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June 11, 2000 |
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I got a call from Len. He had made some
other plans for Sunday. It's not that big a deal. It's not like we have
dinner every Sunday… just most Sundays. We decided
to punt it until Monday.
What else happened during the week. I get a call from Nancy that her friend's band is playing on Saturday and asked if I (and Pam) would be interested in going; the gig would be at Madison's in West Seattle. The band is the Guarnery Underground and they're very good. I talked to Pam and we had agreed to go.
I spent the weekend with Pam. Sorry, I should really do this individual entries, but the weekend is a little more than a blur that ran from one day to the next.
I was running late on Friday and didn't get to her place until past eight. I came in and tooled around for a little bit before we went to get dinner. The venues in Queen Anne were a bit limited, well the ones within reasonable walking distance. I suppose that we could take the bus, although it doesn't really cross my mind. I got turned off to riding the bus sometime when I was in high school.
You see, to me it makes little sense to walk to a place. Not so much because I dislike walking because I don't really. I run three times on the typical week, a little walking is not going to kill me. To me it is all a question of time. Why would I limit my choices to about four places within reasonable walking distance, when I can easily reach a dozen places in a similar time span? Besides then I wouldn't have to deal with the randomness of the weather. Don't get me started about the Seattle weather.
We drove down to South Center, which is in the southern part of Seattle near the airport. I like South Center. Mostly because there are about ten restaurants bidding for your attention within five minutes of each other. And because there's parking.
We wound up eating at Houlihans. It seems like a bit of an upbeat place with a Cheers-like atmostphere. The booths had high backs which isolated one party from the next. The place was outfitted with many wood furnishings. As for the food, I had the stuffed chicken breast, which I had the last time we came here. It was very good. Pam had the baby back ribs.
The Coke I originally got was a little flat, not too much, but enough so that I noticed. I decided to get a Dr. Pepper for my refill instead of Coke, which I figured would alleviate the flatness, but it was mere speculation.
Once our dinners came, Pam started eating her ribs with a fork and knife, not that I mind eating with a fork and knife… in fact I do it all the time, I just have to question the efficiency of both time and thoroughness when it comes to eating ribs with a knife and fork. As for my dinner, I offered her some of my green beans which she naturally refused. She seems to have a distinct aversion to them; I'm such a rat.
Now, Pam occasionally takes a sip from my drink. Except that she wasn't drinking any of the Dr. Pepper. She seems to think that it is bad luck… Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. I ordered a Coke for the next refill and they seemed to have address the problems.
We went back to her place immediately after dinner… and went to sleep shortly after that.
[Zzz…]
I stirred from my sleep, thanks to Pam. Really, thanks to Pam. Let's just say that when I woke she had things well in hand.
In the interest of keeping up with my working out, I had decided to work out at Pam's place. She had the Tae-Bo tapes so I simply did those. Now, I have been doing kickboxing for about a year now, so doing Tae-Bo wasn't that big a deal.
Pam still needed to find a new place. So that's what we had in store for the next couple of days. First would be nourishment, we stopped at the local McDonalds for lunch. This one which seemed curiously stingy with their napkins.
Today we would be looking in both Seattle and Kirkland; we decided to driver her car. The one place where we had marked in the apartment guide for Seattle wasn't even built yet, so the potential of staying there were pretty slim. There was another apartment complex immediately across the street and we went in there to inquire. $2200 per month. No folks this is not fiction.
The places in Kirkland weren't much better in terms of prices. They ranged from the $1500 to $1800 range. The last time I lived in an apartment rent went for about $600; what ever happened?! Still we looked. There was one apartment complex that looked promising. A nice buiding, many services included, high speed internet access with is key for me. The location was very good. It was right across the street from a quiet shopping center, which had restaurants, a movie theater, and even a gym, which we visited briefly. The one drawback was that the place was small. I mean, like a ratcage… scarcely enough to fit a queen-sized bed, forget the furniture.
The remainder of the places didn't look promising. One actually did, but they were condominiums instead of apartments. Actually, some of the units were rentals and others were owned. The rentals were all occupied. Bummer.
