Changing Plans

According to the original plan, we would have been in Utah by now. We were supposed to be out of student family housing by the end of June so we made plans to load up our moving cubes on June 28th, then drive to Utah while all our stuff got shipped to Sacramento, where it'll be stored until we get there in August. The only problem is that we neglected to inform the moving cube people of this plan early enough, and as it turns out a lot of people move at the end of June. In a college town--imagine that.

So the earliest they could get us a moving cube was the first weekend of July, but sorry, they don't do deliveries on Saturdays, so nothing till Monday the 7th. So I begged and pleaded with the student family housing people, and they reluctantly agreed to let me pay rent for an extra week. Meanwhile, I've been stressing about moving on a Monday because it's hard to get people to help during the middle of a weekday and my job requires me to work four hours a day Monday thru Friday, which is kind of hard to do when I'm driving across Idaho.

Then today the moving cube people called and said Hey guess what we can deliver your cubes on Saturday how do you feel about that? So with two days' notice we're moving our moving day up by two days and, as it turns out, both Foxy and I are happy about it. We were at the point where we couldn't do much more packing until it was closer to zero hour anyway, and as much as we'll miss Seattle and our friends here, we're ready to get this move--at least the first part of it--out of the way.

Incidentally, if you live in the Seattle area and are looking for something to do Saturday afternoon, say between 3:30 and 6:30, shoot me an email and I'll see if I can find something for you.

Jiggedy-Jig

One year and two days ago I moved to Seattle from Utah. Ten years and fifteen days ago I moved to Utah from Hawai'i. Twenty-seven years, ten months, and eight days ago I moved to Hawai'i from... well, that's debatable. And not the point of this post.

The point is that I have spent most of the last month visiting the two places I have lived for most of my mortal life, and yesterday I came back to Seattle, and it's nice to be home. I love the happy Mormonness of Utah and the laid-back alohaness of Hawai'i, but Seattle is my home now and it's a good place to live. I've felt at home here since the day I arrived in a moving truck with my brother last September, and I felt at home in Utah from the day I got off the plane in Salt Lake City ten years ago. I'm glad to have lived in just the right place for each period of my life, and it's nice that I can go back to visit my family and friends in former homes, and even nicer that I can then come back to my present home, lie down in my own bed, and get a good night's sleep.

Seattle Parade Deathmatch: Solstice vs. Pride

• Solstice opened with bodypainted nude cyclists; Pride opened with (and I believe this is the official term) dykes on bikes. Draw.
• Solstice involved a lot of nonsexual full nudity; Pride involved a lot of very sexual partial nudity. +1 Solstice.
  
• Solstice involved a crying baby and a screaming toddler with sunscreen in her eyes; the kids were at church while I was at Pride. +1 Pride.
• Both Solstice and Pride had belly dancers. Draw.
• Both parades had a gay marching band. Draw.
  
• No corporate sponsorship at Solstice; lots of corporate sponsorship at Pride. +1 Solstice.
• The only free thing I got at Solstice was a bead necklace for S-Boogie; I got handfuls of free candy, stickers, and condoms at Pride. +1 Pride.
• I worried with each free piece of candy I received at Pride that the person handing it out was an undercover agent from the God Hates Fags group down the block, out to kill us all with poison candy. -1 Pride.
• As much as I like to think of myself as an artsy hippy type, I'm not really, so I can't really say I felt much of a sense of solidarity with the people at Solstice; on the other hand, I did identify with many of the groups marching in Pride, particularly the Gay Fathers Association of Seattle and several of the other family- and religious-oriented groups. +1 Pride.
• I didn't identify so much with the floats that had hot guys in briefs freaking each other to remixed Michael Jackson songs. -1 Pride.
• Still, they were hot guys in briefs. +1 Pride.
  

Final Score:
Solstice 2
Pride 2

There you have it, folks. Tune in next year for the rematch.

