14 JUL 2007 : SATURDAY
Amanda had morning clinic. I touched up the stairwell paint job and took the opportunity to touch up everything else on the first and second floors.
Amanda then took a nap while I did some outside chores.

When she woke up, we went on a bike ride. Amanda finally got to check out her new cyclometer, but she was not sure how to use all of its functions. She was OK during the ride, but got really dizzy when we stopped. We went over I90 to Mercer Island and back and then when along the lake to Seward Park. The Powers That Be close Lake Washington Boulevard around Mt. Baker to vehicular traffic one day of the weekend during the summers, so we were able to zip along side by side (pacelines are boring anyway). Amanda got something in her eye near Genesee Park, so we stopped to try to flush it out. I think it was more difficult because she wears contacts (another reason I don’t wear them), but eventually we were able to remove the offending material. Which was probably a bug.

They were setting up stuff at Seward Park for the Seafair Triathlon. I was amused that all the porta-potties/honey buckets were all locked via plastic ties. There were also a lot of police and bicyclists; it looked like they there impounding some bicycles, but I was unsure what was going on. Later I read that it was nude bicycling weekend or somesuch, so I guess someone broke some public nudity law.

We watched Pan’s Labyrinth back at home. It was interesting.

15 JUL 2007 : SATURDAY
We headed out to the Eastside to go on a hike with Larry, one of his sons, and a coworker Tela(?). We stopped by BK for some fat and salt to buffer our stomachs for the hike. We basically went up one of the summits of Tiger Mountain, which is actually very close to Seattle (before Snoqualmie Pass). It was a nice little hike, maybe six miles round trip with 2000 ft of elevation gain. Larry had the benefit of having his son carry everything. There were a lot of people around the area, as I guess it is a popular location, but we took a much less popular route on the way up.

Tela was a interesting guy. He was from Elmira, NY of all places.

One of the summits of Tiger Mountain has a lot of cell towers on top. I had always wondered what that mountain was, so now I know.

There were some very unhappy people hiking up whilst we were zipping down. I hope they weren’t coerced into going on the hike, but I guess they probably were.
We had dinner at Larry’s house afterwards. He lives on Cougar Mountain, right by where we went on a hike with Amanda’s mom a while ago. We had a very hard time finding his place earlier (we had picked them up before the hike), because none of the roads were straight nor did they join together predictably. As one might expect from suburbia combined with the fact the development was on a hill/mountain. There were a lot of people walking around, though, which is atypical of the classic burbs. I think they were just walking for exercise, though, as they wasn’t a lot nearby except for other houses.

Dinner was fun. It was cool to hang up with Larry and his family. His eldest son is going off to Olin this fall (full ride!). He got into everywhere he applied to (like MIT, Cornell, etc.), so I guess they weren’t stressing about college like all the people in the newspaper articles I have been reading over the last few years.

Back home, we watched Chicago. I thought it was just OK and was surprised it won six Oscars. Queen Latifah’s song was pretty good though. I think actually seeing it as a musical would have been better.

It was the longest day of the year. Amanda is on night float… translation: she is the night family medicine person at UW Medical Center who handles all their inpatient stuff and childbirths. I don’t think they usually have a lot of medicine patients, but there are always laboring women coming out of the woodwork.
I am baking biscotti and granola right now as requested by Amanda. Actually, the biscotti is getting done first and then I will make granola. I was going to paint all the repaired drywall (the drywall guys came on Monday, the tile guy came back on Tuesday), but I will wait until tomorrow morning since I will be baking all night.

Here is a solstice picture of part of our pond’s lily plant , which shot up a new flower today.