I had asked, when we were on the Pacific, if there is ever a sunny morning there. I love getting up with the sun and seeing the long shadows at dawn, and as much as I enjoyed this ocean, I wondered how much sun I'd have to sacrifice to live with it. A lot, I expect. Except here. The San Juan Islands are in a rainshadow, so when it's raining in Vancouver and Seattle and up and down the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it might be clear in the islands. Friday we woke to sun and blue sky, proving that point neatly.

The tent we packed damp, not sopping. We toweled off the fly and moved the tent into the sun and toweled it, but the groundsheet was still muddy and the underside of the tent damp. Tuesday, when we drove between Olympic and here, was lovely; Friday promised lovely; and we'd had some sun Wednesday and very little Thursday: them's the breaks. Besides, it's the Pacific Northwest: we were both surprised we saw any sun.

We were packed and ready to roll to make the 9:00 line for the 10:00 ferry at Orcas Harbor, where we discovered a second breakfast (for RDC) and a touristy gift shop (for me). I bought a round of postcards, which was my goal, a present for HAO, and succumbed to my weaker nature and bought an orcas tree ornament for myself. I also took a picture of the madrona trees with their vivid red, continously peeling bark.

With one last ferry ride, we said goodbye to the islands. I sternly told myself that no matter how delightful for a few days in summer, I should admit to myself that rain and isolation would make me batty over the winter and so I should not long to live here. I didn't believe me.

We'd squeaked off the island with our last drop of gas and filled up in Anacortes. I was buying ice and water (and a Peppermint Patty) when RDC left the cap off the gas tank, not that I likely would have noticed anyway. Looking into the side mirror when we turned onto I-5, RDC exclaimed.

Luckily, there was a motel right off the highway entrance ramp, and he ducked into its parking lot. I hopped out and checked. Unluckily, there was no cap. Luckily, there was a gas station on the other side of the motel. Unluckily, it had only a convenience store attached, but luckily, it being a gas station, the clerks had quite a collection of gas caps in a box under the counter. Unluckily, the first one didn't fit, but luckily, the very next one did. And luckily, we'd left our own gas cap at the previous station for them to add to their collection.

I don't remember how that joke goes, about unfortunately falling out of an airplane (oh no!) but fortunately having a parachute that unfortunately doesn't work. Anyway, we were both glad our saga lasted less than 10 minutes, and we were on our way. Furthermore I was glad he'd forgotten something, anything, no matter how small, after I'd nearly lost the camera.

I called ASZ at home, and I love voicemail because he, at work, returned my call not long after. He couldn't answer for his wife, but since he would probably have to work the next day, could we meet tonight? Well, we had no plans. A Seattleite on the whale watch had recommended a restaurant for seafood, Chinook's, but depending what ASZ & Co. wanted to do, we could try there Saturday night.

We found the Pacific Plaza Hotel easily and I was pleased that they keep the main branch of the Seattle Public Library right across the street. I scampered up to the hotel desk, hoping they'd let us several hours before check-in time. They would, and they didn't even mind bikes in the rooms. That was good, because otherwise we were going to sneak them up. I hauled our one bag with city clothes, my knapsack, RDC's bookbag, and his entire gargantuan duffel bag (because he forgot to put socks and underwear in the city bag) up to our room while he took the bikes off the rack and returned to collect the bikes so he could park. While he parked, I had my first good hot shower in four days. The coin-op showers at West Beach "Resort" hadn't exactly been warm, which is why they were not coin-op the second day--they didn't charge for cool showers, how generous.

While RDC showered, I searched in vain for Anita's number and not in vain for MEWN's. N, M., the phonebook said, and the street address looked familiar. Does any man ever list himself so, or is a single initial instead of a name an unmistakable sign that it's a woman's number? I left a message with a voice that could have been hers, felt stupid about not trying to connect with Anita, and found a place for lunch. My criteria: near the hotel, near the museum, serving fish. My conclusion: McCormick and Schick's, which I assumed (wrongly) was not a chain (I still wanted nothing to do with chains) associated with McCormick's Fish House in Denver, which is only so-so.

