Raw Danger!

Woke up on day three a little earlier than I had hoped, but just laid there and listened to the sounds outside the window, soaking in some good old inactivity. It was nice to just not move, have a perfect position on my back, and relax while the world did its thing. Got up later to shower and get ready, and a bit after that Lish was up and ready to roll. She had taken the entire day off so we could go do stuff, and I couldn’t have been more excited. I didn’t even care what we were doing, just that we were going together. Far less photos today, because I was focused more on sharing time than snapping pictures.

We headed out to take a bus, and it was one of those buses with the accordion thing in the middle. I had asked about them previously, and she said there’s a disc in the middle, and when the bus turns, it turns. So of course, I was like, “no way” and had to stand on it to see for myself. It does indeed turn, and it’s neat. After one turn, we took seats and she pointed out places she’s been to. It was cool to go to all these places and the people knew her and were friendly. That isn’t how stuff is back where I live, so seeing it was kind of unreal. We exited the bus and walked a brief way to a place called Von’s.

(above: Von’s, an order similar to mine, both not my photos. A menu, my photo)

Von’s was big with lots of windows and the people were attentive and quite nice. I was going to get a burger, but Lish warned that they can be fairly greasy, which I took to mean messy. I had dripped some kind of sauce on myself at Poppy and felt dumb, so I went for a simpler fare at Von’s: fish and chips with the fish being northwest salmon. I have to be in a specific mood for breaded anything, but this was super tasty and I loved it. Also, they give you about an entire potato crop’s worth of fries, so if you’re ever nearby and in dire need of being full, this one can set you up nicely. While we were looking at the menus, she goes, “look, they have Castlevania olives” and all I could do was be like, “why are you SO CUTE?” She really is, alarmingly so.

(above: a brick building in the middle of all this tallness, but it still doesn’t feel crowded)

The goal for the day was to go on the Seattle Underground tour. A coworker had said it was a must-see thing, and when I mentioned it to Lish, she said she hadn’t been since first moving to Seattle and would like to go see it again with me. But we had some time to kill between tour times, so we headed to this Starbucks that is randomly on the 40th floor of a skyscraper. Why is it up there? Who knows, but it’s unusual enough to justify going, and we headed that way. The hills felt especially steep, probably because I’d done all that walking the day before, but we just took little breaks as needed, and finally made it.

It took a small bit of roaming to find the right elevator, but soon we were up high, looking over the city. It’s a nice view, even with this semi-penis-shaped building blocking part of it. We pointed out cars and buildings, then looked at the zig-zag building I’d seen from afar the day before. I forgot to take a photo of it, but we discussed how the zig-zag itself could make a nice laundry or trash chute. Maybe a water slide for babies. Then it was time to head back down and make the tour.

(above: Seattle Underground, both photos not mine)

I forgot to take any photos while we went on this tour, but that’s probably because the host was funny and engaging. The day before, I had passed by a group of people on a tour, while walking. The guide was telling them about a building and I wondered why you would go on a tour to look at a building? After all, I was doing it just fine on my own. As it turns out, the bit overheard was actually part of the tour, so then it made sense. The guide tells the story of how Seattle was founded, burned to the ground, then overhauled and rebuilt, which is why the underground even exists. Some stores today have a lower floor where you take stairs underground to get in, and these have been around since that rebuilding process. There are glass bits in the sidewalks above ground, but underground they serve as skylights. It’s pretty interesting, and was definitely worth getting to see. A funny side note is that when the group would move, I’d get separated and see Lish looking back to find me, and she was finally like, “just hold on to one of my dreads so you don’t get separated.” I managed to keep up, but I try not to cut off old ladies if it can be helped. If they’d just stay out of the way, it was pretty clear we were on the tour together, you know?

(above: interior shots of the library, including a hole you could fall down and die)

When the tour was over, we sat on a bench and debated where to go next. The pinball museum was confirmed as being open, but it was semi-far from where we were, and we were meeting Lish’s friend James in a bit. By the time we got to the museum and paid the fee to go in, there may not have been time to see too much. We decided on going to see the library. It’s a pretty cool angular building, and it has this diamond pattern of windows that’s really cool. As we walked in, there was a scanner of some type and Lish goes, “it’s a good thing I didn’t bring my gun!” This got me to giggling because it’s something I would say in jest, but she has a concealed carry permit and had actually taken her pistol out earlier that day and said, “I probably won’t need this today” before leaving it on a table at home. Anyway, the library was cool to look at, but the thing that says “spiral” has nothing to do with an actual spiral so I don’t know why they call it that.

(above: Queen Sheba and the mystery soda machine, none of these photos are mine)

James picked us up and we all went back to Lish’s place. Nice guy, pretty funny too. We watched A Town Called Panic, which I’d brought and wasn’t sure how it would go over, but they both seemed to enjoy it and spoke positively of it later. That was a cool thing. Then we went to Queen Sheba for dinner. Ethiopian cuisine, which is varying levels of spicy and you eat it without utensils. You’re given a large piece of flat bread that feels like a pancake, which is torn and the piece is used to scoop up food from the community plate. I wasn’t particularly hungry at this point, because I realized I had roughly 24 hours left in Seattle and the realization that I was going to go back to CA soon was a gigantic bummer. But what I ordered was good, and I’d say if you were near there, it’s worth checking out. Then outside, there’s a mystery soda machine. I got a vanilla Coke, first one I’d had in years.

