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.

Nothing too exciting happened today.

I renewed our car tabs online. I was not able to pick them up from the nearest licensing office; we need to pick them up instead of gettilng them mailed to us because we need them before we head off on our camping vacation.

I made a fritatta for dinner. It was composed of onions, garlic, tomatoes, bread pieces, parsley, basil, cheddar cheese, and eggs (of course). I also cooked up some field roast and rice.

I whipped up another pitcher of sangria and drank it. It looks like sangria may be my drink of choice this summer. Although I still have a big jug of gin I need to get rid of.

The Bonasaurus ripped a green tomato off my Black Japanese Trifele. What is a Trifele anyway? I was displeased, but she did not seem to care.

The crossfit guys wrote me back and said that I was 26th or so on their waiting list for the next intro class. They have not had the intro class in a few months, so that is why they had such a large waitlist. Next month they will take sixteen new people, so at the moment it does not look like I will make it in. Although perhaps since the people ahead of me have waited so long maybe they will change their minds, but a lot of people have to change their minds.

I have not done my cycle of jumping jacks, burpees, squats, pushups, and situps recently. I should do them tonight. I have not get in shape before I take the intro crossfit class, because otherwise I will be an unhappy camper.

I dropped the Bonasaurus off with Amanda during lunchtime and when to Cedars for a falafel and fries and Diet Coke (whoa it has its own website!). There really isn’t any other option nearby. I used to think the falafel and fries were pretty mediocre if not downright bad, but I have warmed up to them. The fries have gotten better (actually, the fries morph intho different varieties regularly… they must use the cheapest available) and I appreciate the falafel more. Although the falafel is still a little too dry and bland… they seriously need to spice it up. Today the fries were actually pretty good, but I got much less than usual. Admittedly, I still got a lot of fries. Just not the metric f*ckton that they usually give out.

I went to REI afterwards to get a pair of shoes. I have been looking for a more casual pair that I can slip on easily (“sneaker” class). I ended up getting a pair of moccasin type shoes (i.e. sans laces). They are pretty nice.

I looked at car rack options and they are expensive which is not surprising. I am getting the racks installed on Wednesday, but I do not know what Amanda has in mind for the containers and other doohickeys. I would be inclined to just get the largest possible since we know we will use oneof that type, but I guess we will see.

I made a simple dinner of rice and beans and nachos. It was tasty enough. We ate outside since the weather was nice. When I was cleaning up a raccoon appeared and brazenly tried to eat the leftovers before I put them away. I startled him during his depredations and he retreated under the deck. He or she then tried to look cute and make friends, but I do not like raccoons after one slaughtered Buff and Star. Armando appeared to back me up, and I tried to warn him off but he dashed under the deck to attack. I had visions of the raccoon ripping Armando’s throat out, but instead the creature beat a hasty retreat… I was unsure of its route… but Armando was unscathed and pleased with himself.

I spent the rest of the evening sorting Legos in Lonan’s room while he worked on his so-called “tower” which is more of a single level lego complex at the moment.

It looks like my old coworker at Autodesk, DT, passed away yesterday after a year long battle with cancer. He had been blogging about it, so I had been keeping up with his life. He had leukimia and went through all the chemo ok, but he needed a stem cell transplant which he did get. Things seemed to be going well, but he took a turn for the wrose last month (coincidently the same time as Ate Piglet), but I just saw his obiturary posted by his son.

RIP.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty crappy. I had a raging sore throat and a fever. Amanda was will on call, so she had to go in to road or whatever, so I stayed home with the kiddies. LK wanted to use his scooter, but since I felt awful, I suggested that he explore pbskids on the internet, and he readily agreed. Great parenting on my part, but one does what one can.

While the Kai was absorbed in screen time, I tried to clean while entertaining the Bonasaurus. I also ate two soy burgers for breakfast. I have been eating way too many soy burgers in the past three or so weeks and they have funked up my GI tract, and yet I cannot keep away from them.

Amanda eventually came home and stuff happened that I do not recall.

When the Bonasarus got up from her nap (ok, I do recall that), we went up to Jefferson Park so that Lonan could ride his kick scooter. Amanda watched him scoot about the skate park while I stayed with the Bon. Basically that meant I idly walked around with her and randomly stopped and put her down and watched her pull up grass and flowers and truy to eat things and the like. Not too exciting.

Aside: while we were getting into the car to go to the park, I saw Armando slink back towards the house in that unmistakeable “i caught something” cat posture. Lo, and behold, he got a baby bird. Fast, too, since he got it in only a few minutes… the time it took for us to get the kids out to the car. It seems likely that the chick fell out of its nest and Armando just found it with that sixth cat sense, but perhaps he really is a stone cold killa.

Back home, Amanda talked a lot on the phone about work/call stuff while I entertained the Bon. LK played with his legos. I eventually mowed the lawn and used the weedwhacker and did some tomato plant maintenance. I also caught the bokboks eating an egg out in the run. Did one of them lay one out there? They definitely did not move it from the henhouse to the run, and laying it there seems odd. It did not see any eggshell pieces, so I could not identify who layed it, and when I later entered the run there wasonly a damp spot on the ground left. I suppose that Rock is the most likely culprit since her eggs have always been deformed and thin shelled. I think perhaps she layed an egg without a shell which would explain why I did not see any shell pieces. She had done so before, but I removed it before the bokboks thought to eat it. That would also explain perhaps why it was laid in the run… maybe it just plopped out as it were.

The bokboks better not be regularly eating eggs. I do not think that behavior is easily changed, so egg-eaters typically are elminated from the flock. While I would not necessaily do that, if they do regularly eat eggs I could not get more hens and keep them together as the new ones would learn bad habits. Ya, egg eating is definitely a capital offense.

Amanda made a asparagus risotto for dinner with sauteed mushrooms on the side. She made a soy burger for the Kai because he hates risotto.

I spent a lot of time with the Kai sorting out his legos with him. He was pleased with our progress throughout the evening.

The kiddies are asleep now. Amanda sounds like she is talking work stuff with someone on the phone, although I do not believe she is still on call.