Lunch. Despite being on the ocean, our journeying had not yet led us to wonderful seafood. Seattle, we both devotely hoped, would rectify the situation. It did. I ordered crabcakes in a hazelnut crust with cranberry-mango sauce (I think) and RDC got halibut with shrimp, pancetta, and mushrooms, which I didn't order because I have this thing about halibut. Since I've been proven wrong on several occasions of which this was the most glaring, I am now officially over my thing about halibut.

Also during lunch we talked to DMB and found out that her boyfriend Joe is now her fiancé Joe. Wheeee!

Then the museum. Its information center had cautioned us of a 40-minute wait for the Impressionist exhibit, which we thought reasonable, and I took a picture of the Hammering Man while we waited the actual 15 minutes. The articles in the museum newsletter came just short of sneering at the popularity of Impressionism. Near-verbatim quote: "Impressionism does make very pretty pictures." Popularity, as we all know, means a work is bad or boring or too accessible to be valuable or something. Plebian Lisa: I like Monet, I like liking Monet, and no, I don't know enough about art to recognize how vulgar this makes me. (Sheesh, if you want any proof of snobbery in the evolution of language, see how the definition of vulgar has changed over time from common and popular to base and obscene.) This exhibit didn't focus on Monet, though, which RDC found refreshing. He was pleased to see The Pears, by Cezanne I think, because a Woody Allen character listed them to his shrink as one of his reasons for living. I found myself liking Gaugin as well, and it's about time I forgave him.

RDC found himself dragging and in need of caffeine, but since the Mormon conquest, coffee is verboten in Seattle. While he drank his espresso, I checked out the gift shop, giving further proof thereby to my baser nature. I found a print of Mary Cassat's Two Sisters for CLH in the special exhibit's special shop, and in the main gift shop found something unexpected.

A case for my glasses.

I've had the same one almost four years. My last one I'd had for nine, but then weeks would go by when I'd wear glasses only on the weekends, maybe. This case has suffered through glasses and sunglasses and its hinge was about gone. And this case, just to prove how avant garde I'm not, is of Monet's Water Lilies. So there.

We wandered a bit through the streets while we waited for ASZ and his family, seeing three coffee shops in two blocks. I felt like I was in a movie set, feeling already familiar with the city because either it's so cool or so many journalers live here, or both.

I felt nervous more about my hair, which was four days old, than about renewing a friendship more than fourteen years old. RDC began to muse about what kind of car they might drive as an on-the-spot personality indicator. Michelle called the cel (is that how "short for cellular" is spelled, with one l not two? news to me) for last minute directions and about two seconds after she hung up, we watched a blue Subaru Legacy turn right onto Spring Street and then execute a u-turn to pull up next to a pair of loiterers, except the 180 would have ended facing the wrong way on a one-way street. Then we watched the driver respond to the passenger and loiterers and wind up doing a 360 to head the right way.

So the evening began well, with laughter. We sprinted across the street and I shook hands with MMZ, now emerged from the passenger side. RDC and MMZ could figure out who they each were on their own, because now ASZ had made his way around the front of the car.

We hadn't seen each other in eleven years.

The evening's destination was a Sicilian joint called Buca di Beppo, quite near Aurora Avenue and the southern end of Lake Union. Perhaps this was a dose of New York for ASZ? The Zs were concerned that we would be so ravenous we'd chew our own legs off before being seated, but our lunch had been late enough that we would be fine for a while. They'd already called for a place in line and we had about an hour to kill, so we walked over to Seattle Center. I got to carry Max.

I forgot to mention Max, did I? Max was just about six months old. Max had completely gotten over his iguanaism, as even RDC, as a rule not sympathetic to babies, admitted. Max had a darling lock of hair right at the top of his forehead, longer and curlier than the rest of his hair, which I kept curling into a unicorn's horn. Max was darling.

