There

Hayley, always a winner!

We show up to a less than perfect half-way restored station, complete with drop ceilings with panels missing, in a dirty part of the city. Hayley is there, smoking a cigarette, and we all pile in her ‘new’ 1975 Dodge Dart Swinger, recently spray painted in primer black. You just realize that when you dub a place as intolerably politically correct, it really all does depend on who you hang out with. Seattle has plenty of people who would love to preach to you about the latest trend in dietary restrictions and why, but it also has a huge contingency of fun seekers who are just committed to having a more relaxed lifestyle outside of the churn. The magical trick is to be able to afford a more easy going lifestyle in a city that costs so darn much to be in. And that is the conundrum of the urban nonconformist.

Why Seattle wins.

Hayley had bought a whole ton of salmon for our arrival, so when we get to the house we have a coffee break, then tuck into some delicious local fare. After dinner, Hayley had to head to work, the unfortunate downside of her nursing degree. We headed downstairs to bed. The cumulative effect of switching towns every few days was starting to show, and we were dog tired.

Jill's garage sale.

Without going into the moment to moment action of our time in the emerald city, I will try to give you an overview. I booked the Seattle stop for 6 days, hoping to recover a little while we were there. I also knew we would be able to book it, since a lot of our connections from living there were alive and well. Instead of the kids going to bed nice and early (since we would be ‘stable’ for a week) bedtime ended up getting progressively later, till midnight turned into the average bedtime. Ten A.M. became the normal waking time, and that suited the house well, as we were staying in Hayley’s big house with 3 other roommates.  It just isn’t cool when your kids are tearing through the house at 7 A.M.

BBQ at Carlo's.

My 37th birthday cake!

We had a BBQ over at Carlo’s house, and he and Jill kept the kids while we played a gig with “The Bad Things” down in Georgetown. We had my birthday BBQ over at Amy Jo and Rob’s big new house in Magnolia, Hayley made a cake, and Annastasia and Dayton showed up, I turned 37. Luca woke up and wanted to join the party, but no one would let him come out of his crib, so I had to go back the next day. (making Stay Up Late such a true song, we all wanted the baby to stay up late) Hayley took me to a sock shop where the socks that I did like were $16. We went out in the Dodge Dart that had mysteriously lost all its break fluid in the night, and when I put the brake to the ground it still rolled forward….so Zac stopped and put some fluid in (it was dry)and then he and Hayley fixed the breaks the next day. I went over and got to see baby Luca in action.

We were so concerned.

strange trees....

We took a ride down to the Ballard Locks and saw the salmon desperately trying to swim up the fish ladder to go die where they were spawned. We took a $25 ferry ride to Bainbridge Island and back, which is so beautiful to see the city shrink away and then reappear from the front of the boat. We sat next to a guy with his kid from Dallas. I think half the people on that ferry were tourists like ourselves. We noticed that we stayed off of public transpiration while we were in Seattle, Hayley has two cars now, and the Dodge is just too fun to drive. And I must say, I noticed that when you drive an old beater like that, people generally stay out of your way, and you have more fun.

We played a fundraiser at the Pink Door on my birthday, 45 minutes worth. And I tell ya, Jackie sure knows how to throw a party. If I was rich, and living in Seattle, I wouldn’t miss a single event at the Pink Door. Food, and I mean delicious food, everywhere, beautiful people going around with drinks for you, stilt walkers, maiden dancers, trapeze people, every time I turned around I’d bump into another accordion player, and the view from that patio is world class fantastic. Lovely. And it made me feel popular to play there, which is an important feeling to get on your 37th birthday.

John Cornicello came, and took a picture of my foot.

Our other two gigs at the Pink Door went well, we played Tuesday and Wednesday night for three hours each. Tuesday night we had a mixed crowd of friends show up, including none other than the Dornbushes from L.A.! What the HECK to you know! That was a particular exhilarating show, complete with some bad kid behavior, and some good kid behavior. Luckily, Ron and Ragna showed up with their youngen, and she was obviously used to staying out late, which made us look like more reasonable parents. Wednesday was also a good show, and the kids finally got their fill of pink lemonade.

