Our neighbors Chris and Kelly’s townhouse was broken into today. I ran into Kelly while she was waiting for the police to arrive. They apparently took most everything of value, but fortunately their two cats were alright. I was around all day, but perhaps it is not surprising I did not notice anything as I was not outside a whole lot.

I don’t think much exciting happened over the weekend. Carrie came over on Saturday for a bit. I did a lot of gardening. The zucchini and cucumbers have come up. Amanda planted bush beans. We will need to eat a lot of lettuce and spinach every day for a while.
It has been on the hot side here… low 80s perhaps. Hot for Seattle anyway.
Our neighbors Billy and Heather are expecting a child in November. Huzzah!
We have been experimenting with a bread baking technique that allegedly only takes five minutes a day. Excluding baking time and all that of course. One basically makes a lot of wet dough and keep it in the fridge. We did end up getting a baking stone (we sold our old one before leaving New York) for this endeavor, but we still should get a peel. I am dubious about how all this will work, but I have followed their instructions to the letter, and the results have been a bit mediocre. Some refinement in the process is in order.
We went to the Japanese Garden again. It has been warm enough to feed the koi (which Lonan Kai loved doing).
Lonan Kai has been killing us by waking up early, usually between 4 and 6 (4:15 today). I have been going into his room and lying beside his crib and/or rocking him; I am unsure if that is the best way to handle it. Lying beside his crib calms him down and could get him back to sleep. I believe it works because it is similar to how he takes his naps at school… all the kids sleep on cots and must be quiet and are not allowed to get up until naptime is over.
We also had Lonan Kai’s 6 month school conference. Which I apparently misunderstood the time and we were late to. I have not been good about being on time for things at his school. He is doing fine. It is always interesting to hear what they are working on. Conferences are easy when they are younger, as they get older there are many more things to go over apparently.
Amanda had a local landscape consultant look at our yard. We might have her put a little patio in rather than do it ourselves. And put in some plants and/or rearrange our current ones. I guess we will see what her quotes for various things are. We can obviously do everything ourselves; it would just take a lot longer.
It looks to be another hot day.

15 MAY 2009 : FRIDAY
I take Amanda and Lonan Kai to the airport in the afternoon; they will be away in Ohio for her mother’s graduation until next Wednesday. I will be single until then.

I don’t do anything single-like on Friday night.

16 MAY 2009 : SATURDAY
There was a P-Patch work party today, so I spent all day doing gardening stuff. For the work party we repaired a few raised beds and constructed a new one. Also, we did the usual cleaning and weeding and whatnot.

I found a 357 magnum shell. Neat!

I again did nothing single-like, although if Lonan Kai was around I definitely would not have spent six plus hours gardening.

I also spent time cleaning up the caulking around our kitchen counters in preparation for refinishing them.

17 MAY 2009 : SUNDAY
I probably did not do anything single like.

I did start sanding down the kitchen counters.

18 MAY 2009 : MONDAY
Still no single like activity. I finished sanding the kitchen counters and applied a two coats of a oil finish (basically some linseed oil mixture). It was a little smelly.

I went to the dentist. I saw the original Glitter Girl in all her glory hanging on the ceiling above the main cleaning area. She is very glittery in person; the card does not do her justice. I got slightly lectured on flossing. Oops. Normally I go on a flossing binge a few weeks before my next cleaning, but this one snuck up on me.

I watched Das Boot. That might be considered a single-like activity.

19 MAY 2009 : TUESDAY
I applied a third and final coat to the kitchen counters in the morning. It has been too cool for it to dry well.

Still no single activity, other than watching Resident Evil: Extinction. I fast forwarded through a lot of it. I had thought about going out to see a movie but they are expensive.

20 MAY 2009 : WEDNESDAY
I picked up Amanda and Lonan Kai from the airport. I ran into Adina, Moneta, and Ethan there as well; they were coming back from a trip to Baltimore.
We all probably went to the farmer’s market later.

21 MAY 2009 : THURSDAY
Lonan Kai tormeting us by waking up at 4am. Ug.

22 MAY 2009 : FRIDAY
??? We might have watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was kinda eh.

23 MAY 2009 : SATURDAY
We tried to go on a hike in the Cougar Mountain area near Bellevue and Issaquah. We intended to do a 3.5 mile loop with a small summit, but Lonan Kai was not all that agreeable to the situation. Perhaps he was bored, or perhaps he was not comfortable in the baby carrier as we do not have one of those hiking frames. Regardless, we went about two miles in three hours.

I caulked the kitchen counters. Huzzah.

24 MAY 2009 : SUNDAY
We went to City Peoples and I got three more tomato cages and three more starts. They are all non-red heirloom varieties to fool the tomato thieves. I planted them, put the water heat sinks around them, and did more gardening. At some point before today I removed the heat sinks from three of the six tomato plants already planted and caged them. I’ll take the remaining heat sinks off at some point in the future.

Amanda removed the huge chive plant from the garden and transplanted it to the food bank plot.

We had a nice pre-Memorial Day party at Pam and Gary’s. Pam’s mother was visiting and Adina, Moneta, and Ethan came, too.

25 MAY 2009 : MONDAY
Susan arrived. She had been helping her friend Angela drive from Oklahoma to Tacoma. Angela left her two kitties with us while she looked for accomodations.

Haley and Armando did not like either of the kitties and were very aggressive, which was unfortunate. The kitties liked me at first, but after a piglet attack they growled and hissed at me. Sad.

