What every Seattleite needs

How cool is this umbrella?? It's pricey ($48 for this one, $35 for a folding one), but I'm sure it'd be quite the pick-me-up on a gray, soggy day.

Dealing with a smelly man and wild weather

A couple days ago, I hopped a bus downtown to hit up the REI sale that just started. About two stops after I got in, this guy sat down next to me. Hoo lordy, he had AWFUL body odor coming off him in waves. I tried breathing through my mouth, but then I started getting a head ache. Then I turned to my left until my nose was nearly pressed against the window, but that wasn't too comfortable either. Finally, I rested my elbow on the window ledge and had two fingers right under my nose in sort of a "thinking woman" pose. That seemed to work the best. Anyhow, every time the bus came to a stop, I mentally crossed my fingers that the guy would get up, but he sat next to me for the next 20 minutes, and got off when I did at REI. Ick! Funny bit -- a guy two seats in front of me was sitting next to a lady. A seat opened up behind him (and directly in front of me), so the guy moved back a row to have his own seat. But a few stops later, the lady got off, and he moved back up a row to that now-empty seat. I'm convinced it was because he was trying to get away from the rank odor ...

This morning -- thankfully during the handful of hours it was warm and sunny out -- I met up with my good friend S for some breakfast in Wedgwood at the Sunflower Bakery. The food was great, but our eyes were WAY bigger than our stomaches, so even though we split two small dishes (1: two buttermilk pancakes, along with a side of bacon for me; 2: a smallish cheddar-cheese omelet with potatoes and toast), we only made it through one pancake each and about half of the so-so omelet. Cool place, though. Anyway, around 1:30, it suddenly started pouring down rain. I was twitchy to get in a walk after the heavy breakfast, so when the sun peeked out again about an hour later, I threw on a hat and a light raincoat and headed out to walk to WaMu to deposit some checks. I was just heading back from the bank when the heavy rain came back. I had to deal with the lovely feeling of rain sliding down my collar, and by the time I was halfway home, the thighs area of my jeans was so soaked that the fabric was sticking to my skin. Normally I'd take an umbrella in heavy rain like that, but I was thinking I'd be dealing with light showers at the worst, and I hadn't wanted to hold anything in my hands (or over my shoulder). Ah well, no harm done! The pic is a shot of the damage after I walked in my condo. Just another lovely Seattle summer day!

Icky, Sticky, Uncomfortable

So we're in the middle of a mini-heat wave here in Seattle right now -- it's been in the upper 80s and low 90s. Call me a wuss, but I'm a true Seattleite in that 80/90-degree temps are just too much; I like milder weather. I generally am always on the cold side, but when I'm outside in direct sunlight, I heat up pretty quickly (the brown skin and black hair are sun magnets). On top of that, I'm not comfortable jetting around town in skimpy clothes, so the end result is that being outdoors in this type of weather is really, really uncomfortable. I did get in some fresh air today, though; Anuja and I met up for some tennis, but although it was somewhat early -- 9:30 a.m.-ish -- it was nearly 80, so we only lasted maybe 40 minutes. Then I made a quick run down to the U District to drop something off at the dry cleaner. My condo's windows all face north, so I don't get a ton of direct sunlight in the summer, but after a couple days of 80-plus temps, it definitely starts warming up in here. So I've got a fan going on low as I'm watching the Olympics.

Speaking of the Olympics.. right now this event called the steeplechase is on. Who comes up with these things?? My understanding is that the athletes do seven laps of a track. En route, they jump over like five hurdles per lap, including one where they step onto the hurdle and jump into a big puddle of water. Huh? I'd like to submit my own Olympic track and field event... you do one lap of the track.. then you stop at a booth and have to knock down three tiers of bottles with up to three beanbags.. then you run another lap.. then you come to a puddle of water, but have to get through it by walking on your hands.. then you do another lap with seven hurdles.. then you have to throw a football through a tire.. then you do one more lap and you're done!

As John Stossel would say: "Gimme a break!"

Twinkie carnage

Over the weekend, my sister sent me home with some leftovers from her birthday party that took place the weeekend before that: two chocolate Hostess cupcake things, and a package of Twinkies. (I haven't had either in years, but they looked mighty tempting, and she didn't want them, so ...) I took out one of the Twinkies last night for a little dessert snack. After hearing the rustling of the plastic wrapper, Buster (my cat) immediately came over to see what I was doing. Out of curiosity, I put a little piece of the Twinkie on my palm, and lo-and-behold, he snatched the thing up. I gave him a couple more pieces, then told him to bugger off so I could eat the rest. I left the other Twinkie in the package; I folded the open end underneath, and left everything on my coffee table.

