Trips, Vacations, & Events


After the ‘beach’ we headed back to the city (stumbling past a very nice lesbian wedding with two beautiful brides in dresses on our way out of the Samammish). On a whim we decided to check out the much lauded, frequently touted, wonderfully free, Hempfest. As soon as we got downtown we followed the packs of stoners wearing fake marijuana leaf leis, bikers wearing chaps, and hippies in organic clothing towards the mouth of the Sculpture Garden. In very organized fashion the city’s law enforcement had created one ‘in’ and one ‘out’ entrance for the festival. We shuffled like cows through a maze of gates, the mood cheery and bright.

The maze opened up, bright and sunny to a GIGANTIC festival. Covering three parks, Hempfest was long and narrow, flanked by the Puget Sound and the railroad tracks. It was 5:30pm and scorchingly hot. Everyone was there: Disabled people rallying for medical marijuana, sign language interpreters standing on the music stages translating, pregnant women looking hot and bothered, people with dreadlocks coiled on their heads and drums on their backs were followed by teenagers looking for weed behind the dumpsters. Food booths covered the lawn, packs of people were splayed out on the grass, a really fantastic Guns And Roses cover band was screaming on one of the mainstages. Teenagers walked around with freshly purchased bongs wrapped repeatedly in bubble wrap. It reminded me a little bit of what Folk Life used to be back in the 90’s–all drum circles, interesting people, and earthy food. But this festival really contained an edge, a feeling of danger that I can’t really put my finger on.

“Where is Rick Steves?” I wondered. Turns out we had missed him by an hour. Booth after booth pleaded us to take political action, sign a petition, rally for the masses. The cover band was replaced by an activist yelling about the injustice of our country, how she had taken her right to smoke medicinal marijuana all the way up to the highest court and lost. People pumped their fists feebly in the air and uttered a breathy, “Yeeeaah!” in support of the cause.

After walking around for an hour and gaping, Josh and I went to the water’s edge to cool off. I waded down the rocks to dunk my feet, and I swear, everywhere I looked people were calmly smoking out. People were discreet, no one was waving it around in anyone’s face, the naughtiness was delightful. I looked out at the Puget Sound and watched an Argosy cruise boat filled with tourists slowly putter by.

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After Snoqualmie Falls we were ridiculously hot–but not in a ‘complaining, itchy, uncomfortable way.’ No, we were hot in a thawed out, wet-all-winter, basking-in-the-goodness sort of way. Our iced mochas languished in the cup holders, a melting puddle of ice and left over chocolate. We decided to find a good old fashion watering hole, so we set out to find the Samamish River. The first place we pulled into was the marina, and inexplicably we got tripped up on a long narrow driveway, behind a long line of boats attached to trucks waiting to get into the water. This was bad news. I became very grumpy and tried to convince Josh to do an illegal move of turning the car around, going backwards on a one way, on the grass in order to avoid the long line. Needless to say, Josh ignored me. Eventually we crept along and got out of the boat line, stopped a park ranger, and asked for directions to a swimming hole.

Samamish River reminds me of the lakes we used to visit growing up in Vancouver: Large, filled with people, parties, kids with floaties, the works. The place was packed but not unbearable. The water was suspiciously murky, filled with green stuff that coiled around our legs as we waded in. Instead of sand, there were rock between our toes. Boats and people on those motorized water scooter-thingies roared around the lake making a ton of annoying noise. The place was not peaceful, but it was sunny and hot, the water felt really good. We found a trail that led to another little beach with real sand, but people had somehow managed to drag their boats up to it, and every few paces you had to avoid someone banging on the stern or fixing a piece of their ship. Josh was working on a really terrific sunburn; I hooked my bra straps under my armpits to try and improve my tank top lines. Josh hiked up his sleeves–something we would have been embarrassed to do in Colorado–and his shoulders started to freckle.

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Typically we spend our wedding anniversary at the Oregon coast. This year we found ourselves doing it differently: How many places can we squeeze into one day? This became the Day Trip Extravaganza that was our 5 year anniversary celebration. Done during record breaking temps of 90+ degrees (we laughed when the radio advised us to ’stay indoors’ due to a smog warning–I mean REALLY, who would ask sun deprived Seattelites to do such a thing?) we set out at 9:30am.

Sometimes I feel down about where I live. When this happens I try and tap into a mental list of things I love: the breakfast place down the street is at the top. Cheap, fast, never crowded, 1/2 a block from the water. Josh and I headed over there for pancakes and eggs. The only downside was that their normally wonderful black coffee tasted obviously flavored. YUCK. The lesbian couple beside us confirmed that they also tasted a flavor. BLEH. We went to Safeway for cash and iced Starbucks coffee.

