Snoqualmie

Rachael and I took advantage of the great weather this past Sunday to play tourist, something we haven't had a lot of time to do since our arrival in Seattle almost two years ago (Halloween 2007).

We headed east on Interstate 90, jumped off at exit 25 and visited Snoqualmie Falls. It was worth the trip. Sheer natural beauty.

The Snoqualmie River flows over a 268-feet drop, one hundred feet higher than Niagra Falls, just north of the town of Snoqualmie. The little community is surrounded by the Cascade Mountains, with breath-taking vistas in every direction.

Scoping out the place, we couldn't help but wonder if the residents ever reach a time when the sights become ordinary.

We also stopped by Snoqualmie Casino on the way home. There may be a recession in the works, but it wasn't readily apparent on the gaming floor. Lots of noise. Lots of people. Lots of money changing hands.

I dropped $100 after a couple of hours at the blackjack tables. I prefer to think of it as paying the price for entertainment.

Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon.

Word play

Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat considers political hyperbole today in These Are the Worst of Times?

Reading it, I was reminded of what Inigo Montoya said to Vizzini the Dwarf in The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

There and back again

Talk about your whirlwind tours.

My daughter's wedding was this past Saturday. You may recall that she lives in Ohio and so I had to take wing to get there. Oh, sure, I could have taken the bus or rented a car for a 5,000-mile round trip, but either would have meant days on the road and for financial reasons I couldn't leave until Thursday and had to be back Monday, so . . .

The wedding was lovely, my daughter gorgeous, I cried my eyes out during the ceremony and the reception party was a hoot. Daughter and new hubby are off on a cruise, somewhere in the sunny Caribbean, God bless them.

But that's not what this blog is about.

This is the second trip I have taken by airplane in eight weeks (the first was to Kansas in mid-July for Jim Gunn's Sf Writers Workshop) and both trips were a nightmare. It's been years since I've flown and I couldn't help but wonder where the friendly skies have gone.

I have mentioned here before that I am a woman of considerable size, both in height and weight. There is nothing average about me, so the fact that I am wedged into coach-class airline seats is a given. And I never expect decent food on a flight. Airplanes are not restaurants. Just as long as I can get a couple of glasses of Diet Coke, I am content.

But what happened to courtesy and polite service?

I flew to Kansas and returned via United and never got as much as a smile from a single airline employee. And the return flight was a horror. I arrived in Denver for a connecting flight to Seattle, only to discover that my connector had been canceled, as had the next and final flight for the day.

After standing in line for an hour at a service counter, I was told that they could book me on a late morning flight the next day. There was no explanation for why the flights were canceled (despite my questions) and no offer of compensation for meals or overnight accommodation. I did manage to get a refund on my ticket to pay for a flight aboard Alaska Air (the last of the day) and arrived home six hours late.

And so, I was hesitant about flying to Ohio for the wedding, but chose to travel via Delta, figuring United and Denver had been a bad turn of luck.

Oops.

My flight left Seattle fifteen minutes late, headed for Atlanta, where I had thirty-five minutes to catch the connector. We landed in Atlanta ten minutes late and then sat on the apron another ten minutes, waiting for traffic to clear, leaving me fifteen minutes to reach the connector gate -- in another terminal.

I arrived just as the agent was closing the bridge door and he refused to open it again, even though the plane sat at the gate for another ten minutes. I don't know. It was almost ten p.m. and he probably had had a long day. Maybe I scared him. I can loom when I am anxious and I was gasping my words, after my mad dash between gates.

At least Delta did pay for my hotel room in Atlanta Thursday night and I made it into Columbus by nine a.m. Friday morning.

Even so, I have had my fill of standing in lines, undressing for airport security, squeezing into tiny seats aboard noisy airplanes and having to deal with rude airline employees who don't seem to like their jobs. I don't travel very much, so I suppose my miniscule contribution to the airline economy won't be missed.

But the big silver birds have seen the last of me.

And then we're going to the baseball game

On a more upbeat note ...

Remember Bill Cosby's Special Class routine from his album, Wonderfulness? It's the one about being jealous of the kids in special class because they were always going on field trips. You know:

We're going to the zoo today! And then we're going to the baseball game and then to Hong Kong and Tokyo, and we're going to a lot of places. Yep, yep, yep.

I was thinking about that this morning because Rachael and I are going to a Mariners game Monday night at Safeco Field. It's our first time in the two years we've been in Seattle, actually our first time to any major sporting event in the ten years we've been together.

Neither of us are big sports fans.

But we're going to the baseball game because it's a new experience and because we have free tickets. Yay, Kirk!

We're making it an all-day activity, too. Lunch someplace downtown. A few beers at Pike Place Brewery, where we haven't been in months. Some poking around at Pike Place Market. Maybe an hour or two at Seattle Art Museum and then a leisurely stroll down First Avenue to the game.

Dinner will be beer and hot dogs. Maybe we'll get lucky and catch a foul ball.

Baseball is the game with foul balls, isn't it? Nine players to a team, nine innings, three strikes and the batter is out. Or is it three bats and the striker is out?

Whatever it is, we're going to the baseball game. And then maybe we'll go to Hong Kong or Toyko. One thing is certain. We're going to go lots of places and we're going to have a good time. Yep, yep, yep.

Service with a shrug of indifference

Ride the bus often enough on a more or less regular basis and you begin to recognize faces. See them often enough and you start to talk to them.

At least I do.

I call them Bus Buddies. I have three or four and it's become a pleasure to see them. They smile when they see me climb aboard, too, but one of my buddies wasn't smiling Thursday.

I'll call him Diego. He's a lovely man with a courtly manner, living in the United States on a visa. I see him on the bus on Thursdays because he is returning home, at the time I board the bus, from one of his twice-weekly workouts. He usually is quick with a smile, but a bad thing happened to him Thursday.

"What's the problem?" I asked, when I saw his sour face.

"Someone broke into my locker and took my wallet," he said. "I'm not that concerned about the money but it had all my identification. My driver's license, my green card. Everything. And they took my cell phone, too. It had all my contacts on it."

"Did you report it?" I asked.

"I talked to the guy at the fitness center," he said. "He said there was nothing he could do, said it happened all the time."

'Did you call the cops?"

"I will when I get home. The guy wouldn't even let me use the phone to call the police."

I won't even ask why someone would steal his things because that sort of thing has been going on since there have been people. We all covet things and some of us can't be bothered to acquire those things honestly.

And I won't tell you the name of the fitness center. It's part of a chain and I'm certain they have more money to pay attorneys' fees than I do.

But the fact that this sort of thing happens "all the time" at this business and nothing has been done to curtail it makes me angry and the thought that this sort of response may be becoming an accepted way to do business fills me with despair.

And I wonder what sort of world are we leaving to our children.