High School and Plays That Re-Enact High School Suck

Last weekend began with a "Bat Watching Hayride" at Seward Park on Friday evening. I don't know about you, but whenever I think of "hayride" I think of a horse pulled a wagon loaded with hay. And when I think of bats, I think of the huge flying foxes Pa and I saw in the rain forest in Australia.




But we saw neither a horse-drawn cart nor a gigantic flying fox on Friday night. Instead, a Seattle Parks and Rec truck with a flatbed trailer hitched to the back and lined with hay took us around the park to watch bats that were no bigger than Starlings.



No matter, I figured. It was still cool to see so many bats come out at dusk. The truck would've gone faster than a horse-drawn wagon if our guide hadn't felt compelled to stop every 80 feet or so to show us his Barred Owl call; but other than that, it made for an interesting evening.

Saturday morning was a lot better--starting off with Heather running to meet me at the house so I could join her for a lap around Lake Union and then up Roosevelt to Green Lake. We parted ways after 9 miles and I went home, showered and headed to Nordstrom downtown where I found the purdiest little Diane von Furstenberg Vintage wrap dress I bought for my high school reunion in October (I call it my "O" dress because it has "O's" on it. You were thinking something else, weren't you?)




So, until about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, I was pretty psyched for my reunion. But all of that optimism changed when we saw "Rewind 1987" at the Last Supper Club in Pioneer Square. Aside from the "actors"--if that's what you can call them--flitting around unrehearsed and spewing mindless banter about who should be nominated for homecoming king and queen, we picked at cold, stale nachos and drank cheap wine and mused about how much this reminded us of high school because it sucked about just as much. We were given cheesy cardboard Polaroid holders for Polaroids which were never taken and afterwards, shown to this hovel of a room so DJ Trent could play some more lame-ass selections of 80s music until 11:00 p.m. when he pulled the plug and flipped on the fluorescent lights above. All in all, it was the worst $85 we wasted in a good, long while.

But if art is representative of life, then the play did its job and reminded me how much I couldn't wait to go to college.

Mr. Na and his friend, the literary character

My friend and her husband are both sports writers for one of local dailies here and because of playoffs and such, they've been dispatched to cover some games in different cities this weekend. Their son, whom I shall call "the boy named after a literary character" is Mr. Na's age and his preschool mate, so I offered to take him in for a weekend of fun, fun, fun while his folks left town.

For the most part, the weekend was partly fun for those two but there was a lot of bickering involved. I've never seen two strong-willed four year-old boys hang out together for more than a few hours, but I never expected them to act like an old married couple. They fought over everything from choo-choos to competing about who can jump higher or run faster and, get this, they were using dirty ol nasty tricks in hurting one another that I thought were reserved only for fourth grade girls: I'M NOT YOUR BEST FRIEND ANY MORE! Yet if you each asked them if they still liked one another, they'd say "yes" without hesitating.

But despite the fracas here, I did manage to get a 10-mile run in on Saturday morning, exploring a part of Seattle I'd never seen. That's what I love about this city--even after 10 years here I still manage to stumble on new places. There are beautiful wooded running trails on the backside of Ravenna, adjacent to Cowen Park that make you feel like you're nowhere near the city, though U Village is a stone's throw away. I connected to the park from the Burke-Gilman and ran the backside of the trail until I came upon Ravenna Boulevard and then caught Roosevelt and made my way down to loop Lake Union.

Later that evening, after we put the little ones to bed and secured the Nana as our glorified baby monitor, Pa and I ventured downtown and caught Little Miss Sunshine which, by far, was the best movie I'd seen all year. I laughed so hard I nearly had popcorn coming out of my nose.

Well, it's Sunday night (sorry, I'm a few days late in posting this here) and our little literary character friend is sleeping in Mr. Na's bed while he and I are watching my favorite childhood movie (which is now his! How cool is that?) His father has just landed from Dulles and will be here shortly and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. All things considered, I like having one little guy to contend with, not two.

Not yet, anyway!

Pa, Na, Ma and 66,827 other fans...

After last night's soccer match between Real Madrid and D.C. United, I couldn't understand why we 'Mericans never warmed up to the whole futbol thing. I mean, sure, sure, we had a sellout crowd last night in our little Seahawk Stadium, but soccer has never truly caught on here in the states as much as it has the world over. We care too much about more important sports like, uh, NASCAR or 'Merican Football. And then I thought, well, why not come up with a list of reasons why people should embrace it as our national pasttime:

1)David Beckham






2) The men are hot. And I don't mean just the players on the field either. The guys watching aren't too hard on the eyes.






3) David Beckham







4) The women are hot. There were many beautiful girls drooling over the players--hell, even the soccer moms were babalicious.






5) Did I mention David Beckham? Ok then, how 'bout his cool shoes?













6) The game is only 90 minutes. Perfect for four year-olds and most of us with the attention spans of mice.












Are you there, God? It's me...uh...ohmigod I TOTALLY FORGOT MY NAME