Then we had a few false starts: I had looked up a farm that was recommended off of our real estate agent’s fancy website. The farm turned out to be nothing but a glorified fruit stand. Josh and I are not confident enough to pull up to an empty rural parking lot and poke around. We like our farms touristy and filled with people. We past up the farm. Then we looked up a winery nearby–I love wine tastings in the morning! The ‘winery’ turned out to be in a strip mall next to Ikea. How is this possible? Again, we like our wineries bustling, rural, and with a huge wine barrel motif. We passed up the faux winery and headed out to Snoqualmie Falls.

By this time the temperatures had increased, the ice in our coffee had melted in our cups, and the sun roof was open. The Falls were predictably full of tourists, including a wedding party. We could have walked down the “warning: steep incline,” path for several miles to get to the bottom of the Falls. If it hadn’t been 90 we would have considered it–we even brought sneakers just in case. The problem was imagining walking back up, the heat becoming stifling despite the explosion of the Falls nearby. Someone had altered a sign, “No Dogs Allowed” to “10 Dogs Allowed:”

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We headed over to the Railroad museum which was tiny: One room with a few placards explaining the process of shipping across the rails. Wooden crates stood bunched up in a corner, an old stove (”this is an example of something that would have been shipped to a household during the railroad era”), and a guide to swinging your lantern (’Two swings means ’slow down’ to the engineer!’). A 70 minutes train ride was available for 10 bucks…I was into it, but Josh had visions of being stuck on a hot stuffy train without a bathroom for too long. We went to the Snoqualmie Brewery instead:

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I’m not a beer drinker…however, I’m a sucker for beer samplers. I love getting multiple baby-sized glasses of beer–a pint is too intimidating. Josh and I are well matched for samplers: he loves all the ales and I go straight for the dark brews. Anything that tastes too hop-ey makes me scrunch up my face. Deciding we were finally hungry after our large breakfast (which combined with the heat has made us feel full for a long time) Josh and I ordered the jumbo nachos to accompany our beer. This was taking a page from our early years together in Colorado. Back then we used to split a plate of nachos at every happy hour in town, and, because it seemed required, I tried to drink beer. The nachos at the Snoqualmie Brewery were huge but low quality. They left us with a full, sickly feeling. The two of us stumbled to a local park and lay on the grass near a display of the region’s largest cross section of a log. The stump was huge, ancient, and much admired by tourists with mullets.

Josh observed some local teens spitting, talking, and causing trouble in the park. Their sense of fashion was really poor: a large kid was wearing an oversized dress shirt, baggy basketball shorts, white socks, and Sketcher-brand sneakers. Josh wondered what would happen if you put that Crime of Fashion into a Seattle teen scene. I noted that another Crime of Fashion would simple occur: chubby teenagers in lycra stretch jeans that tapered at the ankle with slip-on sneakers. Poor fashion is all relative. And I know we sound like the worst city slickers going out into the Snoqualmie region with our fancy pants opinions but, seriously, you would agree that the local fashion was bad.

Earlier in the day, I stated that I wanted to do nothing but drink coffee all day, eat food, and be as decadent as possible on my anniversary. So, despite being full of beer and nachos I decided I had to support the local coffee shop. It advertised a $2 mocha and I was not disappointed. The place was cute, local newspaper articles on the wall touting the shop’s support of the local Snoqualmie art scene, a place for kids to color, a nice cross breeze shining through the front and back doors. Aaah. I sucked down my iced mocha in no time, envying Josh for savoring his.

To be continued….

A few extra details about our trip. It was Kimberly and Justin’s wedding/10 year anniversary party that prompted us to make the trek to LA in the first place. I met Kimberly pulling coffee at The Bucks on Capitol Hill eight years ago. We discovered we both had matching degrees: major in Drama/minor in Dance. Hurrah! I recruited her for the show I was working on, we danced (contemporary), eventually Justin ran our lights, and they became our best ‘couple friend’ while living in Cap Hill for the summer. Then we moved to CO and they moved back to So-Cal.

The inside joke of the party was by far Kimberly’s blog reference to signing their marriage license under the lines Party A and Party B (to reflect the recent gender neutral licenses distributed in CA). No Husband and Wife terms for them! (Which suits them perfectly). Their ceremony was 5 minutes, led by a mutual friend, and very touching. There were no exchanging of rings, no vows they had written, and no wedding cake (but not to worry, I had spotted large cupcakes in the kitchen!) The ceremony wrapped up with a a simple “Do you take this person?” and a “I do” from Justin and a “I totally do” from Kimberly.

