Weekend in Review; It Was a Good Death

[akirlu]

Not an entirely productive weekend.

Hal had his first DJ gig Friday, off somewhere at a high school in the hinterland. I stayed home and played too damned much Zuma on Yahoo! I blame holyoutlaw. Luke and his damned Bounce Out. That's what started it. Never mind, "First one's free," they can all be free and still suck your life away.

Saturday we tried going to the International Gem and Jewelry show at Seattle Center. This would probably have been more successful if the International Gem & Jewelry show had been at Seattle Center. I should have checked the postcard before I left the house. When we got down by the Space Needle, traffic bogged and parking became unobtanium. My usual lot at the Science Center wanted $10 flat for event parking, and was completely full of testosterone bloated SUVs. Elsewhere parking was costing fifteen, twenty, even twenty-five dollars and the lots were full. Whisky Tango Foxtrot, over? What was at Seattle Center? (a)The NCAA Playoffs (b)Whirligig sponsored by Disney (c)Hops on Equinox Beer Festival (d)fabulous weekend weather or (e)All of the Above? Yes, that would be (e). What Hal characterized as a Perfect Storm of anti-parking. Pity the fool who just wanted a peaceful day at the Science Center. We beat as hasty a retreat as possible under the circumstances.

As part of Plan B, we investigated Carkeek Park instead. Just lovely. The terraforming of the creek to salmon optimum is decorative as well as functional. Sarah was quite pleased to smell everything, strain her leash in all directions at once, get up to her elbows in mud, menace robins and squirrels, and try her level best to drag me bodily across the railroad tracks to the beautiful little stony beach just on the Sound. I resisted. Just. Oh for a dog that Plays Well With Others.

Third time was at long last charmed for The Tuxedo. After two successive Netflix rentals that each stalled out at Chapter 15, the third one played all the way through to the end. Or at least played smoothly from Ch. 15 onward. This time we didn't dare try taking it back to the beginning. Geezo. A girl shouldn't have to work this hard to get her Jason Isaacs fix. It was a fun bit of Jackie Chan froth, anyhow. Suffered unduly from Lame Dialog syndrome, but I reckon writers are too expensive to bother with on a budget.

Today I did a solo run down to the Stadium Exhibition Center, by Safeco Field, where the Gem & Jewelry show actually was and did a late afternoon hit-and-run. I picked up some sterling findings, some amethysts and miscellaneous semi-precious beads. I'm trying to justify supposing that the wholesale prices balance the nine bucks in parking and the fact that I spent more than I should have. Must sell more before I buy more.

Tonight I pitched some beef and vegetables in the slow-cooker, and we went off to the Crest to see The Last Samurai. Ravishing visuals. The writer had a tin ear for Victorian dialog, but eventually I was able to stop noticing. As we walked back to the car, I thought about Katsumoto's death on the battlefield. He sees the cherry trees in bloom, and murmurs "Perfect. They're all perfect..." He's closing his earlier observation that a life spent searching for a single perfect blossom would not be wasted. I wondered if everything might not become suddenly precious and perfect in the last breath of life, however critical we have been of it when there was still time for better. I wondered if even squalor becomes bright and dear, when you die. Overhead, as we walked, the plum trees bloomed.

The stew was a bit crunchy, for having been rushed. It will be better tomorrow. I have washed no laundry. I have barbered no cats. I have designed no Tangler logos. And yet the weekend is over, and so, to bed.