Weekend Getaway!

We have been so busy between jobs, shopping for and maintaining our mall space, and the theater production Tom Sawyer that Jonathan just completed that we have almost forgotten to take a little time together for ourselves. Jon got invited to go camping at the beach so Debbie and I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to run off together for a couple of days. We jumped on line and shopped around for a place to stay and finally Debbie chose this place.

We decided not to stay in "Downtown" Seattle because for some reason they are able to command a premium for the rooms. We drove a couple of miles into Bellevue and had a very nice room for much less. Perhaps with enough advanced notice one might aquire lodging near the city center for a lot less but this was a spur of the moment decision. Here's what we got for the money.

After getting settled in this afternoon, we headed over to Pike street and wandered among the the masses of humanity. It was kind of fun. Perhaps tomorrow we'll go back and make some purchases. The fish looks wonderful

Wait! Don't look at me! You have to look behind me.

How about those wonderfully colorful vegetables and fruits.

And mushrooms! Hey Rowleys! Look at the price on those morels! Dude!

Well, all of a sudden it was dinner time and I saw this sign.

Who knows? It could be fun! And it was. There were even healthy choices. We had a nice tomato and vinegrette bruchetta for an appetizer and we each had a salad. Debbie took a cobb with a bit of ranch dressing and I took something called the anti-cobb. It was similar to a cobb salad but with more fruit. It was served with a basalmic tangerine vinegrette. Not bad. I took some pics but they were a little blurry. Oh well, here they are anyway.

Oh yeah! When you go to the Hard Rock Cafe, you have to buy a souvenir. Here's mine.

Wow! This post is going long. Let me conclude for now and add more tomorrow or at least soon. I mean there are some weird things here that you've got to see! Talk to you then!

The Circle of Life

Isn't it funny how certain events mark specific memories in our brains? Where were you when Ronald Reagon was shot? How about when the first space shuttle disaster happened in 1986. Do you remember exacty what was going on in your life when those events happened? I do remember what was happening to me on those days and I also remember what was going on on the second day of May five years ago. Interestingly enough, it was a birthday anniversary for two different nieces of mine. On Debbie's side of the family, it was Ashley. She is the oldest daughter of Brenda, Debbie's sister. On my side of the family, it was Sarah, the youngest daughter of my sister, Kathleen.

Five years ago today, I rode a bicycle to work. That is not very normal for me but I remember because of some other things that happened that day. Perhaps a half hour after I arrived my cell phone rang and I answered it as I am unaccustomed to doing. After all, it was from Debbie. How bad could it be? Well, it wasn't all that bad. I mean I had been expecting this particular bit of news. After all, my mother had been very sick for a number of weeks and each day I expected to hear that she had finally expired.

I remember entering my supervisor's office, sitting down and trying to tell him that I needed to go home. I remember saying that I thought I was completely prepared for that particular event but it was obvious that even though I thought I had prepared myself, I was not completedly ready for the finality of death when it actually occurred.

Oh my goodness. Here it is, five yrs later, and I am struggling to see through blurry vision so I can complete this post. What is going on? Hopefully, my difficulty in completing this post is normal and by tomorrow, I will be back calculating life events with the logical, non emotional evaluation with which I am accustomed.