Hello?

Where on earth have I been?

Work has been exceptionally busy lately, especially since I've been preparing for our three-week trip to Central America in April. I want to get everything done and prepared before we leave.

Items I still need for our vacation:

• Sunglasses (Nordstrom, I'm looking at you - BP selections are only $10!)
• Higher socks I can wear with my adorable hiking shoes so they won't rub my feet and give me not-so-adorable blisters.
• A new camera? My trusty Canon Powershot (4.0 megapixels -- top of the line at the time!) has been with me for six years now and is showing its age. The casing is coming apart slightly at the seams and it tends to get stuck on video mode unless you know exactly how to hold the slider that changes the mode from video to camera (I'm a pro at this, but handing it off to others to take a picture of you proves tricky). And it would be awful for it to die during the trip!

Less than three weeks until Central America! No puedo esperar!

A sunny Saturday (two weeks ago)

I meant to publish this weeks ago but somehow I found it in my drafts?

The view from the Smith Tower downtown. You can see the Space Needle between buildings on the right, and the Olympics stretching out in the distance. I recommend the Smith Tower for views of Seattle rather than the Space Needle - the same view for half the price!

Dang bees

Yesterday I discovered a drowned yellow jacket in our kitchen sink.

Let me back up.

Wednesday I came home with an armload of groceries and nearly stepped on a yellow jacket camped on our kitchen floor. We had a staredown for a few moments during which I tried to decide if he was injured or just trying to intimidate me. Since he didn’t try to fly away but was obviously alive, I grabbed the nearest large weapon – a kitchen towel. I slapped him a few times with it but he just buzzed along the floor and, most importantly, DIDN’T DIE. He was too big to squish but too injured to fly away, so I trapped him under a plastic container and left him on the floor while I made dinner and washed dishes. At some point I remembered that we had an invasion of yellow jackets during the summer due to a nest lodged under our deck within the house. After weeks of killing yellow jackets who had meandered into the apartment during the day through the open windows (we’d come home to five or 10 of them crawling on the floor or languishing in the window sills), we finally called the landlord to get rid of the dang thing (also our friends were starting to get nervous to sit near the windows). The nest was promptly removed because, as our landlord said, what if they came further into the house and found a way into our apartment from the inside?

I then dropped to my knees and inspected where the floor met the walls but I didn’t find any others. This one must have just gotten lost. After dinner, I decided to move him from the kitchen floor to the kitchen counter so I gingerly slid a piece of paper under the plastic container and transported him to the counter, where I left him while I went and visited a friend. Mark came home later and “discovered” him (“Why is there a yellow jacket on the counter??” “I told you he was there!”) and must’ve nudged him into a water-filled bowl in the sink and left him there, where I found him the next day.

I almost texted Mark, “Why am I coming home to a dead yellow jacket in the sink?”

But then I figured I’d probably get back, “Why did I come home to a LIVE yellow jacket on the counter?” Fair question.

Birthday flowers

Courtesy of Mark and Metropolitan Market :)

Cupcakes and the Fifth Avenue Theatre

My sweet friend Maile treated me on my birthday eve with a cupcake and a musical downtown, the Pulitzer prize-winning "Next To Normal." It was literally my last day to take advantage of the 5th Avenue Theatre's $20 ticket price for those 25 years old and under and the ticket guy didn't even card me. Which, really, is very odd considering every other time we've bought those tickets we've had to show our IDs before they'll even bring out the seating chart. We cajoled him into asking for my ID anyway, since I'd never be able to use the discount again.

Thus begins a new era of paying adult ticket prices. But first, a recap of the shows the 5th Avenue Theatre so generously let me attend for only $20:

1. Next To Normal, with Maile - thank you friend!

2. Into The Woods, which I begged Mark to take me to since we had done the show in high school.

3. Mame, the originator of the Christmas song "We Need A Little Christmas" (who knew?) and co-starring the man who voiced Gaston in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", which sent me into a state of awestruck anticipation. My what a guy, that Gaston!

4. A Christmas Story, the musical version of the beloved movie of the same name, which we saw with our friend Nicole.

5. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - this one ranks well in our memory because we ended up with seats in the center of the fourth row for $20. Lucked out!

I wish I'd taken advantage of more shows at that price but I guess we'll have to pay full price like normal people now. But it was great while it lasted!

Estudiando espanol

In preparation for our trip to Central America next month, I’ve been seeking out resources for conversational Spanish. I’ve been spending time on www.studyspanish.com, which has great basic lessons on grammar, and I’ve been downloading and listening to podcasts from Radio Lingua Network, which has a program called Coffee Break Spanish – 20-minute lessons great for my drive home from work or the treadmill. The only roadblock to Coffee Break Spanish is that the hosts have Irish accents, which confuse me at times! But I love their intro song, which includes the line “Mas cerveza, por favor! Cafecito, I want more!” I’m going out on a limb here, but I don’t think beer would help my speaking skills. :)

Studying Spanish grammar has made me realize how much I’ve forgotten (or perhaps didn’t know in the first place) English grammar. If you were to ask me what the present perfect tense or imperfect tense is, you’d get a blank stare and a shrug. My friend Melanie, on the other hand, can rattle off definitions of those tenses at the drop of a hat. But then she is an English teacher, so we expect that from her! Mel also told me about a site called www.meetup.com where people can schedule “meet-ups” to discuss common interests. I know it sounds sketchy, but my friend and I went to a conversational Spanish meet-up a couple weeks ago (at a bar on Capitol Hill no less) and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Well… to be honest, my Spanish-speaking level was just below being able to converse with most other people there, but it gave me a great guideline of what I need to work on and how much I actually know. I thought that most attendees would be from Spanish-speaking countries or perhaps students, but plenty of nationalities were represented – I spoke (marginally) with a French girl and a Ukranian man, as well as a guy from Mexico and an American girl who now teaches Spanish. I want to go back soon – necesito practicar! (I need to practice!)

Double-monitoring

Like double-fisting, only completely work appropriate and much less hazardous.