Or at least I carried Max until we had to take some stairs and walk curbside along Aurora Avenue under an overpass, and I am too clumsy a walker and have too active an imagination about falling and dropping a baby in traffic to want to try. So I handed him over.

MMZ and I had already talked on the phone and I figured if nothing else, we could talk about the baby, since they're such great conversation pieces. I hoped RDC would enjoy the Zs as well, and I am happy to report that all five of us got along swimmingly. I mentioned a gaming place Karawynn took Rob and Julie to, called Entros, that I would like to play at, and ASZ thought that would be a great idea, and that Max would be fine there. We talked about Indonesia and orangutans (MMZ majored in primatology) and a pair of sisters they brought from Indonesia and hosted for a year in the States while organizing pro bono surgery to correct the girls' severely cleft palates. The picture of ASZ on a water buffalo wasn't taken when he visited MMZ doing her field work; he had just happened to go to Borneo on his own. They were probably the only two people in Reno, Nevada, where they met, to have heard of Borneo, let alone visit: clearly they were destined for each other. (I first typed "heard of Reno," because I'm pretty sure if I ever see Nevada I should want to live there even less than I want to live in northern Utah.)

Back at the Buca (Joseph's Basement, though it's not below ground level) we waited in the lobby soaking up atmosphere. Kitsch. Italian kitsch. More specifically, Sicilian kitsch. Lots of pictures of Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, various unidentifiable popes, and many many more obscure personages, plus pulp paperback art and bizarre print advertisements.

After two hours, not one, we sat, and then we ate. Oh my. The garlic bread is cracker-thin, pizza-style, with sliced cloves not wimpy powder. The caesar salad came draped with anchovies, which MMZ and I left for the boys, and deluged with Parmesian. The fruta del mar (fruits of the sea, obviously, except I've probably butchered the Italian) had whole tiny squid, clams, and I think mussels and scallops. And a white pizza with carmelized red onion. Plus a chicken dish with six breasts, capers, and yet more pasta. I was glad my dress had no set waist. We gorged ourselves, except Max who had Michelle bring his supper. (ASZ warned me that he--Max--had not yet learned to distinguish between productive and nonfunctional breasts.)

I interrupted ("No!" exclaims the reader) some entirely different subject when I remembered to ask ASZ something particular.

Once when Dot Org bought bagels for all one morning and as I unadroitly hacked mine in twain, someone riled me--hadn't I ever cut a bagel before? I told her bagels traumatized me because the first time I ever ate one, I was 18 years old, at a Jewish friend's house [the first Jewish person I had ever met], it was Saturday, and we had ham and cheese sandwiches on bagels. She (Jewish herself) denied this was possible. I wondered if my memory deceived me.

So I had to ask, beginning: "You know, visiting you was the first time ever in my life I ate a bagel," and ASZ continued, "And you were really shocked at what we had on the bagels," and I was glad he remembered without any prompting to affect his recollection. He confirmed that yes indeed, on a Saturday in August in 1986, in a Jewish household on Long Island, sandwiches were constructed of ham and cheese on bagels. Almost everything I knew about being Jewish (sum total: diddly/squat) came from Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family books. No meat and dairy together, I knew that, and Sabbath on Saturday not Sunday (which, linguistically, makes a lot more sense). Somewhere else I learned the no-pork thing. So. Trauma, I tell you. I didn't know Judaism came in degrees, and the Zs are not at all kosher (obviously).

When I talked to BJWL after the trip, she insisted she has met ASZ. I have to ask him about this. She says he came to the house one summer when I lived there but had gone off somewhere overnight. Hmm. Now, I know I met his mom, and he told me she'd want a picture of the evening, which makes sense. Well, I'll get a copy for BJWL, what the hell.

After we ate, and ate, and ate some more, the Zs boxed up the copious leftovers (which is why they insisted on picking up the check, thus obliging them to visit Denver so we can treat them) and home we went, leaving Entros for next time (when, MMZ said, we should stay with them, not at a hotel).

That was a perfect introduction to Seattle.