Monday night we played at the cool Cafe Racer, which was nice, mainly because of the people that showed up. John Cornicello took some pictures that were beautiful, and it was hard for me to connect them with the actual night of the show, as nothing there felt quite that beautiful in the moment.  Another jerk bartender, but the guy who booked us, Drew, was so stinking nice it was hard to complain. They gave us drink tickets, and we played a bit for our friends who showed up, and we got to see the very preggers Jeppa, who I predict will have her baby before we get back to Hot Springs. The kids had a royal breakdown during the show, which was kind of not funny. There was a Mrs. Pacman game, the table top kind, and they were sharing it nicely, and occasionally nice people would give them quarters, and they could play, and then at some point, it all got to be too much, and

Eureka, in 1937.

they started fighting to the point where no one was listening to us anymore, and so Zac got Eureka and put her on a chair behind us while she cooled off, and we started our next song, which happened to be “Stay Up Late”  and instead of Eureka calming down, she just kept crying, which was so unfortunately funny and ironic and terrible, and in that environment where people were not used to kids running around, there was nothing to do but observe and suppress laughter.  And I had just told preggers Jeppa that kids don’t really have to change your performance schedule, and all that kind of hogwash. Poor kids, they were trashed, so we kept the gig short since it was a freebee anyway, and got those kids home.

Mirror postures. Hmmmm-

After the Pink Door gigs, it was so fun to be out on the town with the car, and even though the kids were tired and should have been put to bed hours ago, I just couldn’t help but drive around a little. One night we drove over Queen Anne hill, and to the lookout of the pretty city with all its lights. The next night, late night, we head to Capital Hill to go to Dick’s (old school burger drive-in joint) and the line was too long, so we flagged it and headed to lower Queen Anne and ate at the Dick’s there. It sure is fun to be out at midnight with your kids eating cheeseburgers. We had a blast, and Zac even managed to irritate some overly flatulent Seattlelite, so we had a great passive-aggressive confrontation about Zac blowing up a paper bag and popping it. She was really bothered because her ears were ringing, and she would appreciate it if we would never do that again, and somehow it went from that to her telling our kids that their dad was an asshole. That is classic Seattle behavior. Zac assured her our kid’s ears were fine, as we had just come from a loud rock show. It did not go well for that lady, and i hope that wherever she is, that her ears have stopped ringing, and she stops telling kids bad things about their parents. Not so nice. But it did kind of make our trip, because no trip to the northwest is complete without a scolding from an overly important city slicker.

And finally, from a blur of salmon and coffee and chilly weather, our trip came to an end, and our 6 days just flew by. Hayley and Tree took us down to the Amtrak Station at 4:40 on Thursday, after going to Fisherman’s Terminal and eating one last feed of fish and chips. I could get fat on that. We admired all the big strange working and pleasure boats

Ted's bike boat.

The train leaving out of Seattle heading to Chicago is called The Empire Builder. Here is a tip. The Empire Builder originates in Portland AND Seattle and meets in Spokane to connect in the middle of the night. The Seattle to Spokane leg doesn’t have a viewing/snack car. You don’t get that till the Portland train joins up, so if you are taking the Empire Builder, you have the advantage if you start in Portland. Here is another tip. Don’t ever sit across from the stairwell. I didn’t think of it, and the train was so full that I felt lucky to get seats together, but when all the lights went down, our seat was all lit up, and I COULD NOT get Eureka to settle out.  And every person that clomps up the stairs wants to say hi to you, and you can’t help but see who is coming up. She was SO hyper, and the lights just made it worse. Now I know what you are thinking, and I know it COULD NOT be related to our completely erratic sleep schedule.  No way, it was all her fault. Those are your free Amtrak travel tips.  We went overnight and woke up in Montana, with a sore neck, in those beautiful mountains. Also on this run, we went through several long tunnels. So long the train got stinky from the recirculating air/diesel fumes.

Hayley and Wanda, leaving us at the station.

View of the Puget Sound from the Amtrak.