A Man's-Day Afternoon (AKA: Masters, Sun, & Surf -- Oh My!)

What an incredible day.  This weekend is always one of my favorites each year.  The azaleas are in bloom, the Georgia pine stand sentinel, and I become a vegetable on my couch.  Dead to the world.  Useless.  To the outside observer this might appear to be my normal status, but I assure you this weekend is special.

Golf can be incredibly boring to watch for some.  Even I find it to be monotonous watching the Greater Milwaukee Tool Belts Open in July.  But the Masters is special.  It is spring.  It is the long-awaited melt of our winter icing over.  I love all of the majors in golf, but the Masters is a rebirth.

And, for some reason, it is extra special this time around.  Sure, the fact that DirecTV has 7 channels of Masters coverage is awesome.  And yes, setting up the MacBook Pro on Amen Corner, the iPad on the featured group and having the 60 inch TV able to cycle through every shot is wonderful.  I won't even pretend that Phil Mickelson being a shot back after a miraculous second nine doesn't get my blood flowing.  But it is so much more than that.  The sun is out.  In Seattle.  We had our 3rd rainiest March in history.  The winter has been long and dark.  We had snow.  We've had rain that would have made Noah nervous.  But for the Masters, we have sun.

And I was reborn.  Ironic, perhaps given the religious weekend it falls upon.  Yesterday was Good Friday. I had to work, so I called it Friday Friday.  Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.  A day of rebirth.  A day you sinners will head to church because the Easter bunny might have left a rotting egg under a pew.  At least I assume that's what the Bible says about it.  I am unclear.  But for me, this weekend is the awakening after months of slumber.  I am opening my eyelids.  I am stretching and checking for missing body parts.  I am scratching myself.  I am still scratching myself.  I am once again alive.

After spending 8 hours today watching every shot I could possibly see from Augusta, Georgia, I left the cave.  Hibernation ended.  I walked down to the water.  I went through the sculpture park and the oversized colorful pieces of metal, up and over the Amtrak rails.  I headed to Puget Sound, and I kept walking.  Rainier was out in all of her glory.  The pleasure boats and ferries, cargo ships and sail boats all danced on the water under the rays of yellow sun.  I kept walking.  I went until the trail ended, about a 5 mile trek.  It was wonderful.  I stopped at the end and snapped some photos.  I took off my sunglasses (the story of finding them is one all to itself!) and just took it all in.  The snow covering the Olympics.  Rainier standing guard over Seattle.  All of the other people who, like me, had seen the end to another winter of discontent.  And then I walked back home.  The perfect walk.  A light breeze at my back, sun washing over me.  Once again, I am alive.  Risen.  And while I love the Masters and all it means to me, I remembered something I forgot during the months of drizzle and dark.  I love this city.  I love when it comes alive.  I love when it is reborn.

So Here We Are (AKA: Are We Up To Speed Yet??)

As we move into the 2nd quarter of 2012, I think I am finally able to catch up and look toward the future on this blog...  It's about time!

Let's recap:  

2011 was a year of visitors to Seattle including my best friend Cameron from Hawaii along with Annie from Colorado, my sister came out a couple times along with my nephew once, and there was even that fateful trip when my mom and grandma and aunt all ventured out to the Pacific Northwest.  Oh yes, how could we ever forget that trip.......

It all began so simply.  My cousin Melanie who lives here in Washington was having some serious health issues and required a number of lengthy stays in the hospital.  I went to visit her when I could, but I dropped a little bug in my mom's ear that she should convince Melanie's mom, my aunt, to come visit and take care of her after the hospital trips were over.  And so it would be done.  My aunt, Beta, asked me to purchase her a plane ticket to come visit her two children in Washington and take care of Melanie.  I believe it was just under 48 hours after I booked the trip that I received the call from my mom saying it was all off.  They were now driving here.  This is how my family works.

My mom, grandma, and Beta all loaded up in a rental car to make the multiple day drive to Seattle.  They have vehicles capable of the trip, but would hate to put the miles on their rides.  These are the people we are dealing with.  It is scary to know they are out traversing the country side, three old women in a car they don't know in a landscape they aren't familiar with.  It is even more frightening to realize they are headed straight for your door.

My sister got them a hotel room in Bellevue.  That is not exactly across the street from where I live in Seattle, but it's closer than, say, Montana.  I drove to the base of Snoqualmie Pass, the outlying area of the Seattle metropolitan area to meet the old ladies and try to help direct them to their hotel without them accidentally driving into Puget Sound.  When we arrived at the hotel, my grandma decided she would rather see her bed and pillow than my city, apartment, or cat.  Looking back, she might have made the better choice.  On their way to Seattle they had stopped to see Beta's son Eddie in Richland.  Beta was not feeling well so Eddie gave her a sack of pain pills to cut the edge off the aches.  And oh did it work.  Mom, Beta and I stopped and had dinner before heading over to see my apartment and Konowalchuk.  By the time we got into my apartment, Beta appeared to be done for.  She was lethargic and tired and collapsed onto the couch and it was all quite odd.  No one had mentioned to me the sack of pills.

After spending an hour or so talking, mom decided to take Beta back to the hotel and call it a night.  I was tasked with helping my aunt to the car and getting us back across the lake.  By the time we parked, I figured out something was wrong.  I was assisting my aunt inside when I whispered to my mother I was pretty sure Beta was drunk as a skunk.  I helped her to her room where she found her Do Not Disturb sign and posted it on her door as she stumbled in and wasn't heard from again that night.  My mom finally informed me of the little pick-me-ups she had been given and promptly took.  They finally reached full effect just after dinner.  I was pretty sure we would never hear from her again.

The rest of their trip up here was equally uneventful.  We took a ferry to Bremerton and met up with Melanie on the other side of the water to dump Beta off on her to help her out.  While all of this was going on, my sister was going through a very rough time in South Dakota.  She was trying to figure out a way to fly out to see me and get away from some problems and maybe see mom and grandma.  It all came to fruition on the drive back from Melanie's.  My sister was on a plane.  My family knew nothing about it.  It was all going to be a surprise.  So we drove back to Seattle taking many a scenic route trying to kill time until my sister landed and we could pick her up.  At one point I even circled the airport a couple times pretending I was now hopelessly lost.  When my sister finally texted me she was outside waiting, we made one final pass through the loading zones.  I slowed, stopped, and Anne came running over, tossed her bag on my mom's lap and away we went.  I was the only one who recognized the new person sitting in the backseat of the car.  My mom had a frightened look on her face.  My grandma was confused.  My sister said hi and everyone acknowledged her but did not know her from Adam.  Finally my grandma asked me who I had just picked up.  "It's me, gramma... Anne.  Your granddaughter?!"  My mom hollered "ANNE???"  After all the work of setting up this grand surprise and no one knew who she was.

So anyway, the family was united there and we had a good time the next day or so.  Then my mom and grandma headed back toward Colorado and Anne and I hung out a couple more days before she had to return to Sioux Falls and a son that was none too pleased she had left him there with his dad so she could come to Seattle.  It was all quite interesting.  It was also very nice getting to show so many people my groovy little city!

With 2011 having been the year of people coming here, I decided to get back on the track of me going other places in 2012.  So far I've only done a couple things.  The usual trips to Las Vegas every other month or so and a jaunt down to Portland to catch Adam Carolla a day after seeing him here in Seattle.  But my big trip happened the first weekend of March.  I finally had some quality time with New York City.  And what a fine lady she is.  I absolutely loved the place.  I decided it is a place I must live in before I shuffle off this mortal coil. My trip to NYC was no different I imagine than anyone else's.  But it is fresh in my mind and heart so figured I would end this blog with a picture collage.

Thanks again everyone for reading it and hopefully now that I am not looking backwards I can begin to tell stories of the present... or at least the nearly present!

These were at the World Trade Center site.  I will let you decide whether you like the monuments or not.  But two giant toilet bowl designs with water rushing into the ground was an interesting choice for sure.

 Yup.  I had to cup the bull's balls.  How old am I again??

 Thank you, Nanny Bloomberg!

 Yep.  In a turn most of you would never have guessed, I am a huge fan of musicals.  And Mamma Mia was fantastic.  So there.

 It was really REALLY windy on top of the skyrises!!

The trip came to a close as all days should... Over steak and bacon at Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn.  I can not wait to return to both the cooked meats and the Big Apple!