The Monday Morning Report

What a nice weekend!  Finally, after enduring one of the wettest runs of spring weather in recent history, we have had two beautiful, sunny days in a row--And both of them on the same weekend!  Could it be that we're finally in the right pattern?  One can only hope.

I'd say we have had a pretty good weekend.  One of the best in quite a while.  The only downside that me and Suz can see is that both of us have aches and pains.  Mine is nothing but a mysterious twinge behind a shoulder blade that appeared for no reason (old guy pain).  Hers is a result of her fall while at Ocean Shores last weekend.

We started out our weekend by going to Draft Choice (our local pub) with Tony and Rachyl on Friday night.  It was good to get out and play a little pool and eat some good food.  By the time me and Suzie got home and slid into the hot tub, that's about all I could do.  I ate a bit too much and was pretty lethargic.

Saturday morning:  Sun!  After having coffee and letting the sun make it's way a little higher and dry the grass off, Suzie and I celebrated the first day of summer (weather-wise) by laying in the yard and catching some rays.  During this time I got to experience one of the high points of my weekend:  Punishing the yappy dog next door.  See, I have a water-filled, air pressure-charged fire extinguisher that I bought several years ago.  Anytime we are outside doing whatever, we frequently have to endure the wrath of the three little "yappy dogs" (Chihuahuas) that the neighbors have.  This time when I saw one of them trying to burrow under the fence (still yapping all the while) I had to act.  I went into the garage shop (I'm sorry, I keep calling it a garage, when really it's a shop) and grabbed it.  I filled and charged it and placed myself about 20 feet from the fence and waited.  You have to understand the power of these fire extinguishers--They're shoot 50 feet easily.  Anyway, I only had to wait a few seconds before it was back, poking his yappy nose under the fence.  When I blasted him, it also blasted the dirt around his face.  That did the trick!  He yapped a little, but kept way back--Probably wondering what happened and why his eyes were instantly full of mud.  It was right after that they came out and called them into the house.  Anyway, an hour of sunning and we had our allotted amount.  Time to shower and head to Seattle.

Our whole reason for Seattle on Saturday was to attend an event at a noted camera supply store there.  Although it was an annual event, we didn't know anything about it other than the fact that they had several vendor booths and special "event pricing".  We were hoping to buy Suzie a new fancy macro lens for doing the close-ups that she loves so much.  We knew what our choices were, web-wise, so we had to see if they could beat the prices we found.  They couldn't (I ended up ordering it online yesterday morning).  Still, it was a good event.  We learned which tripod setup we just have to have, and also picked up a neutral density filter (photo geek-speak) and a t-shirt for me (just geek).

That wasn't the end of our adventure.  Next stop:  Belltown.  We went to a place we had been previously and enjoyed a great burger and beer while sitting at a table outside.  It was very cool!  After eating we wandered around that area for a while (basically using up our parking meter).  After wandering, we ended up on Queen Anne Hill once again, this time to see what the cityscape looked like on a sunny day from our beloved photo stop:  Kerry Park.  Well, it looked pretty nice, but eh.  We wandered some more and found a nice small park on the same road as Kerry Park, but at the far end of the street.  This one faced west and southwest.  Very tiny, but nice regardless.  While we were there we saw what looked to be a bike trail in the distance that followed along the edge of the water.  I headed us off toward the area and we ended up making all the right turns and driving right to it.  It was a nice trail!  There we got numerous water shots and shots of people enjoying themselves (jogging, skateboarding, bicycling, etc) on the trail.  There was a nice fishing pier there too.  During our brief stop there we watched a fisherman haul up the most ugly thing I have ever seen some out of the water in my life:  A Ratfish.  Talk about ugly.  It was equipped with a poisonous barb in its dorsal fin, and it even had teeth!

 After all that we wandered home for some much-needed rest.

Yesterday we woke to sun once again, but instead of waiting for it to get higher in the sky, I hauled our deck loveseat out to the sunny area and sat with my second cup of coffee and watched the birds and squirrels enjoying their freshly-filled feeder.  Cookie woke Suzie up and she quickly joined me as well.  When the coffee was done and we ate a good breakfast, we spread our sunning stuff out again and did another carefully-choreographed sun session.  By the time I went to bed last night I had a nice glow of pink all over me.  Both of us did really... Just more coverage on me.  I rounded out the afternoon by doing a little minor truck maintenance as Suz washed and vacuumed her car.  Finishing the weekend with a "feelgood" movie (Sue's words) was just about right.  We needed to veg out at that point.

Yep, it was a good weekend.