Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

I’m having a “downtown” day today.  It starts with a visit to my dentist in what was fastidiously called “The International District” for most of our residency in Seattle, but is now just as often referred to as “Chinatown”.  Presuming that nothing untoward happens to me in the dentist’s chair, I have a couple of appointments in separate office buildings in the downtown core as I interview banks for a client that has outgrown its current banking relationship.

I used to work downtown and relished the kaleidoscopic workday parade, from tattooed bike messengers to high-maintenance Ann Taylor lovelies.  Especially them.  I forsook those blissful sidewalk climes in 2001 to start my own business, and my clients tend to be located in outlying areas.  Outlying, like Milwaukee.  Now, coming down here, I feel more like the Geico cavemen, dressed a little funny and befuddled by both missing buildings and buildings that didn’t used to be here.

The dental appointment went fine.  Our dentist is a woman we met some 30 years ago at a party, just after she graduated from dental school.  She’s always very meticulous - cleans our teeth herself instead of delegating to a hygeinist - but this time she seemed to be especially attentive to detail.  It puzzled me a bit until I realized she was sporting some glasses that I hadn’t seen before, with some special lenses protruding from the bottom.  I asked her if they were new, and she said they were, and had cost her over $1,000.  I pay $10 for 2 pairs of readers that I grab from the bin at my local hardware store.  I’d love to see what $1,000 would do to ameliorate my presbyopia.  In any case, I believe that solves the mystery of her extra chipping and scraping.

The banker sessions were fun.  Their offices were each above the 20th floor of their respective buildings, and I took the opportunity to unabashedly gawk at the view of Puget Sound, even if it was too cloudy to see the Olympic Mountains.  And, it’s always pleasant to deal with people who are trying to sell you something.  Things may be different when their beady-eyed underwriters finish crunching the numbers, but that’s for another day.  Today, though, and for the next couple of days as I do a few more presentations, I’ll get the fawning obsequies, and that’s a welcome break from the more mundane world of execution and exposition.

OK, not much inspiration for actual content, so I’ll post some pictures from our walk down to Gasworks Park last night. It was a lovely, summer-y (!) evening. Strolling through the Seattle Tilth garden, we saw this hummingbird flit around, then perch brazenly about 10 feet away. They’re usually a lot more skittish than that

(Click any photo to enlarge)

Further down the hill, there was a car festooned with refrigerator-magnet words. I’m not sure if it was an invitation for passers-by to compose something, and I wasn’t willing to risk the ire of its owner by doing so. The reflection of Mrs. Perils is sort of interesting, though. I totally planned that.

Down at Gasworks Park, it was Prom Night for one of the area schools, with a photo session on top of Kite Hill. I’m tickled at how they’re standing in rows facing each other. In the picture on the left, the girl seems to be considering whether she needs to obey the sign on the fence.

These guys are definitely not headed for the prom:

I know you must get tired of this view, but I like these photos so well I can’t let them moulder in obscurity on my hard disk: