status post seattle

i love seattle. we had a great time up there. i don't even know if i can write about it now. we went up to capital hill friday afternoon. the vibe there is just so appealing. we had a beer in an irish-ish pub i hadn't been to before, a great old crazy building. we ate ethiopian food (not in the irish pub), and it was amazing, but who knew the portions would be so enormous? fantastic food, though.

saturday we did a little shopping and then went to the movies. we saw "inside man," with clive, denzel, and jodie. now, i've said it before and i'll say it again, but jodie foster can come and hang out with us in our home any old dang time. are you reading this, jodie? an open invitation. all the same, i didn't buy her character in the movie. she doesn't do cruel and manipulative so well. she's too good!

and kara and i can watch clive and denzel all day long.

we napped in the room for a bit and then we went to see ira and julia. julia sweeney did an excerpt from her monologue called "letting go of god," about her transformation from a devout girl aspiring to be a nun into an adult agnostic. it was great to hear a coherent and rational argument against blind faith.

kara works with some mormons and i work with some seriously christian folks, and though we rarely see eye to eye with these individuals i would have liked to have them along that evening. how would they respond to julia's point of view? i do wonder.

after the monologue ira joined julia on stage and they just sort of chatted. about religion and science, mostly. agnosticism. very friendly. ira glass is a fantastic dork, such a goober, but he's smart and funny. julia, too, is smart and funny. so it of course was a great time. the crowd, too, was hugely receptive, and there was a great vibe in the paramount that night.

and the next day we came home. it surprised me, as it almost always does, how little time it takes to travel between tacoma and seattle. they're close!

and here we are. i went to work today. kara is still at work. the dogs survived their kenneling. the cats survived being alone. leopold (nee yellow) evidently missed me a tremendous amount and was all over me when i got home. rumble (thinking of renaming her loeb) was just kind of pissed off at me. i think she'll get over it.

it was a great weekend. kara and i had a great time. seattle is great. i wish we lived there. someday we might be able to afford it, but not soon.