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July 9, 2000 |
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Pam has a phone interview today at around 6:30pm.
Normally, I would think this is pretty weird, being a Sunday and all. I
suppose that if you're that valuable and were looking for a job,
you could get people calling you at off business hours, particularly if
they need you. Still, it feels a bit strange.
Initially, our plan was to only have lunch and part our ways today. We
talked about it briefly and decided to go to the Pike Place Market for
lunch. We would be taking the bus, of course. Riding the bus may be a
somewhat unsavory adventure, but the idea of driving to the Market and
parking somewhere nearby is even less appealing.
We talked about going to a number of different places, one of which was
Dead Robin. There's one only a few blocks from the Market. I've
never been to that one, but Pam has been there for
lunch a number of times. She has this strange fascination with their Bleu
Ribbon burger, which is, to put it politely, unorthodox. Then again, I've
had a peanut butter burger before at a place called Jungle
Jim. I still have a glass that I got there that day. It may be my
favorite glass.
As it turns out, we had lunch right at the Market. There is a
second floor pub that overlooks the famous corner intersection at the
Market. I like watching people, it was a good choice. We looked at some
of the open windows from the surrounding buildings and noted some of the
things that they had. We also observed some of the plants that were layed
out across the top of the first floor of the market.
The food was good. I had the grilled Reuben; it was prepared well, nicely
grilled so that it is crunchy without being hard. It was
a little oily, but otherwise good. Pam had a turkey
and bacon sandwich, similarly grilled.
We briefly wondered how Linda and Mary were doing. They were flying back to Michigan today.
During lunch, Pam pointed out what looked like a
delivery truck, but was actually some sort of a mobile chapel. No. I'm
not making this up. Then she commented that we could go down
there and get married.
Uhmm, where did that come from?I wasn't sure how to respond to that. So I really didn't. I don't think we're there yet; I certainly don't feel like I'm there yet. It was an awkward moment.
We walked down to the market and got some more… (surprise) fruit. Again, we had to wondered from one shop to the next, the fruit at the first shop didn't look good. We wondered by some of the other surrounding shops. I picked up a cow candle for Aileen, who I would be seeing later this week. We also walked into a condom store. No joke. I suppose that I was just curious as to what a condom store would look like and how it would be put together. And no, we didn't buy anything there. [Sheesh!]
She went to a coffee shop and picked up some coffee. I don't really drink coffee… certainly not everyday. We then walked down to the Harbor Steps, which has a fountain and steps combination, quite picturesque actually. We sat there while she drank her coffee. It was a relatively warm afternoon and it was a pleasant to sit there.
Before catching the bus for the return trip, we stopped by a garden store to look for a thermometer. Yup, after nearly a week, we still haven't found a thermometer for Mary. It is just one of the things, Pam thought about on the trip back.
Once we got back, I decided to finally fix her bicycle. Most of it was working, the brakes pad rubbed the rims and generally made the brakes unusable. Actually, closer to the truth, the brakes would be working a bit too effectively. Yes, they're caliper brakes as opposed to coaster brakes. I haven't seen coaster brakes on bicycles for years. However, I'm normally used to adjusting either side pull calipers or center pull calipers with one common axis. This weren't either of them. It is one of those strange ones with levers on each side, which didn't share an axis, they were simply attached to the frame. After some fidgeting I found that there were some different settings to adjust the spring tension on each lever, once I adjusted those they were fine.
Did I mention that I was an engineer? I had Pam try the bicycle to make sure everything else worked okay before I decided that it was good enough. She did. Great! One problem solved. She wanted to ride the bicycle to the health club since she couldn't drive there.
It was late afternoon by now and her phone interview would be coming soon. I just make sure that I was in the other room so that I wouldn't get in her way. Funny how that is, she used her headset of course, now that I've introduced her to the thing, she wonders how she lived without it. It really is very handy. I watched ESPN, with the little bar underneath that cycles the scores.
As it turns out, I ended up staying past her interview. I suggested we get something to eat and maybe catch a movie. She happily agreed. We decided to go see Chicken Run.
Since the movie was playing at Crossroads, we ended up going to Chili's. They're a chain so I'm sure many of you are familiar with them. In fact, Aileen is a Chili's waitress… along with being a rocket scientist. No, I'm not making this up.
We weren't very hungry, so we ended up getting a couple of appetizers instead of an actual dinner. It was the lettuce wraps and the mombo combo. We may have had another appetizer, though I can't remember.
We finished dinner just in time for the movie, which is in the same shopping center, but we ended up driving. No, not because we're lazy, but because there's a two hour parking limit near Chili's.
Oh, about the movie. I liked it. If you're not familiar with it, it is done by claymation, similar to Wallace and Gromit if you're familiar with them. It is set in a chicken farm and it has an air of WWII prisoner of war camps to the entire thing. It was fun movie to watch. Pam even stayed awake through the film, which is the exception rather than the rule.
During the movie, I kept wondering to myself what Julia Sawalha looked like. She plays Ginger, who is the main character in the movie. It is just that she had such a heavy British accent that I just find it fascinating to watch people speak with such an accent. I know, I'm so easily amused.
Well, that's it, the end of the night and the weekend. Tomorrow is back to the grind.
July 9, 2000