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The room exploded with cheers and in the following chaos Josh started casing out the lime tree in the backyard. Wanting to help out the bartender (a friend of K and J’s who was super sweet and made me a humongous martini in an equally sizable plastic cup), Josh managed to extend his long arm up into the tree and extract a lime. How cool is that! How ‘California’ to have fruit trees that produce lemons and limes–I had no idea!

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The Newport Beach breezes picked up as we dined on vegetarian lasagna (reflecting Kimberly’s vegan tendencies), drank wine from the care free bottles of red and white that had been placed tactfully on each table, and met other arty/drama-y friends from the K and J community. Champaign was passed around at the end for toasts and rememberences. Josh had been happily drinking beer all night, drank his champaign, and then cheerfully added the glass of red wine I had poured for him hours ago (for dinner). This resulted in a very Sick Josh the next morning in the LAX airport (who has since then swore off champaign for the rest of his natural life). That combined with a nerve wracking 45 minute wait to get through security, no food, and a packed plane led to both of us melting down. To top it off we had an inexperienced mother sitting behind us with two screaming, screeching, complaining, whining children…one was about a year old and the other was barely three. It was so bad that the stewardess came over and said, “The seatbelt sign is off, now would be a great time to walk your baby up and down the aisle…here I’ll take your three year old.” Did the mother walk her baby? No, she sat like a lump in her seat while her child emitted a series of painful yelping noises. I couldn’t even sit back in my seat because my chair was being mercifully kicked the entire time by an impatient and pissed off toddler. Worst Flight Ever.

But all that aside, the wedding was a delightful highlight to an otherwise somber weekend. Hurray for Kimberly and Justin!

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(I have no idea this package contains a metallic silver halter leotard from American Apparel courtesy of Abigail of gold hot pants fame…)

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I was told the best thing about international airlines is their freedom with alcohol. Folks made it sound like there would be champaign fountains and four course meals. My Air France flight began at 2pm on Sunday and ended 9 hours later at 9am, Monday, France time. I was terribly nervous, as I’ve mentioned before, since the longest flight I’d endured to date was a 6 hour return trip from NYC–6 hrs is a long time, but 9? Would 9 be the breaking point? I packed my old college backpack heavy with stuff to entertain me on the off chance I would be twiddling my thumbs and, oh, not sleeping.

I arrived two hours early and it took me only 20 minutes to check my bag and go through security. Wow. I messed around in the Duty Free Store, sampled lip gloss, and admired the new international wing of the airport I’d never been in before. A woman and her adult daughter were doing yoga at the gate; ‘what a good idea,’ I thought to myself. I started doing a few stretches myself until I realized the entire French flight crew were sitting in a corner snickering. Or at least, I think they were…it was hard to tell with their hoity toity French. I noticed how well-coiffed the entire staff was, the women wearing tasteful make-up and their hair in chignons. The announcements about our flight were made in French and then English.

I sat in my little aisle seat for a long time with the hope that maybe no one would sit next to me. Then a short little man showed up with a dog carrier. I peeked inside and saw a shivering little chihuahua. Oh God. Now, I’ll be totally honest: I hate chihuahuas. I don’t think they’re cute, I think they’re disturbing with their buggy little eyes, mean little yaps, and celebrity appeal. I’ve been influenced largely by the nasty pair that bark at me every time I step into my backyard and into my car. What are the odds that I would spend my first international flight next to one? The owner squeezed into the window seat only to realize an odd little black box attached to the bottom of the seat was causing a shortage of leg room. His dog cage wouldn’t fit so he asked if we could trade. Now, most people prefer the window seat, but I really like the aisle for one main reason: easy bathroom access. With a 9 hour flight impending my bladder immediately seized at the thought of tapping this man on the shoulder every time I need to use the can. It didn’t help that when the stewards weren’t looking he pulled his dog out of its cage and sat her on his lap.

The chihuahua’s name was Flavia (Flah-via) and she was a seasoned traveler. She and her owner (I never got his name) were headed to Barcelona. The man had an unplaceable accent, stunk of stale cigarettes, and had unusual scars on his tanned face. “I would never travel with her if she was difficult,” he assured me. “She is wildly obsessed with me, we go everywhere together.” He showed me a little black dog dress with a black and white gingham collar that he had stuffed in the pocket of the airline seat. “How very Audrey Hepburn,” I heard myself saying. I asked a few polite questions and received one piece of valuable information: “In a few hours the sun will disappear and they will put us to sleep. A few hours before our flight lands they will wake us up and serve breakfast. The flight will go fast.”

