l'absurdite

It's only Saturday afternoon, but I've already had an absurd weekend.

Friday after work I got some oysters and chips. I took them out to the tables on the dock and ate my lunch in the sunshine next to the lake. You non-Seattlites, if you ever wonder why your Seattle friends never seem to be that impressed by your city, this spot on the north shore of Lake Union is one of the reasons. I sat on the dock, in the sun, with water, hills, trees, engineering, architecture, and mountains rising around me.

There were some finches who thought I would feed them; when I shooed them away, more showed up. I realized quickly that my shooing motion attracted them; to the finches it must have looked like I was throwing food. So instead of shooing, I sharted slamming my hand on the table, and they got the message loud and clear.

After that, I came home, and I had home owners meeting that I had been dreading but now was actually looking forward to. One "owner," we'll call her "T" was discovered to not be the legal owner of her unit. This is a clear violation of our bylaws, so the board suspended her as a member of the association until they could figure it all out. She was told not to come to the meeting.

And this is why I wasn't dreading the meeting: I was looking forward to not seeing T, and maybe actually getting some business done. T, you see, is a disruptasaura regina, a master at paralizing association business. She's behind around $1,500 on her monthly dues, she crusades passionately against people who disagree with her, accusing them of committing crimes, insulting people if they have proposals she doesn't like, intimidating people with her insane motor mouth. I don't like her.

Anyway, I showed up at the meeting on time, and we were just calling the meeting to order, when T burst through the door with a non-notorized, unrecorded "power of attourney" document in her hand claiming that it supersedes "everything." She declared our meeting illegal, tried to shame us by saying she stood up for our rights, accused J of spending $11,000 illegaly (never happened). Insane motor mouth was going full speed. We then voted to postpone the meeting (!) until her status had been cleared up. I left soon after.

By the way, T is full of shit. I just want to be clear.

Afterwards, I walked with some of my neighbors to Mykonos Blu Cafe (ex Rose Club Cafe), and we processed a little. The new neighbors, unfortunately in my mind, didn't leave the meeting, so they stayed and had a beer with T, who kept trying to bring up HOA business. Luckily, they shut her down every time, and kept it to small talk and get-to-know-you conversation.

Meanwhile, over at Mykonos Blu, the server/owner recognized me from the weekend before, from when I was there with the new neighbors. She said, ah, I see you've brought a different crew today. Yep! Then she went back and told her husband/chef that 'the kids' were back. Ha, we're the kids.

Anyway, the server/owner remembered how I pronounced "Santorini" (i.e., not like a big xeni). She mentioned something about being Greek, so I said "efharisto." That stopped her in her tracks, and she said "Ok! How did you learn that!" And I said, well, I used to work with some Greek people; you wouldn't like them ... actually maybe you do like them; I used to work with the K family.

At that, server/owner was delighted, as her and E were childhood friends, and they still travel to Greece together. I explained that the K family has a reputation of being hard to work with, to which she answered "nobody is harder to work with than my husband." So I asked her to give my regards to the K family, and gave her my card, at which point she almost freaked out.

Say hi to your principal for me, she said, he's a friend of ours. Small world!

Anyway, we walked back home, discussing strategy, figuring out with T where to get legal advice, and pretty soon I got a phone call. C and N (who had spent the last few hours with T) were slightly tipsy, but wanted to come over and watch Battlestar Galactica, and also to decompress a little. So we talked a little business, watched our sci fi, and then talked a little more. By the end, we were tipsy a little. They told me the story of their marriage proposal. They left after midnight.

I woke up at 9:30, got dressed, and went to pick up J. We showed up for waffles at N, D, and S's new house in Tangletown; other teachers were there, parents, and a lot of the girls' cross country team. Apparently they run every week, and every other week there's waffles. Who knew? Certainly not me and J. Also, it was a housewarming party. Both N's and D's parents were there.

Finally we left the Tangletown house; five teachers piled into our cars and regrouped at Gameworks for Dance Dance Revolution practice. It was hillarious, each of us danced at least twice. D is going to represent the faculty team at OW. We had been worried that the students would cream us, and they still might, especially if they own the game and practice all the time, but he won't embarass himself.

Afterwards, J and I got pho at Than Brothers.

Wild day, no? I have a lot of work to do, but all I want to do is play Sim City.