airport...and more delays for me on United, when we were told that our 11:45am flight had been postponed to 1:15 because a First Officer was delayed on a flight coming in from Denver...and there apparently was no one else on call to fly the plane.

I wandered around the little annex at SeaTac, picked up a copy of INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer, and have been enjoying it thusfar. All in all, it was a nice respite from the stress of the past two weeks, and it was really good to see JC again.

2) The Birthday Looms.

I've never been one much for gifts and such, though I have always loved anything anyone has ever gotten me or made for me, because I loved the thought behind it. I don’t really ever want anything, and often only produce a "list" of sorts for family and friends who bug me for one...and they have started bugging me...

My solution was just to update my amazon.com wishlist, as a guide for anyone who doesn’t already know I'm easily ployed with good company, a nice bottle of wine, or good cigar. You can look it up under my email address: raingraves "at" yahoo.

I see that n has updated his, for those of you that know he too has a birthday coming up...

Jack Ketchum is also another scorpio friend with another year looming. Last year I bought him a drink all the way from California at his favorite watering hole in New York. I do love what you can do in that town for people.

Oh, and to answer other folks' questions as to wether or not I'd thought about having a birthday gathering...I haven't. I might do an informal drinks thing on the 26th, and a Sunday paddle-out on the 28th. No real plan, to be honest. This year has just flown by...and being on the broke end of the stick after court, something low-key and free is always more my speed. :)

What I really want for my birthday is a publication date from Cemetery Dance on BARFODDER. A real one. Like, with galleys and everything!

Labels: birthday, friends, seattle

posted by Rain at 12:17 PM