The Power of Children

• They obliterate social boundaries, even when their parents are characteristically antisocial. This morning as S-Boogie, Little Dude and I pushed our way toward the back of the crowded bus on our way to the Fremont Solstice Parade, strangers smiled at us just as strangers always do no matter where we go. I consider going anywhere with my children a public service, as the very sight of us seems to make people happy. A young man stood up to offer S-Boogie his seat while a group of parade-goers complimented the sling I carried LD in. I thanked them and helped S-Boogie into her seat. The people around us laughed at everything S-Boogie said, which of course encouraged her to keep speaking. As the surrounding folks felt no qualms about participating in my conversation with my daughter, I felt comfortable interjecting in their conversations to clarify details of the bus route and parade location I'd looked up earlier, which is something I'd usually never do. Then later, when S-Boogie had first decided that she wanted to stand with me and then decided she didn't like trying to stand in a moving bus, the woman in front of us took S-Boogie onto her lap, a favor another woman repeated later on the bus ride home.
  
• They provide instant conversational fodder. Once we arrived at the parade and I found myself in another situation where my social awkwardness usually thrives--meeting new friends for the first time--the kids saved the day again. When you have kids there's always something to talk about: their ages, their latest tricks, your hopes and fears for their future. This works particularly well when the other person also has kids or even hopes to one day have kids, which was the case with our new friends today. Of course, it also helped that not only do MoHoHawaii and I have a lot in common to talk about, but both he and his boyfriend are personable and friendly people.
  
• When they are having a good time, they make your good time ten times more enjoyable. S-Boogie thought the body-painted bicycling parade forerunners were pretty cool, but she got really excited when the actual parade started and the drums and belly dancers and floats came out. I would have enjoyed the parade anyway, because it's just that kind of hippie artsy cool that I love about Seattle, but watching S-Boogie dance to the drums while LD clapped made it that much better.
• When they are having a bad time, they make it impossible for you to have a good time. First LD got tired of being outside and restrained to my arms or the sling, and started screaming to let everyone know how he felt. Then S-Boogie's sunscreen worked its way into her eyes and her complaints quickly evolved from a little whining and eye-rubbing to full-blown sobbing and yelling, "My eyes hurt!" After about ten minutes of listening to both of them scream, knowing I could do nothing to solve the problem, I decided it was time to go home.
  
• When they are sleeping in the next room, every noise sounds like a child's waking sobs. I am exhausted now after making the trek to Fremont and back with the two of them, and fear having to get up during the night to deal with any lingering effects of the sickness they are, at least in theory, recovered from. I was lucky enough to have them both sleep through the night last night without a peep, but I'm worried my luck won't last and so I tense up with every sound that might be a baby crying or a toddler puking.
  

Marketed

I've been feeling rather unSeattlish living five blocks from the weekly farmers' market and not taking advantage of it, so this morning S-Boogie, Little Dude, and I walked over to check it out. I left ten dollars poorer, carrying three apples, four tomatoes, a head of lettuce, and a loaf of bread in the stroller basket, and feeling underwhelmed. I like the idea of buying fresh organic produce and supporting local farmers, but I'm not so crazy about the prices. The lettuce was a good deal--a dollar for the head--but the bread was four bucks for the loaf. I mean, it's good bread, but seriously, four bucks?

I'm also unimpressed by the lack of variety at this market. There are maybe thirty stands and at least a third of them sell flowers, which are very pretty but for the most part inedible. The rest all sell variations of the same dozen or so vegetables--which, I suppose, duh, is what you get when you're dealing with fresh produce that's actually grown in the season it's supposed to be grown in. I guess the problem is that I'm too indoctrinated by two and a half decades of eating pretty much whatever I want year-round to accept that all I can eat in May are leeks, garlic, and green onions. Or maybe it's just that this isn't a great farmers' market. Do other markets have more variety this time of year?

In unrelated news, the man selling newspapers in front of Safeway knows Little Dude's blog name. Hi, Mr. Newspaper Man, are you reading?