I had an appointment to get a roof rack installed on the Prius. I thought I had left home with plenty of time to get to the place (Rack and Road) which is on Aurora north of the Cut, but I got caught in very slow traffic on I5 and barely made it in time even though I left an hour early.

Amanda had said that installation would take less than an hour, but apparently that was not really correct and it would take a couple of hours. I was at a loss on what to do, but the guy there gave me a rundown on the nearby area. But then I remembered we were really only a few blocks from Greenlake, so I basically headed out there to walk around the lake.

I believe the lake is three miles around, about half a mile longer than the loop around Seward Park, so it was a good wasy to pass the time. It was rather sunny, but cool, and there were a lot of people around, many more than there are typically at Seward. I surmised it was because Greenlake is smack in the middle of a densely populated residential area and its trail is accessable at all points. One only enter Seward Park’s loop at the entrance basically unless one has a watercraft.

I was also struck by the demographics of the people there. Of course, 90% of the people there were white, which is not all that surprising because this is Seattle (and Seattle north of the cut). Perhaps two-thirds or more of the people were female, which I did find surprising, but perhaps I should not. As one might expect, people were walking by themselves or in groups (of two usually), and there were a lot of people (women really) pushing strollers with one or more kiddies. Actually, there were a lot of people with double strollers. There were people running or jogging. And there were a few people riding bicycles (which doesn’t seem fun to me at greenlake) or inline skates or skateboards.

Seward Park seems to be much more balanced with regards to the sexes, is much more diverse, and the people seem to be primarily there to exercise (as opposed to get some exercise while talking with another person). Amanda says people at Seward are definitely more focused on exercising.

So I did find all of that a bit interesting, but what I really found fascinating that all of those female groups (almost always of two people, sometimes three) were basically bitching about something, and more specifically, bitching about someone and usually critizing said person or persons rather meanly and hatefully. I was pretty crazy really. Basically this was true for near 100% of all the groups (and there were a lot of groups… I’d say at least twenty, perhaps more). There were two women talking to each other in another language so I do not know what they were talking about, but they sounded like there were bitching about someone, too. Of course that could be my imagination. And I did see two women seriously running together; there weren’t talking at all.

As for other groupings, I only saw one pair of males walking together. They were talking about a television show or movie or something like that. There were a few male and female pairs, and they were usually not talking at all. Some were also bitching about something or other, but curiously it was not directed towards another person but rather fate or my job sucks or something like that. There were also a three or so mixed groups of three or more people; all of these groups appeared to be talking about their plans for the rest of the day.

I stopped at Duke’s Chowder House for lunch to kill more time and consider what I had witnessed. I had a fish and chips and a beer. It was alright, but frankly too expensive. I must say that their cole slaw is excellent and perhaps the best I have ever tasted at a restaurant. I had been to Duke’s a few times before to meet with a company I was doing consulting for. They later stiffed me for a lot of $$$, but I do not hold that against the restaurant. Actually, I hold their high prices against them.

I would have liked to go some place cheaper, but there did not seem to be one nearby according to the internet. What can you do.

I went back to pick up the car. The roof rack is nice. It had better be for $550. We still have to get cargo containers/boxes/whatever to put on top.

I went back to MK’s townhouse to pick up the Bonasarus and relaxed with her back home until SDK and her friends D and J returned from Vancouver. Apparently, the other person they were (whose name I completely don’t remember) morphed into J.

We had grilled veggies and potato salad and other stuff for dinner. The charcoal chimney suffered a major structural failure so I tossed a lot of white gas on the coals to start them. And almost took off a lot of my hair as I forgot how exposive white gas can be.

MM and NM are arriving tommorrow. I will meet them at the airport around 11:30am.