A Quick Seattle Fyb-by

A summary of my last three weeks: went to Ecuador, the Galapagos, and Seattle.

Let's start with Seattle, while we're still trying to filter our 500+ Ecuador pictures down to a socially acceptable handful.

The day after we arrived back in the big apple from Ecuador, I had to fly out to Seattle on business. As you can imagine, this brought on quite a mood of disgruntlement. Another long flight? And that too for work?

But then I got onto the flight and realised they had DirectTV on the plane, so it afforded me the opportunity to whip out my new noice cancellation headphones and watch six hours of Law and Order episodes back to back, undisturbed. It's amazing (albeit appalling) what that can do to lift the mood.

Something about Seattle that I find remark-worthy: no one jay walks! I'd be standing there at a perfectly empty intersection, and the pedestrians around me would all wait patiently for the lights to change. Because you can get ticketed for jay walking. So there I would be at the intersection, standing behind a bunch of Seattle-ians, hopping from one foot to another in my impatience to elbow everyone out the way and just crossed the darned empty road in front of us. Wasting - well, seconds (!!) - of our lives. Tsk tsk.

I was just about to proceed to my next sociological observation about the Seattle peoples, when my Cos dropped by to pick me up. I was going to spend the evening with the Cos and her family before catching the red-eye back to New York. We exchanged long, fond hugs when we saw each other, and suddenly I realised all over again how lucky I was that my work kept allowing me to go to Seattle. We drove to her home so I could meet her Hubbie and their little animal farm.

I was just trying to give her hubby a hug, when I was accosted from all side by the exuberant 'children'. Ol' Macko (still my favourite, after all this time) gently sniffing me up and down with typical feline delicacy. Stella bouncing off the walls and off all of us, not knowing what was happening but choosing to be excited anyway. Leroy, new to my presence, skulking in the background and then every once in a while headbutting me for a renewed petting. It was like heaven!

An absolutely perfect evening - accompanying my Cos to her volunteering session as a mentor, and then really catching up with the two of them over dinner. Same Thai restaurant we always go to, of course. Why fix something that ain't broken?! Her hubby did suggest we go to a new one next time, just to shake things up a bit, but the more I think about it I find I might have to put my assertive foot down (I guess my Assertive Foot being the one I dont' Put in my Mouth all the time) and insist on tradition.

Such a perfect evening in fact, that on the way back, replete with happiness and emotional satisfaction, I couldn't even stay awake to watch that Law and Order marathon I'd been looking forward to.