Day 247 - Last Call

Cz has caught my cold and has therefore been feeling under the weather. Unfortunately, he is not very good at being sick, and whines, mopes, and grumbles incessantly. It may be a bit callous of me but I was happy to strike out on my own this morning and leave Cz to grouse in the hotel room by himself.

First order of business was a haircut at my old salon. Freshly shorn, I walked to the corner to catch a bus up to Capitol Hill, but it was a relatively pleasant morning, and I was early to the haircut (so got out early), so I decided to walk instead.

I needed to go to Capitol Hill to visit our old building and to pick up a letter of recommendation from the landlord there. As I walked, I admired all the shops, the clean air, and the general air of relaxed friendliness which has always been one of my favourite features of Seattle. Once at our old home, I was pleasantly surprised that the building manager not only recognised my face, but even remembered my name!

While she found our letter on file (she wrote us a rec when we went to NY the first time), I took a walk up to Volunteer Park. The sculpture in front of the museum had been moved to the new Olympic Sculpture Park, but otherwise, the scene was unchanged, complete with frolicking dogs, Space Needle views, and gossiping neighbors. In the two little ponds the koi, which I remember being about 6" were now at least 1'-18". Time moves on even for fishies...

Rec letter in hand, I made my way back in to the U District to close out my BOA account. BOA has screwed me over with so many ridiculous fees that I am really happy to finally be free of them. I may open another bank account at some point, but for now, I am going to try to get by with just my credit union account in VA. We'll see how it goes living in NY with an out of state account.

Errands done, I reluctantly returned to the hotel to drop off my key, and then crossed the street to the scene shop computer room where Cz was surfing the web and stewing over having to get out of bed. Did I mention that in addition to being incredibly whiney when he's ill, Cz also get incredibly grumpy. It's not a good combo. I think it might be a guy thing though. Most people I've spoken too seem to agree that women are less likely than men to be thrown by a minor illness. Perhaps it is a cultural thing - men are taught to be strong and not show emotion because that's 'weak', but they're also raised to believe that when they're ill it's perfectly OK to succumb completely to (an to expect) pampering. It's one of the few outlets where weakness is not only accepted but even endorsed, and so most men turn into quivering balls of patheticness at the merest whiff of a virus.

I managed to coax Cz to our favourite pho shop (Vietnamese noodle soup - good for what ails ya) for lunch. Feeling a bit revived by the tea and spicy soup, we made our way down the Ave to the Birkenstock store. Not to buy Birkenstocks, but to pick up a pair of The World's Best Tights - the actual (and accurate) brand. They are a little pricey, but the last pair I bought lasted over 2 years, and was totally comfortable until I wore them out entirely. I've only seen them for sale in Seattle, though I haven't checked online. I'm sort of afraid of what would happen to my bank account if I discovered that they had a webpage...

Across the street from the tights store there happened to be a movie theatre showing the Oscar-nominated live-action shorts. Luckily, even being ill doesn't stop Cz from loving TV and movies, and because we caught the early showing, we even got discount tickets! By the time we left, it was time to go meet our friends in the pub, and it took Cz 3 blocks walking from the movies to remember that he was feeling poorly and should be complaining.

At the pub, the cold took a back seat to the nachos, beer, and good company. Unfortunately the movie ran long, so we were a little rushed getting through our pitcher in time to make it to our friend's thesis show.

As for that...Well, our friend's set design was pretty...

It was Shaw's She Stoops to Conquer. I think it might have been clever, but unfortunately none of the team found the lightness in the script, so it was very slow. We were guiltily relieved to have to leave at intermission to catch our flight.

Our friend that collected us from the airport also generously drove us back. On arrival we learned that our flight was delayed by 1hour. This was a little nervous-making as generally when JFK flights are delayed by an hour, they have a tendency to get even more delayed, sometimes even get canceled outright.

Thankfully after the announced hour delay, the plane took off, we reclined our seats, and did our best to sleep all the way to NY.