Seriously

The other day I was in downtown Seattle, following a night of high jinks that included a Depeche Mode concert- Awesome!- a late night happy hour at my very favorite Seattle restaurant/bar, and a truly delightful hotel sleep where, when I woke up at the usual 5:40 a.m. expecting to hear a little voice saying Mommy! Where are you, Honey? instead I heard nothing and went back to sleep for another three hours...ahhh. After finally waking up and hitting the hipster workout room in our hipster hotel, my girlfriend and I stopped at Starbucks on the way to get something to eat, not because we are such local loyalists but because after sleeping in and exercising and showering and the whole bit, it was late and I really needed some caffeine.

In front of us in line was a man, an older man, portly, in an expensive-looking but kind of unkempt shirt and pants, walking with a cane. He ordered a venti drip. There was something about this man that suggested that he understood the seriousness of the world, that he had experienced things that were impossible to forget, that he was in touch with what mattered, and that he would never waste his time with things that didn't. I had a sense, in that moment, of the frivolity of much of my life, the time wasted on petty musings and fleeting contacts, the content mindlessly consumed, the depths unplumbed. When would I come around? When would I know this weightiness, this solidity, this seriousness?

Well, not tonight, in any case. Tonight is the hodge podge roundup before Jim gets home from the gym and we watch some old Peter Sellers movie on Netflix Watch Instantly that his boss inexplicably recommended to him. Suck up. Anyway...

On the way home from school Wednesday, Muriel casually informed me that she had changed the diaper of one of her classmates. Ha! She also likes to say, Mommy, I want some love. Which means she wants me to reach my arm around backwards and pat her knee. This works in the "Audi Car" as she calls it, but not in the "Mazda Car," where the love hand is busy shifting the manual transmission.

Yesterday I had what can only be described as an all encompassing bad hair day. First, I really did have a bad hair day. Second, my office mate (Other Jenny) gave me a coupon for a free smoothie at Starbucks (which is the real star of this post) at around 1:30, and I had forgotten to eat lunch, and even though I could have easily just walked the two and a half minutes to Starbucks and bought myself a smoothie, it would never have occurred to me. Somehow the coupon was like a ray of hope on my empty stomach (and a completely random gesture of kindness from OJ, since she and I literally say two things to each other every day- "Good Morning!" and "Have a good night!"), and I hustled over to Starbucks with my coupon. The counter lady frowned and frowned and asked where I had gotten the coupon. Like an idiot, I told her. My office mate! She said they were only honoring hard copies. ? But she said if I wanted to try the smoothie she would give it to me. Yes, I wanted to try the smoothie! I got the chocolate banana. It was tasty. When I got back OJ said they hadn't questioned her at all- she must have trimmed her coupon better than I did. The icing on yesterday's cake was when I was sitting on the couch in the evening and noticed a weird tag coming out of the side of my shirt...because... I had been wearing the damn thing inside out all day. Sweet.

Today I asked Naomi what she brought for Show and Tell, and she said she just drew a picture, a prototype for something called an Aester Egg. It's like an Easter egg, she said, but it has spikes on the outside. So you take the spikes off, and then you can eat the shell, which tastes like chocolate. Then, inside the shell is a chick, which you can then keep for your pet. Right? If I ever get my act together and download the pictures, I will post some of her recent "taxi number 9" paintings and drawings, which comprise a pretty exciting series of taxi cabs, all number 9. I don't know how she knows what a taxi cab is, or why they are all number 9, but it's good to at least have a definite period for the art appraisers to point to when assigning dollar values to your pencil and acrylic mixed medias.

Wow, we all got a mention but the mister, so for his part, Jim heads out in the early morning for the second annual Man Hike. Fingers crossed he gets to see another marmot. Also, that the relentless downpours let up for him and his crew up on Mt. Ranier.

That's it for this non-serious Friday night. One week till Orcas Island, you guys!