Home Again

Well, it's nice to be home again, but it sure was a wonderful weekend.  We got to the house at 11 last night and I was asleep by 11:30,  Could not keep my eyes opened.  And I slept until nearly 7:30 this morning. I guess it was continuing the trend I started in Olympia--sleeping the night through.  Gabi and Alec's couch was so comfortable, I had no trouble with insomnia at all.

The day started yesterday with the way it had been the day before, five techno nerds sitting around "visiting," but with their machines in their hands.  It's nice to be with people who don't feel insulted if you check e-mail, Facebook, or web pages while you talk, knowing that it is possible to multi task without being antisocial.

I was even able to thwart a hacker while we chatted.  I got this warning from Google and since I was in the state of Washington this weekend, not in Poland, I decided I should change my password.  Lemme tell you, changing your password while you are traveling is a pain because it screws up all of your machines.   I thought this particular password had been pretty good because it combined the license plate of the car my parents had when I was born with the license plate of the car they bought to replace it in 1953.  It thus combined letters and numbers, but from the 1940s and 50s.  However it was hacked and I can never use that password again, Google tells me.  

Gabi whipped up a big batch of oatmeal for breakfast.  She introduced Walt to "savory" oatmeal, which means it combines savory seasoning and garlic salt.  (Gabi had a version with peanutbutter.)  He really liked it, so he may be eating oatmal now.  I stuck with the sweet stuff (of course), though since Gabi and Alec live very healthy, even my sweet stuff was healthy.

Our plane was not leaving until 7, but we were meeting my friend Mary for lunch, so we left Olympia around 11 a.m. and drove to the mall very close to the airport.  It was sad to say goodbye, but I got my usual Steve Hug.

The trip to Tukwila (where the mall was) took about exactly the time it took to play the Steve CD that Gabi burned for me before we left.

Mary had given me the choice of 3 restaurants, knowing full well which I would choose.  I didn't even look at the other two after I saw all the crab options on the menu for Duke's Chowder House. I chose something called crab UNcakes which were fabulous.  No Old Bay seasoning (which I know it is sacreligious not to like) and just loaded with crab, with minor filling...and a sauce to die for.

We had a lovely, leisurely lunch with Mary.  I can't remember when we saw each other last, but we keep in just about daily contact through the old CompuServe group (now a Yahoo group), which are still some of my best friends though we can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we have been together in the flesh.

The second most memorable thing about Duke's Chowder House (the crab cakes being #1) were the bathrooms.  This is Duke's, you know, so the corridor leading to the restrooms were lined with photos of Dukes -- the Duke of Edinburg, the Duke of Windsor, John Wayne, Duke Kahanamoko, Duke Ellington, etc. leading to the doors of the Male and Female rooms.

Inside the ladies' room were a line of pictures of duchesses, along with a row of crowns.

Mary had to get into the traffic to return home, so we said a sad, but still happy ('cause we'd had a chance to get together) goodbye and then went our separate ways.  We had several hours before our plane took off (an hour longer than we thought, it turned out, since the flight was delayed) and I had time to finish my Armistead Maupin book (just released--the last of the nine volume "Tales of the City" series) and study the footwear of the passengers around me.

The plane only had 75 passengers, which was great because we could have one row of seats to ourselves, and the flight was a little bumpy, but not too bad.   I almost finished my second book by the time we landed.

So it was quick and painless, the whole weekend, and we had such a wonderful time.  I can hardly wait until Steve decides to do another concert with the Righteous Mothers.