We went back home and watched Stay, Lish’s favorite movie. It’s a movie that if you put it on as background noise or some second-screen thing, you would definitely not get the most out of it. But if you pay attention, it goes places, and I doubt it’s possible to notice everything in a single viewing. Pretty cool, I hope we’ll watch it again at some point. At this point James went back home, and so Lish and I are just hanging out. She asks if I want to meet her snakes. I’d read about them previously and looked at photos, but so far during my visit they’d been hiding or sleeping or whatever it is snakes do, so I said yes.

(above: snakes get friendly with their fellow snake, Lish’s photos)

Apparently any time she’s introduced them to other friends, the snakes will come back to her almost immediately. In my case, they kinda coiled up around me and then just hung out. I’ve never really held snakes outside of a science class or something, so part of my brain still has that “don’t get bitten/don’t get strangled” thing that is probably very silly to think. She just said to not come up on their heads really fast and it would be fine. So I opted to sit and let them do their respective things, which were both similar in nature. The lighter snake (both boas) is Vasuki and the darker one is Xi, and I guess we’re buddies now? That was nice. She also has a crested gecko named Sobek, but that dude kinda hung out on the side of his glass tank a lot, so I guess he didn’t need to come out?

After that, it was pretty close to bedtime. We stayed up and talked a bit, and even though I had decided and discussed with her that I want to come back and up potentially live in this area, the idea of leaving for now was still getting to me. But we talked until it was past bedtime, then said goodnight and I got to sleep some time around 4 am. Woke up around 7 am, showered, tried to get all my luggage situated ahead of time, and hung out reading stuff on my phone. Lish got up and we agreed it was too late to go to breakfast, because people would be showing up around 11.

The plan for the day was a marathon of Stranger Things, which everyone had watched before except me. It’s a good show, the story is interesting and I’ll watch Winona Ryder in pretty much anything. But it was hard to stay focused because I knew we were leaving for the airport at 6 pm, and while that meant I’d miss the last two episodes of the show, that didn’t bother me. Missing Lish is what was going to bother me. We broke at 2 for lunch, then again at 6 for dinner. She kicked everyone out so we could drive to the airport.

You know, I’ve been happy to leave a lot of places, but the places I was genuinely sad to leave are very few. This was one of them. It was such a fun experience and the town is nice and Lish is indescribably great (though I do try), so even if there’s the notion of being back soon, the leaving right now was really hard to take. It was hard to say much on the ride out because I knew I’d sound all shaky and upset. I finally let it out once we were at the actual airport, and as I watched the car pull away, I didn’t think like, “oh, I’ll be back soon.” I thought, “I need to figure out how to be back here and stay.” So once I made it through security and found my gate or whatever, I just thought about that. I’ve had this mindset of moving to Maui for years, but that’s because I liked the weather and the laid back way of life. The impression Seattle made on me was not one that I expected at all, and I know that Lish is someone I want in my life in some capacity, for as long as I’m still around. Her positivity is infectious and even when she’s got to set me straight on something, it’s done fairly and so I can understand. I think she is a great, great influence, and she has said she’s been more positive since I’ve been around, so it’s a two-way street and that’s just so awesome. So to have her not be a 3-hour plane ride away would be spectacular. But I don’t know much about relocating, as I’m sure I didn’t follow a bunch of proper steps when I did it last time, so where do you even start? I thought about all of this as I sat in the gate and waited for my late plane.

The plane got in, we boarded, and I fought sleep the entire flight. We landed early and I made my way out of the airport without issue. Found my luggage, found my shuttle, and got to my car.

(above: my car was filthy despite having washed it like two days before leaving)

Got in the car and even though everything went smoothly getting back, I didn’t want to BE back. The drive home was tough. I was super sleepy, took a wrong interchange and had to double back in the dark, and then my head was dipping the entire time. I made it, stopped off at a Del Taco for food (didn’t eat all day for fear of nerves making me vomit) and then got home and ate. Then I wasn’t sleepy any more, so I stayed up for a few hours before finally going to bed for a spell. I will say, before leaving for Seattle, I made sure everything was done so all I needed to do was walk in the house and lay down, and this was great planning on my part. Don’t remember how I slept. Probably longer than I did in Seattle, but not as soundly.

I’ve been back for a little more than a week now, and it wasn’t until yesterday that I felt fully caught up with everything at work, but now I’m back “on track.” So going forward from here, the questions in my brain are all about how to relocate and actually make it work up there. I have much to do in the way of research, but it’s something I feel like I want to do and need to do, so I want to do my best to make it happen. Worst case, I just up and go, live off savings for a little while. Best case, I can transfer and make a move smoothly. Either way, it’s where I want to be. I know that much.

I go back up in four weeks from today, for another vacation. I’m looking forward to soaking up more Lish goodness, but also doing some solid scouting on potential neighborhoods and places I might be able to work if I can’t transfer, etc. There’s a lot to consider. But it’ll be worth it once I’m there. Anyway, as far as this trip goes, I would say it was the best thing I ever did. I really didn’t expect to like a big city and I knew Lish would rule but didn’t know she would RULE, so it being as wonderful as it was but also being caught somewhat off-guard by it all, definitely added to it. But I’m rambling now, so I will go. Seattle A+ Lish SSS