Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Re-Defeat George Bush

My dentist’s office is in Seattle’s International District, home of many interesting shops, restaurants and including the incredible Uwajimaya’s.  However, I admit to being stumped by Seattle’s need for the services offered at the right.  I wonder if it would bring my insurance premiums down.

It was dental day for me today, the normal 6-month checkup, plus she (my dentist) was anxious to see how my obscenely expensive implant and gold crown was holding up.  She has a habit of asking questions while scraping and poking in my mouth, questions that require answers in sentences and paragraphs rather than grunts or eyebrow signals, but I feel like it would be impolite to spit out her tools and fingers to deliver them.  We’re about the same age - we met her and her husband at a barbeque quite a long time ago - and we both have kids about the same age.  She made a statement about how expensive it was to have two kids at the University of Washington, and segued into a discussion that I was unprepared for, involving exotica such as gum grafting, orthodonture and even more hardware to remember to wear at night.  If I didn’t trust her implicitly (and I do), I’d have attached more significance to the juxtaposition of the two topics.

She suspects that my lower front teeth are migrating and might benefit from a retainer worn at night.  She already has me (and my wife) wearing plastic nightguards on our upper teeth.  Maybe she thinks we’re at the point in our marriage where conversation plainly articulated is not as salubrious in the bedroom as it once was, and is doubling as a marriage counselor.

And more than once she’s used the phrase “As we age…” to preface a pronouncement about some phenomenon taking place in my mouth.  There is a bit of comfort in having that said by a contemporary, and it sets me to wondering how my parents and mother-in-law feel (their old health-care providers mercifully retired from practices whose competence had no doubt eroded) when a 20- or 30-something uses a similar entree.  I hope it’s said with a degree of respect and empathy that I perhaps would have found lacking in myself at that callow age.

Father’s Day was stellar here, weatherwise, and my son consented to an afternoon’s paddle on Lake Union and up the ship canal to the Ballard (well, Hiram Chittenden) locks. Much more enjoyable than a tie or a pair of socks.

I know it appears he’s waiting for Dad to catch up, but I’ll have you know it was actually ME allowing HIM to rest.

A flotilla of sailboats waits for the Fremont Bridge to open.

…which it did, right above us.

I’m thinking this vessel’s last paint job coincided with the release of the Rubber Soul album.  Caveat Emptor!

We returned home to a dinner of barbequed king salmon to complete our nautical interlude.

but did I hear correctly that John Kerry tried to liplock John McCain’s tender anatomy and got turned DOWN?!!!  And , upon my return, that slurping and gulping audible throughout my home state was that same John McCain cleaving to George Bush’s member? 

The McCain pursuit appears to be an act of penultimate desperation, akin to amputating a limb on a battlefield, and it doesn’t say much for the Democratic leadership’s faith in its stable of candidates.  McCain’s not even a SortaCrat - look at his voting record, listen to his rhetoric on issues dear to the Democratic platform.  The League of Conservation Voters gave him 53% last year, and that was by far the highest rating ever.  1999 was 9%.  He’s even more consistent in his pro-life views.  As vice-president, would you really have wanted him casting the deciding Senate vote on any issue you cared about?

The trip home (Toledo) over the weekend was nice, if a little short.  They save up little jobs for me to do when I come, and sometimes I find myself doing things that I’ve put off for years at my own house.  It used to be tough to squeeze a quarter out of them for mowing the lawn, but now I change a couple light bulbs and they’re so effusive you’d think I graduated from Harvard.  I still didn’t get the quarter, though.

Weather, despite dire predictions, was very pleasant until Sunday evening.  At Detroit Metro, my Milwuakee-bound plane pushed back as rain started to pelt the window, drove in a couple circles, then parked on the tarmac in a line of other planes as the airport was closed while thunderstorms cavorted in the area.  I’d gotten upgraded, and while we sat there, flight attendants served drinks and snacks in first class.  While I enjoyed the wine, I couldn’t help feeling the animus of those sweating in out in coach.  Any time a delay like this happens, especially in Detroit, I automatically think of the infamous snow incident there, when some 8,000 passengers were kept on planes for hours.  However, we revved up after only about 45 minutes, and were on our way.

When Women Vote, Democrats Win

At first blush, this appears to be a celebration of the salubrious effects of women’s suffrage.  But that’s my left coast talking.  Here in the midwest, it may just as reflexively be apprehended by many with a wistful sense of regret.

I’m flying off to Toledo to spend a day with my folks, then on to Milwaukee for a marathon work week.  It’s been a pretty intense few weeks.  The reward comes in two weeks when we head for Ashland, OR for a week of plays and hiking in the Siskiyous.  We do this trip every year, and seem to lengthen it each year as we find things we like to revisit in the area.  I’ll check in from the rust belt later today.

I’ve been thinking that, since I started working from my grotto in the house, I didn’t get to see downtown Seattle very often in the daylight. We whip down there at night for shows, or blow through on our way to the airport or to catch a ferry, but it’s been a long time since I simply wandered the streets. So last weekend, we played gawking tourists for a day, starting at the Pike Place Market.  In front of the original Starbuck’s store, we stopped for a bit and listened to a solid a capella ensemble:

Walking on down First Avenue, we came across the venerable Lusty Lady strip club.  They always have a pithy, corny, ribald aphorism on their marquee:

Further up First is the Seattle Art Museum, with it’s kinetic Hammering Man sculpture.  (A local tavern has a miniature parody of this piece on the sidewalk called the Hammered Man, its black silhouette hoisting a bottomless pint.

No Seattle tour would be complete without at least one stop at an espresso stand or shop. Although Starbucks has contributed a lot towards enforcing a fairly high quality standard wherever they plop down, you can still spend $3 for a crummy pull if you’re not careful. My favorite stand downtown is Monorail Espresso.  It’s no longer anywhere near the monorail, but they pull a terrific cuppa.  I remember standing at their old location waiting for a drink when I heard that Challenger had blown up.  This photo captures the angst of the overqualified barista:

One thing we wanted to see on our trip was the Seattle Public Library’s new remodel, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.  I’ll include photos from inside it later.  As a warmup, we marveled at the supercilious industrial chic of this Nordstrom’s window display.  All of our paint crews here in Seattle dress this stylishly.

Today was mostly a blah day, atmospherically, chilly and overcast. But as dinner drew to a close I started seeing elements that usually point to a sunset worth watching. I wandered upstairs with my camera and spent the next 45 minutes sort of slackjawed as the colors of the clouds and the Olympic range changed kaleidoscopically each minute.