Woke up this morning and padded into the living room to check e-mail, and there on the floor next to the coffee table was that second Twinkie! Buster had pulled the package off the table, gotten his paw into it, pulled out the Twinkie (no easy feat, since it was stuck to a piece of cardboard within the package) and started munching. He didn't make it as far as the filling, but he did an impressive amount of damage. He likes the junk food, just like his mamma! Here's a shot of the Twinkie, post-Buster:

Don't worry, I don't go feeding Buster people food; I just get a kick out of seeing what all he'll eat. Some examples: avacado, mini marshmallows and whipped cream from a can (as soon as he hears the "whoooosh" of the can, he comes running). Funny guy.

Band-Aid addiction and a scary mannequin

Hello. My name is Pooja and I'm an addict ... a Band-Aid addict.

Yes, it's true. I think it's largely due to the germophobia I've developed over the past couple years.. anytime I get a cut or scrape, I have to put a Band-Aid on it immediately -- with Neosporin, of course. So partly, I don't want germs to get in there, but another factor is my clumsiness and forgetfulness; a Band-Aid helps me from absentmindedly scratching a paper cut (those things itch nearly as bad as mosquito bites) or getting hand-soap suds into an open wound. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find Band-Aid variety packs at Costco a couple months back. Each pack had large Band-Aids, waterproof Band-Aids, medicated Band-Aids... I was in Band-Aid-addict heaven!!

BTW, the pic was taken earlier today; I got a papercut while rifling through some papers on my desk, so I immediately hit up the First Aid kit in the kitchen for one of their dingy band-aids and some antibiotic ointment.

On a completely different topic -- I was going through some recent pictures on my phone and came across one I took in the waiting area of Cafe Veloce last month. CV is a great little pizza/pasta place in Kirkland, but they have this car-racer lady mannequin thing by the waiter-station that freaks me out every time I go. I keep forgetting she's not real, so every time I see her in my peripheral vision, I snap my head around to see who's staring at me. Every time!!

Was I in upside-down world?

In the late afternoon today, I set out on foot to run some errands. First up was my doctor's office to pick up some prescription refills. Being that it was late afternoon on a Friday, I figured it'd be super busy at the pharmacy, so I packed a book in order to avoid dealing with out-of-date, grimy magazines (the book was "The End of Faith," which I've been reading sporadically for at least a year. It's got WAY too many endnotes, and is a little too high-brow for my tastes; I'd recommend "The God Delusion" over "TEOF" if you're looking for something in that genre). Once I got to the pharmacy, though, there were only a handful of people. I took a number -- it was number 94. I looked up, and they were on number 93! So I had to sit for a grand total of about one minute before I was called up to the window.

Then I headed on down the street to the mall. One of my stops was an official AT&T store. Usually, you only need to be within shouting distance of a cell-phone store or booth before you've got someone coming up to you to "help," but this time, I actually had to wait several minutes. And this was after I wasted about 10 minutes by slowly walking around the store and pretending to examine each phone. Yeesh! And it wasn't that they were overstaffed -- in fact, I think they had at least eight employees in there -- they were just really busy. Anyway, once I finally got some help, the employee confirmed what I'd feared: I'm not eligible to upgrade my phone until mid-September. I know I mentioned a couple posts back that I was obsessed with getting either a Wii or an iPod Touch, but now the Touch obsession has been replaced with an iPhone obsession. This is mainly because the idea of having an all-in-one device (phone + mp3 player) is really appealing, not to mention the idea of being able to access the Web and e-mail while I'm on walks or the bus, or waiting at a bus stop (I'm doing a lot more of all three now). Plus, a co-worker gave my officemate and me a little demo of his iPhone and it just looks like so much fun.

So unfortunately, I'm now forced to engage in one of my dad's favorite situations: "delayed gratification." Yay. I guess the silver lining is that as I also mentioned in a previous post, mid-September is bonus time at work. So maybe I'll get a Wii sooner to satisfy one obsession, and the iPhone later for the other! I've obviously been without a new toy for a little too long..