Amanda, Susan, and Lonan Kai went and had cupcakes with Carrie. I did more gardening: weeding, thining, planted more lettuce, planted zuchini and cucumbers.
Angela was able to procure lodging, so she later returned for the kitties.

We had a cookout at home. Just vegan burgers, corn, and veggie skewers. Susan was not feeling well.

26 MAY 2009 :TUESDAY
Work is finally happening on developing the field in front of our house. While the noise is not so bad, the fact that we have lost parking on both sides of the street is pretty annoying. I also am concerned about letting the cats out.

I took Susan to the airport. Alas, she was here less than 24 hours. She apparently had an unpleasant flight home.

I started feeling very ill again, Ug.

That afternoon, I took Lonan Kai to get his eyes checked to make sure they weren’t crossing or he had a lazy eye. We had to go the the Group Health Center in Bellevue because it had the first available appointment (and we made the appointment back in March).
The appointment was fine other than the fact that I was there for three hours. They seemed to be very behind. Mr. Kai was disturbed by the new environment (and later because his eyes were dialated) and screamed whenever I put him down, so I carried him the whole time. I had to walk around continuously becase merely holding him sitting was not acceptable to him.

Mr. Kai seems fine, though. He has want might be called “false crossing” where it looks like his eyes are unaligned due to assymetrical eyelid folds, but tests with light reflections reveal that they are tracking fine. I did schedule a followup appointment to verify all is still well. We left at 6:00pm which was not good as I was supposed to pick up Amanda at that time. Aggressive driving and not horrendous traffic on 405 and 90 over Lake Washington got me to her workplace in 25 minutes. Fortunately, she was late was well, so I ended waiting for her only 5 minutes.

I did not eat much for dinner and spaced out much of the time. Amanda made me a grilled cheese sandwich. We watched the beginning of Serenity, but then stopped it and watched a documentary on mammal “insect hunters” which was pretty interesting.

27 MAY 2009 : WEDNESDAY
My back hurts after hauling Mr. Kai about all afternoon, but I do not feel otherwise ill anymore. Amanda is finishing her charting. It looks to be a nice day, so the farmer’s market will be pleasant this afternoon.

12 MAY 2009 : TUESDAY
I had slept downstairs so that I could set an alarm and repeatedly hit snooze without Amanda getting annoyed. As it turned out, she heard the alarms anyway, but was too sleepy to come downstairs and berate me. I decided to not wear my usual ratty hiking boots and ripped jeans since justice is serious business.
I caught a 7 bus downtown and walked up to the municipal courthouse. I had been there before, so I knew the searching drill on entrance and where everything was. I checked in, got my free bus passes, and looked for a place to wait and to plug in my notebook computer. A bit of research earlier told me that plugs were a scare resource, and they were, but I scored a seat by the two phones.
It turned out that most people did not really dress up at all. The people who did looked like people who worked downtown and dressed up everyday anyway.
The jury assembly room is on the top floor and had a very nice view of downtown Seattle and Elliot Bay and had the weather been clearer one could see Mt. Rainier to the southeast and the Olympics to the west. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera. There was a really big room with many chairs, tables, and a couple of large TVs. There were also magazines, books, puzzles, and games. Adjacent to the big room was a so-called “quiet” room that also contained a few computer stations. There was a room with vending machines, coffee, tea, a refrigerator, a microwave, and lots of posters for various plays, shows, and concerts for some reason. And bathrooms. And a super-secret elevator controlled only by the baliffs to get down to the courtroom levels.
There was a lot of art on the walls. One piece, which I was sitting under, was a big metal box with a lot of elevator buttons arranged in a grid. One could press the buttons to turn them on and off, and every four seconds or so the lights would change according to the rules of Conway’s game of life. It was pretty cool, really.
As I did get there early, I took advantage of their wireless connection, which was alright, but a bit erratic. It seemed like most people had problems getting there on time. Eventually, though, we all were present, and they gave a little presentation. A judge came in and welcomed us, and then they showed a video on the whole courtroom process. A few people fell asleep, which did not bode well for them later. Then one of the workers filled us in on more details like the typical court schedule (9am-4:30pm or later), lunch (typically noon – 1:30pm), and the like. As other jury situations, everything is in “hurry up and wait” mode… waiting to get called for a jury, waiting for the parties to agree on stuff, waiting for judges to rule on things, etc. etc..
I was at the Seatle Municipal Court, and they handled stuff like minor drug cases, domestic violence, traffic stuff, civil cases, and the like. Mostly things that did not take more than one or two days, although there are exceptions. I guess the more major issues usually go to the King County Court. I did find out that jury service is completely random and there is no maximum frequency that one could serve. That is, I could get chosen again for jury duty in another month, say, or get chosen for jury duty by King County. Unlike New York where doing jury duty would let you off the hook anywhere in NY for two or three years if I recall.
I spent the morning fiddling around with Django and looking for future employment. Since I was sitting next to the landlines, I had the questionable fortune of hearing someone plot out their strategy for laying off a lot of people at their workplace. Didn’t this guy have a cell phone?
As it turned out, only one group of people (they call sixteen at a time) was called before lunchtime, and I was not among them. The break for lunch was a long time, but I decided to stay and save the $$$. I had brought some granola bars anyway. The vast majority of people left, though, and I did regret not walking about downtown.
In the afternoon a few more groups were called, but again I was not chosen. Eventually one of the court workers came out and said that they were set for juries for the rest of the week, and the rest of us were free to go; our jury service was considered complete after only one day. Woot. I easily made it back in time to pick up Lonan Kai from school.
I did want to dispense some justice, though. Maybe next time.

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.