One week is in the books here in UP. It went by quite fast, as has every moment of my life since junior high. A mindset I sometimes fall into that I try very hard to avoid is the getting-through-life trap. This is when you just start viewing life as something you need to accomplish instead of something you should live and feel. It's a weird thing because having a successful life -- however you define that -- is an accomplishment, the greatest one of all, but unlike other accomplishments, once it's over you don't get to bask in the satisfaction of achievement; you die. So, probably one shouldn't be in such a hurry to achieve this accomplishment.
Anyway, Week 1 was good. The kids went to day camp and seemed to really enjoy it. I wish we had booked them for at least another week of it, but we weren't sure what they would like, so we scheduled something different each week to avoid getting locked into a camp they hated. There are few things worse as a parent than fighting your kid each morning to get them out of the house, and there are few things worse as a child than having to go somewhere you loathe for the entire day.
We spent a lot of time with my family, which is good, as that's basically the whole point of coming here in the first place. My boys are seeing of lot of their cousins Q & A (ha-ha... never realized that before) to the point that we have to build in little breaks lest they get sick of each other. I mean, if they stop getting along, that's our stay down the drain. But, thankfully, there are no signs of that happening so far. Among their activities this week were a trampoline center, pizza dinner, ice cream at the grandparents, music in UP Center, and then tomorrow we're going to see Thor. I really have no desire to see this movie, but S gets annoyed at me for "not want to do anything," so I said I would go.
By the way, what S really means when she says this is, "you show insufficient enthusiasm for the things I want to do," because "not wanting" is a continuum. There's would-prefer-a-different-activity-in-a-vacuum-but-I'm-more-than-willing-to-go-with-the-flow-and-do-what-everybody-else-wants-to-do, which is where I am with seeing Thor, and then there's absolutely-don't-want-to-do-this-and-will-resent-it-if-you-rope-me-into-it, and then there's everything in between. I think S doesn't do the greatest job of distinguishing between these two poles. Also, there's an asymmetry because S openly hates on some things I like to do. For example, I don't think we've ever taken the kids to a sporting event together. I can only think of going to a single sporting event with S ever -- a cricket match in Australia -- and she left early. Another example: S wanted to go to Portland* while we're out here, which doesn't sound super exciting to me, but if instead she said, "Hey, let's go to Eugene to watch some of the World Track and Field Championships," I would have been all-in. And it's not just sports. S has never once expressed interest in joining me at trivia night or a crossword puzzle tournament. Which is all to say, take the whole me "never wanting to do anything" with a grain of salt. Although it is true that I don't like to travel nor plan events nearly as much as S does, and I frequently point out the downsides of things, even of things I want to do, so she's got me there.
*We are probably going to go to Vancouver, BC for a few nights, which is more appealing to me. The only time they riot there is when the Canucks lose the Stanley Cup.
One thing I wanted to do that we did do is take a day trip to Seattle to visit friends. We left yesterday morning around 10:15, expecting, based on the Apple Map estimate, to arrive around 11:10, and we didn't get there until 11:35. For some reason, the app had us get off I-5 at the Mercer St. exit and took us to 99 through the heart of the city. That's not the way I would go, but I thought, maybe the app is smarter than me, so I followed it. It might be smarter than me -- it's certainly possible every other way would have been worse -- but it was very slow-going between I-5 and 99. It was a little taste of Seattle traffic and an ominous portent.
First stop was my friend LB's and her husband BB's place. LB was one of the first people I got to know as an undergrad, even though we went to different schools. She was really good friends with my roommate and soon-to-be good friend TB, and so she would come to visit him, and we would all hang out. She's also a Tacoma kid (as is BB, although I didn't meet him until he married LB), so I'd see her around sometimes, when I was home for the summer or what have you. I remember once I ran into her at some sort of upscale grocer in Tacoma (Whole Foods?) and was like "hey!" but she was in a heated discussion with the manager over some rotten cilantro or something like that, so it was one of things where she was caught between arguing with this guy and greeting me. I'm not sure why I remember that, but I do, and one of the main purposes of this blog is to catalog pointless shit I shouldn't remember but do.
Anyway, I hadn't seen LB and BB in person in -- I'm gonna say -- 13 years? Last time I can remember is a party that I think was in 2010, but I'm not positive about this. It was nice to catch up. They have a teenage daughter, which is a trip, and a son who's a bit older than Lil' S1. He ran off with my boys to play Roblox or whatever, which was cool. I don't love how obsessed my kids (especially Big) are with video games, but they really are a bonding tool for him and his peers, so... whatever. They did play outside for about 15 minutes when we first arrived, so that's something, I guess.
Unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long, because we had a lot on the docket. The next stop was Lighthouse Roasters for coffee, even though S wanted to go to a closer coffee shop. (Not wanting to do what I want to do, remember?) I was insistent on Lighthouse, my old stamping grounds, because they have fantastic coffee and because I once knew all the baristas and wanted to see if any of them still work there. Sure, enough this guy I know CW was there, and we exchanged pleasantries while I picked up my order. For some reason, nothing makes me feel cooler than knowing a bunch of people who work places. Also, a couple Lighthouse shots on ice with a touch of cream -- you cannot beat that as coffee drinks go.
After our coffee side trip, we went to my old friend JW's to visit him and his wife Y and their three kids. They have one boy who's a bit younger than Lil' S2 and two toddler twins. I said above it's a trip that LB has a teenage daughter, but it's equally a trip that JW and Y have kids who are still in diapers. I've remarked before that when you have kids, you can't imagine them being any other age, but apparently this applies to other people as well -- you can't imagine anybody having kids any other age. It's so weird to see somebody tote around a diaper bag.
We hung out at JW's and Y's for a little while -- again, some playing outside, a lot of video games -- and then we headed up to visit my friend JY and his wife CC, our final stop. Speaking of having kids of different ages, JY and CC have one son, and he's almost 19! He wasn't there because he's playing baseball in a pre-college wooden bat league. He's a really good pitcher and is going to play Pac-12 ball in the fall.
We hung out there for a while, got some overpriced carryout, and then headed back around 8:00p. You don't normally hit traffic at that time on a Saturday, even in Seattle, but you do if all lanes of I-5 are blocked off -- and all lanes of I-5 were blocked off. Literally, an entire section of the southbound interstate was barricaded for construction, and we didn't notice it until it was too late. We got stuck in a ridiculous back-up from like 65th through I-90. And then we had to follow the procession of traffic through the detour to avoid the barricade. It was terrible. It took about 45 minutes to get through, which was longer than the entire rest of the trip. It sucked, but the beauty of traffic jams is that once you're out of them, you're out of them, and you don't have to think about them anymore. Unless, of course, you have a blog and want to complain about them on it.
I'll be sure to check for this sort of thing next time I head up to Seattle, which will hopefully be soon. I want to go up for a visit sans children. I'd also like to see my friend RW. He was supposed to meet us yesterday, but couldn't make it because his VNS implant was abuzz. That's a good thing in that it's stopping seizures (he has epilepsy), but a bad thing in that it's apparently really taxing on him physically and mentally. So hopefully I will see him next time.
And speaking of next times, until then...
No comments:
Post a Comment