I am in the jury assembly room in Seattle right now waiting to dispense justice. Some guy is beside me on the phone talking about who he and the other person on the line are going to lay off this week. Cute.

09 MAY 2009 : SATURDAY
Amanda was on call all weekend, so after bfast she went off to round on patients. Fortunately, she did not have to stay however. When she returned we went to the Japanese Garden. They finished the new gateway/entrance, and it looks very nice. Now they actually have real bathrooms instead of the porta-potties or honey buckets as they call them here.

As for the garden itself, most things were blooming so everything was very pretty. It was still too cold to feed the koi, though. Lonan Kai was able to walk around for the first time.

There were many people waiting to vulture our parking space when we left. We were actually lucky go get a space when we arrived, but we almost did get in a parking altercation fighting for the space.

10 MAY 2009 : SUNDAY
It was Mother’s Day. We got up early and had breakfast at Geraldine’s Counter. We had not been in a long time, and they had new menus, but pretty much everything was the same. It was good. Amanda was angry that Lonan Kai did not want to eat his pancakes and ate french fries instead. Apparently, no more fries for anyone anymore.

I have been vaguely ill for the past two weeks or so, mainly due to a persistent cough. The cough was also preventing me from using CPAP or sleeping well in general at all. I started getting a temperature again, but felt OK enough to go back to the Arboretum to walk about and check out the waterfowl with Lonan Kai.

Given the niceness of the day, and the fact it was Mother’s Day, there were many people about, and we had to look long and hard to find a place to park. But we did find one, and walkng to the water we passed many people having picnics in the grass. Once at the water, we again saw the one-legged duck we had seen before. Lonan Kai, however, was still fearful of the ducks, so we continued on and ate lunch on a bench.

I started feeling pretty bad again, so we packed up and started walking back to the car. As we passed the main visitor’s building, we saw a sign that they were talking free Mother’s Day pictures. So we walked down Azalea Way to take advantage and get a free polaroid (which I did not think was still being produced). It was all very cool and retro. I wondered what happened to our polaroid camera and Amanda reminded me that it got sold in our garage sale when we left Ithaca.
Back home, Amanda tried to get Lonan Kai down for a nap while I spaced out. He proved to be resistant, so she took him out for a walk while I descended into feverish delirium. After a few hours of looking at pretty patterns caused by misfiring neurons with my eyes closed, Amanda returned and made dinner. I did not end up eating much.

Sometime in the early evening, my fever broke, and I started feeling much better. I still drugged myself up to force myself to sleep, and I did fall asleep watching another documentary.

11 MAY 2009 : MONDAY
I felt much better in the morning. Still coughing, though.

We are continuing the process of refinancing our mortgage. I got yet more documentation together. We went up to Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union (close enough to walk) to drop it off and open up a checking and savings account; we technically already have one there with Lonan Kai, but the loan people wanted us to have an actual account. We also locked the interest rate at 4.75%. Hopefully we will actually get approved. Apparently, they are swamped with loans now, and the closing will probably be in 60-90 days. I think normally it is quite a bit less.
We picked up Lonan Kai from school and did a grocery run.

We checked out the garden. Still lots of thinning needs to happen. I need to get three more tomato plants in.

We had a nice dinner of asparagus, walnuts, brie, and bread. I would have had some cheap wine, but my sense of taste is stlil off.

We watched another nature documentary. Amanda fell asleep while I puttered about downloading things to read on my notebook computer in prep for jury duty.