I was so nervous that I couldn’t take advantage of the free drinks–mimosas, red or white wine, mixed drinks, they had it all. This made up for Air France’s shoddiness: my tray jiggled, our seats were worn, and my cup holder was broken. But there were neat little TV screens embedded in each seat with several movies running on loops, (I watched “Enchanted” and “Juno”). I took Pamela’s advice and knocked back some Advil pm after our meal in the hopes of passing out and waking up when we landed. I had no such luck. Sure, it was more comfortable leaning my head against the side of the plane, but I felt like I was at some sort of bizarre slumber party. All around me people were shifting under their airline blankets, snoring lightly, and wearing the complimentary Air France eye masks. My seat mate’s cigarette breath seemed to waft into my nostrils and rouse me every few minutes. I could hear Flavia shuffling in her owner’s lap, nestled under her special blanket with the dog bones printed on it. At one point she put her snout on my arm and made me jump. All my extra effort to not to touch or smell my neighbor made any real sleep very difficult. After two hours I gave up and rewatched “Enchanted” while the night sky slowly lightened.

I groggily ate my breakfast of yogurt and a baguette (a substantial improvement over the dark meat drowned in butter they served for dinner). I accepted coffee and juice. I even petted Flavia a little bit. We flew through the dark rain clouds of France and when we pushed through I gasped at my first sight of a foreign land. Tiny little cars criss-crossed the highway–and by tiny I mean they were almost all Smart Cars. My mind lapsed back to an NPR special: “Conservatives will do anything to avoid living like Europeans: $7.00 gas, tolls to enter cities, and driving tiny cars.” I sucked in the view, everything French, on the other side of the world, wow! In my excitement I found myself enthusiastically scratching Flavia behind the ears.

I made my way to baggage claim, which was odd and didn’t look like it was suppose to. The bags came out of a hole in the wall and the conveyor belt moved along the wall’s perimeter until disappearing into another hole. Luckily, my bag came right away. I found a pay phone, called Airport Express shuttle’s toll free number, stumbled when the man answered in French. “Hello?” I asked uncertainly. He switched to English immediately, “Go to Exit 8 for the shuttle.” After consulting a map for a long time I found Exit 8. I saw no signs for Airport Express just a lot of people smoking (France’s indoor smoking ban went into effect only in January). Was I in the right place? It was freezing and I was wearing this dorky rain coat I picked up at the Rack for too much money (I’m returning it today). I went back inside. I asked someone at the Security desk, “Parlevous Anglais?” She looked annoyed and said “a little” in French. I said, “Airport Express?” She gave me a blank stare. I pointed at my itinerary. She took my paper and looked it over. I had written Exit 8 on it hastily; she pointed at Exit 8 on the paper and then at the exit. “I know, but it’s not out there,” I struggled to explain. She gestured wildly. “It’s on the other side?” I ventured. She nodded, but I think she just wanted to get rid of me. I tried hard not to lose it. I called from another pay phone. “Go back outside, we’ll get you in five minutes.”

This time, a shuttle pulled up and the driver picked me out immediately from the crowd. My nervous voice on the phone must have matched me physically. I was relieved and slid into the backseat. A well dressed woman in her 40’s said, “Another American? Where are you from?!” I said ‘Seattle’ and she said ‘LA.’ She tried talking to me but I was so tired I just wanted to zone out. A group of loud South Africans joined us in the backseat. “BONJOUR,” they shouted at us before launching into a huge conversation in a language I couldn’t understand; their hands waving around, two women and one man. I’m sure they weren’t all that obnoxious but it felt really jarring in my jet-lagged state.

We hit the highway: cargo trucks and a million Smart Cars lined up for miles as we approached Paris’ rush hour. I recognized the outskirts of the city, the less attractive parts with its huge subsidized housing complexes and exotic French graffiti. The South Africans droned on and on, my stomach doing little flip flops, and the woman from LA kept trying to engage me in conversation (”Do you keep up with politics?” “Hillary or Obama?” “Do you agree the Americans have screwed themselves because of their terrible war?” I wanted to say, “Look lady, you may live in France but you claim you’re an American citizen: it’s your goddam war too.”). We reached the city and a huge round-about introduced me to my first glimpse of French sculpture, elegant pedestrians, and several near accidents in our shuttle.

I had arrived.

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More tasty pictures are up on my Flickr page.

