Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Does this week seem really long to any of you guys?  Maybe because I’ve worked pretty late Monday and Tuesday.  Well, the weekend holds some promise, at least until Sunday morning when I have to pack up and head to Milwaukee for the week.

Saturday night, we have two (two!) parties to attend.  The first is at our gym, Anderson’s Nautilus.  We’ve been members there since about 1985.  It’s located right by Greenlake, and our routine is to run from the house most of the way around Greenlake, dip into Anderson’s for a Nautilus workout, then run the rest of the way home.  I haven’t even priced other gym memberships, because if I had to get in my car and drive to one, I just don’t think I’d use it.  Despite going there for all these years and seeing many of the same people working out, I hardly know any other members by name, and haven’t said more than a few words to them.  The combination of my approach to my workouts, and the fact that the club doesn’t have a juice bar or social scene, I think, is responsible for that.  They’ve been having Christmas parties for many years, but we’ve never attended one, but this year it seems to fit into our schedule, and I thought it might be interesting to switch the paradigm a little and engage these folks in their street clothes.

Later in the evening, some of Mrs. Perils’ rock climbing buddies are having a white elephant gift party.  They’ve done this for a couple of years now.  Lots of people come, the food is terrific, and the action is hilarious.  The theme this year is Naughty and Nice.  At my age, 50-50 odds are compelling.

How about the rest of you?  What’s your party schedule?

156 1/2.  Holding my own.

156 - It might be working!

Yesterday featured an open house at http://www.826seattle.org/, where I’ve done some volunteer work.  Its mission is to provide after-school tutoring and a forum for kids to develop their writing skills.  Since it wasn’t a “running” day for me (I run and hit the gym every second day), I decided I’d walk up to their site on Greenwood.

You had to know that if I was walking, I’d have my camera along.  I walked up through Woodland Park (home of the zoo).  The picture above wasn’t an impromptu wrestling session between dogs and man - the guy had a pad with him that he purposefully laid down and oriented toward the wan sun, and then let the dogs crawl all over him.  It’s not sun-tanning weather here.  It was about 40 degrees. (click to enlarge any of the photos).

The storefront site that I was helping paint and sheetrock is now open for business.  Part of the site is a quirky retail store with a space theme.  They’ve gone to impressive lengths to design themed packaging for a wide array of products and knick-knacks.  Note the arcane mathematical formulae on the blackboard.  I believe the bulk of their revenue will come from book sales, though.  I picked up A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, mostly because Eggers is the father of the 826 movement, and I’d like to see what his head is about.  I also bought something called Believer Book of Writers Talking To Writers, which features essays on writing by the likes of Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan and Joan Didion, as I’m always up for examining and marveling at the elusive mysteries of the writing process.

Today’s Seattle Times has an article on 826 and the opening.  It appears, both from the article and from my conversations with administrators, that they are way overstaffed with volunteers and are waiting for kids to show up in workable numbers at the tutoring center, so I don’t think I’ll be inflicting myself on vulnerable youth for a while.  They say it has taken 6 - 8 months at the other locations for a working ratio of volunteers to kids to develop.

157 3/4

Well, snow finally did start falling here in Seattle Thursday afternoon, and is supposed to continue into the night.  If I don’t miss my guess, Friday will be a Snow Day and everyone will be making it a 3-day weekend.  Everyone gets a little bit giddy when they see snow sticking on the ground.  We’ll want to go walking around later, as I’m sure it will be a party atmosphere with people sledding, throwing snowballs and getting their tongues stuck on iron handrails.

Here’s Chez Perils at 3:00 this afternoon (click to enlarge):

And here’s our garden sphinx (California girl, I think) providing visual evidence of the chilly temperature:

159