At this time we most of the apartment offices were closing so we had to call it a day. What else did we do? We made a number of stops. We stopped by one particular store to get… Uhmm, supplies. We stopped by the 7-Eleven so that Pam could pick up a Coke Slurpee.
Finally, we stopped by my health club. If she were to move to my part of town, she may like to join my health club and we could work out together, but really… I honestly thought she would like it. Oh, and we stopped by to greet Magic and feed him, who seemed to be quite involved in blueprints for a roller coaster design.
Pam was in the mood for Sushi tonight, so we went to our typically sushi place… I love Sushi. The place was pretty busy. There wasn't an empty table in the place. There were however a couple of seats that had just opened up in the sushi bar, which were up for grabs. We ordered our usual, which I can certainly enumerate, but won't bore you with the details. I did go through the execise of precisely how to mix wasabi and soy sauce properly.
Tonight was the Guarneri Underground concert in West Seattle. We had planned to meet Nancy at Madison's at about 8pm. The plans weren't firm, they were more along the lines of "it would be great if you could come." and we had originally planned to. We drove all the way out there and even found questionable parking, but alas Pam wasn't really in the mood to listen to live music so we simply went back.
On the way back to her place, we stopped by Blockbuster video to pick up a couple of movies. I wandered to Larry's Market to pick up drinks and something to snack on while she picked the movies. We then headed back to her place to watch them.
Once we got back to her place, she sneered at my selection of snacks (peanut butter cookies and coconut ice cream) and their lack of chocolate. Naturally, we walked out to the convience store to get Oreo cookies. Cannot make this up.
We then spent some time… Uhmm, well you get the picture.
We watched one of the movies before going to sleep. The movie was Ladie's Room. It was an entertaining film, although a bit scattered. Although the development of the characters was intriguing and done well, the concept of the film was not presented well. I suppose that my opinion was to either commit to the concept and really sell it, or present the characters in another way. All in all though, it was a good film.
We went to sleep after watching the film.
[Zzz…]
Today, Pam was getting a little frustrated. I can't blame her, she's got many pressures in a number of places… like where to work and where to live. Still I was doing what I could to help her out. I helped her search through the web and thumb through the apartment guide.
I suggested that there were a number of places in Bellevue that she may like. We drove off and headed there. Someone had put a nasty note on my car asking me not to park in the customer parking if I didn't have an reserved slot. What on earth is a customer for a condominium? A john for a prostitute? We elected to drive my car. It was a relatively short drive.
The first place we went to was a much better fit than any of the places from the day before, with the possible exception of the view, the place was much roomier than the other apartments where we had gone, the location was close to a bus line, so that Pam could take the bus to work.
We took a coffee break immediately after this first apartments. There was a place in the building where the did the typical Seattle ultra-modified coffee concoctions. I would've taken a Coke, but then that's me. Naturally, I spilled coffee on my jeans and had to spend the rest of the day like this. Terrific.
The next place was only a couple of blocks away, and it was by far the most promising. I thought that it had the best combination of all things. Location, price, space, etc. We took measurements of all the furniture with us and everything seemed to fit just fine. The bus line was only a couple of blocks away.
We spent the remainder of the day looking at a couple of more places in Bellevue, which didn't seem to live up to the impression of the first two. It was a combination of location and condition. We also revisited a couple of the places that we saw yesterday, now that we had measurements. That's pretty much how we spent the remainder of the day.
She had become considerably more at ease by dinner time. We wanted to go to an Italian place and even looked for one in the internet. It seemed like a good fit, but naturally they were closed on Sundays. I didn't think to check; who closes on Sunday? We ended up going to Cucina! Cucina! which is also Italian and was only a few minutes away.
Our dinner was good. We got a chance to relax and unwind a bit. We had the collection of bread and beer and wine to go with our dinners, which was very good. As it always seems to be. For dessert Pam had a drink called, Sampocco I think… with three coffee beans for luck, which is a new concept that I had not heard of.
We both had to work the following day. We had returned to her place and stayed for a while, but I eventually returned back to my humble abode. It was nice to be home, and know that I was through for the day.
…and naturally, to spend time with Magic.
June 11, 2000