While driving to a Travel Store in Wallingford I listened to an NPR special on autism. Felt scared…worried I might have a son and if I do he has a 1 in 70 chance of having autism. Decide I won’t have sons; instead I resign to having hysterical girls I can dress up in cute clothes. Then I feel shallow, so I decide that if I DO have a kid with autism, my teaching experience with children who have had autism will lend itself to the situation. Then I look up to see if a thunderbolt from God will come crashing down on me for having such negative thoughts.

I arrive at the over priced Travel store and buy a money belt–what the hell right? It’s made out of silk. I buy the floor sample so they give me 10% off. Bought a travel pillow that deflates for easy storage. I opt for the larger travel pillow–the one with a picture of a man on the front instead of a woman–with the thought that I should ‘go for it.’ I meander around the store looking at ridiculously commercialized travel products: like a Rick Steve’s hand towel and an overpriced 2 ounce bottle of Travel Hand Sanitizer for 4.99 (I bought the same thing at Rite Aid for 1.50). I start getting nervous so I leave the travel store.

Then I look for shoes in the U District…sneakers, or something that I can walk for hours in, stare at paintings at the Louvre, and wear while hiking to the Eiffel tower. In my mind, I’m looking for green fashion sneakers…preferably New Balance and women’s sized instead of men’s. I find nothing like this. I do find an incredibly cheap pair of Tsubo mary janes that I would normally be all over but they’re not supportive enough for the trip. I’m trying to be really good and not blow tons of money on pre-trip supplies–opting to blow tons of money in euros in Paris instead. I decide against these hideous green and mustard yellow sneakers that are so ugly they’re almost cool. I entertain the idea of black sneakers, but can’t let go of my hope for green ones. I browse through a sporting goods store at regular sneakers that I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing with jeans. The Birkenstock Store has perfect shoes–40% off too–but nothing close to my size. I’m heart broken and exhausted.

I take a break from shoe shopping and go into the U Book store where I buy the paperback “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by Lisa See. This is the book my new book group has chosen and I decide it will be perfect reading for the plane. I also buy a cheap knock off moleskin journal for all my private thoughts. The journal is bright red and about half the cost of the moleskin brand. I decide I can skimp on the journal-I’m only going for 8 days. (I visualize my first journal entry: At the airport waiting for the plane, how am I going to sit still for 9 hours? )

Then I meet up with A at her adorable Eastlake apartment and we spend three hours choreographing for “Lady” by Styx. It’s a revolutionary time as we roll (literally) all over her hardwood floor. We take a break from dancing and she buys me a soda at the corner store and then we pick up her dry cleaning at the place next door. I tell her everything and she shares in return. I like having a new lady friend. It distracts me from my impending trip, my soon-to-be bravery, flying to a country all alone without the cush of my husband as a travel partner.

When I get home I dump all my travel purchases out onto the kitchen table for Josh to look at. He thinks the money belt is cute–even though it’s the same size and shape as a sanitary napkin. We go on a walk in our neighborhood at dusk–exercise to make up for the ballet class I skipped out on. Despite the crisp clear sunshine during the day the sun is down by the time we walk and the air is frigid. My husband and I make obscene jokes–well, actually it’s all me–and I quiz him on what BBC really stands for. I tease him about his upcoming 8 days of bachelorhood–although secretly I’m worried about what he’s going to eat. Visions of him eating nothing but cold cereal dances in my head. I can see him eating three squares a day: Cheerios for breakfast, Wheat Flakes for Lunch, and Peanut Butter Puffins for dinner.

We get home and our cat, as if on cue, starts wildly dancing in the kitchen. It’s after dark and she knows the rule: wet cat food only at night. She prances all over the place, screaming at the top of her lungs, until finally Josh slathers some wet food on a plate. I make him dust it with this special anti-plaque stuff I bought for her teeth–it supposedly tastes like cheese and cats love it. My cat hates the dust, but puts up it with merely for the pleasure of wet cat food.

We watch Oprah at 9pm while eating a Trader Joe’s pizza. I’m highly disturbed by the fact that Billy Joel is 56 and his new wife is 23. I’m REALLY disturbed, actually, and can’t shut up about it. I feel intense cynicism about their marriage’s longevity. My husband leaves to go play Xbox and I start watching a paparazzi style show. The edits are so fast I feel my brain zinging all over trying to catch up. I decide that this isn’t good ‘before bedtime’ tv material. I go to bed and curl up with my new favorite book: “The Year of Living Biblically” (which I HIGHLY recommend). I fall asleep with Hobbes slowly kneading my kneecaps–her desire for more wet cat food subtly being communicated through my covers.

A short video of a brief moment in the mountains of CO (featuring yours truly):

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