REDRUM

After our Canadian adventure, Ru and I decided to lay low a bit. We spent a day roaming around Seattle. First, she took me downtown to Pike Place Market.

These guys are the famous fish-throwers.

Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot of purchasing going on that morning, so I guess they were not in much of a fish-throwing mood. The place was packed though, as we were there during Memorial weekend.

I have no idea how you cook any of this stuff, but I thought that maybe Chris of www.inanethoughtsandinsaneramblings.blogspot.com might be impressed.

The market also featured many homemade crafts by local artisans and there were many beautiful arrangements of fresh flowers at insanely low prices.

After that, we went to Seattle Center, in the area of the Space Needle to check out the Folklife Festival. I managed to distract Ru just long enough for her to lock her keys in the car, but my AAA membership came in handy as unknown to me, they provide FREE locksmith services!

The festival was a lot of fun. There was a good variety of performers and tons of food to try out. I spotted this sign and just had to snap a quick photo-- sorry about the poor quality:

Does the word dingleberry mean the same thing to you as it does to me? It is not exactly the most palate-tempting name.

We played it safe and stuck to funnel cakes with powdered sugar, banana & nutella crepes, and fudge! Ru had been raving about this groovy donut guy, who inconveniently RAN OUT OF DONUTS when we arrived.

These guys were fun to listen to, and I especially found it amusing that the drummer’s setup featured a Safeway shopping cart (where we happened to have parked illegally) and a Starbuck’s umbrella with the logo ripped off. Way to “Stick it to the Man”, dude.

These guys were also amusing, as were their unpictured groupies who were shaking their stuff in tanktops and had their own following of teenage boys hoping for a wardrobe failure.

Other interesting performers:

After the festival, we tried to meet up with Ru’s church group to go on a ferry ride around Puget Sound, but they had left without us, despite our arriving 5 minutes early. Instead, we walked up and down the very cute main street of Ana Cortes. It was there that we had our most extravagant dinner during my trip, dining on some excellent salmon and also some sort of ravioli with a weird name that was stuffed with lobster and crab. Mmmm.

I don’t think my fitness model friend who reviews my workouts would have approved of my diet that day, but whatever. I think the best way to get over a performance plateau at the gym is to screw things up quite a bit!

There are no pictures of the next day as we laid low, and rented semi-obscure movies. We met up with one of Ru’s friends, L, for dinner, who I can best describe as an entertaining bundle of energy in a small package. I highly approve. Ru also pulled her disappearing key act once again, but this time I had her spare in my purse, so there was no delay for a locksmith!

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Back on the homefront, I really think that this city is out to get me. I survived my obligatory lunch, but a funny thing happened on the drive home.

My car had been sitting outside the restaurant in the sun for about two hours, with its contortionist silver sunshade in the windshield.

I was wearing shorts and luckily was stopped at a stoplight. All of a sudden, I felt something hot and wet on the top of my right thigh. I looked down, and there was a quarter-sized splotch of dark, red fluid on my thigh that had left small splatter droplets across the inside of my left thigh. Gross!

I looked up at the roof of my car, looking for the source of the blood. I didn’t hurt anywhere and the roof was suspiciously its usual dry beige color. I don’t know what I was expecting to find up there, maybe a small animal tacked to my ceiling by some sort of psychopath vandalizing parked cars? I don’t know.

I looked down at my leg and back up again.

This time I noticed that tucked under the elastic of my driver’s side visor there was a red ink Pilot pen. Apparently, it had gotten too hot when I had the visor folded down with the sunshade and red ink had started slowly leaking out just in time to land right onto my bare leg.

Pretty random, eh? I guess I’m a very lucky girl that it didn’t happen when I was wearing nice clothes and that it didn’t even land on the upholstery of my car! I guess tomorrow I’ll grab some rubbing alcohol and try to get it out of the fabric of the visor as it does look kind of morbid.

I tried to clean up a bit as I was on my way to the mall to look for some new running shoes. I don’t believe I have a pair that’s less than 2-3 years old, and on our hikes I’ve noticed that I can feel the texture of the rocks I’m stepping on.

So there I was, in the bathroom of a very snooty department store scrubbing at the top and inside of my thighs with a wet, soapy paper towel. It smeared around some, but wouldn’t really come off. I probably looked kind of suspicious to the other women in the restroom. If it was blood, it would have been darker and washed off really easily, but perhaps these upscale housewives aren’t as well-rounded as the ones on television.

The shoe salesmen were particularly unhelpful today. I don’t normally shop there, but I had a gift card from my birthday that I have been meaning to use before I leave town. Perhaps the oddly placed streaks of red ink on my thighs had something to do with it.