Tag: Pacific Science Center

The Last Day of Vacation in Seattle

Saturday 8/8/09

 

Last Day

Up and awake and watching Discovery Network Shark Week.  The clock is ticking.  Today is our last day together in Seattle.  Tomorrow The Husband returns to work in New York City and My Kid and I continue on to two weeks with My Parents in Montana.  Last year the husband was able to take enough time to come to Montana with us (but the Seattle leg was cut short).  It’s so frustrating trying to combine parental obligations with a family vacation and also trying to see old friends in the city where we used to live.  We never get to succeed in doing it all.  I think we’re starting to feel that “sandwich generation” squeeze.

 

more Saturday 8/8/09

The pressure mounts on the last day of vacation, the last day of summer vacation for The Husband.  We left the Westin Hotel (the one that looks like 2 round nuclear plant cooling towers) for a walk to Pike Place Market.  I guess I was fantasizing when I thought we could eat them for breakfast every day of the vacation– on that first day when we took our walk from the other hotel through Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market the Nordstrom Rack and the rest of downtown in our relaxed “here we are again in old familiar–and also different since we lived here–traveling home to Seattle city day.

 

Today, we walked again to Pike Place market where we ate crumpets covered with yummy sweet and savory foods and unlimited mugs of tea (and we bought a dozen crumpets for his mother and my mother). We passed Goldmine Jewlery where our wedding bands were made.  I would have stopped but there was a “back in a minute” post-it on the door and as I said the clock was ticking. The thought crossed my mind, wouldn’t it be lovely to have her design a tiny gold ring for our little princess–maybe when she is older…  Then we walked on to Pioneer Square to take My Kid to Magic Mouse Toys.  She enjoyed her time there very much but didn’t find anything she needed to buy today.  Amazing.  My Kid can show amazing restraint.  (I mean come on, we were vulnerable parents feeling the pressure of a vacation ending, we probably would have bought anything if it brought a smile…)

 

We didn’t get to the pool today.  We never made it to the Pacific Science Center.  We never went for a boat ride.  There are friends we’d hoped to see who we never got to see.  Now our time is up.  When The Husband talked to his mom on the cell phone about all she thought still needed to be done there was so much tension that I ended up with significant shoulder pain from carrying the same purse I’ve been carrying around all week long.

 

We went up to The Mother-In-Law’s apartment to work on THE LIST.  We took some old chairs to Good Will and waited in line to drop them off.  We took some stuff to the UPS package express store and paid $100 to ship it to Brooklyn even though we don’t want most of it that is still the easiest way to deal because we are out of time.  (that list had 14 items on it when I looked–just sayin’)

 

Finally…

 

For dinner we had reservations at Etta’s, the Tom Douglas restaurant.  Our kid didn’t like the not-so-great-tasting-of-hamburger-grill crab cakes we got from the hotel room service last night and The Husband wanted to change her mind.  She wasn’t impressed with the Tom Douglas crabcakes either but that’s OK because we inhaled what she didn’t eat.  AND  My Kid ordered half a Dungeness crab for her dinner and ate it all by herself!!!  It was so good that when My Kid and The Mother-In-Law ordered desert The Husband and I split another half Dungeness crab.  It’s so much better than lobster or any other kind of crab even King crab.  Dungeness crab is the best shellfish either of us have ever had and it is not available on the East Coast.  Our meal was over $200.  But it was that time versus money thing and The Husband’s vacation time is so short and so not relaxing, we have to enjoy what we can.  We enjoyed the seafood at Etta’s restaurant in Pike Place Market very much.  

 

After The Husband dropped My Kid and I off at the hotel and drove his mom and her car home and returned in a taxi (more cash up front that seems extravagant to my people of origin who drive their own cars and carry their own food) he said his mom said something that acknowledged that he may not have had as nice a time as he might have had because of the numerous errands he succeeded in accomplishing for his mother.

Running Out of Time

 

I thought we would spend some time at the Pacific Science Center with My Kid.  But, that didn’t happen.  We enjoyed hanging out in the hotel room as a family until it was time for The Husband to go have lunch with a former work colleague.  My Kid and I went swimming in the hotel pool.  Then when The Husband met us at the pool so I could go meet an old friend, My Kid decided to get out of the pool.  Then she decided she wanted to ride out to the sewing machine repair shop at the far North end city limit with a drive-throu McDonald’s thrown in for fun.  The errand took so long that they didn’t get back downtown in time to visit Seattle Center and the Pacific Science Center.  Instead they met me at the wine bar where I was with my friend who hadn’t seen Ken since our wedding.  I think I stopped by her office with my new baby once.  My new baby is going into 4th grade.  We had some catching up to do.  We talked about the summer she played my older sister in both Gypsy and Fiddler on the Roof  and the same actress played our mother in both musicals performed under a circus tent in an asphalt parking lot in Missoula, Montana

 

When The Husband and My Kid showed up at the wine bar where we were sitting with our happy hour flights of Italian red and truffle flavored popcorn (eyes rolling yeah I know) we talked a little more and then we went up to The Mother-In-Law’s apartment to deliver the repaired surger and for The Husband to program the new phone and hang pictures and some other small chores.  We were at her apartment long enough for My Kid to watch the entire movie Mousehunt.  At 10 p m we had to leave even though there were still more things on The Mother-In-Law’s to do list because my kid hadn’t had dinner yet.  We parked downtown and thought we could find a restaurant downtown but the kitchens were closed so we went back to the hotel and ordered room service.  The Husband walked two blocks to buy beverages at  Ralph’s grocery on 4th Ave. where we used to buy food so often on the way to rehearsals or shows when we worked at Annex.  I remember shopping for snacks at Ralph’s once to eat while hanging out with one of my many housemates from that big white house on Queen Anne Hill.  He was an engineer at Bad Animals music studio at the time.  I think he moved to Austin, Texas to be a musician.  I wonder if he found success.

 

I had a nice visit with an old friend  from the same Montana hometown as the theatre friend we had lunch with the day before.  They weren’t friends growing up but they had siblings who were in the same class.   Remember when 2 or 3 years difference in age meant you wouldn’t even have cause to meet or talk to a person.   Some of the parents of my daughter’s classmates are probably younger than anyone I ever babysat.  Thoughts of who were we as children growing up in 1970’s Montana, then making the decisions to become actors and life for all of us beyond that which now includes aging parents.

 

Today will go quickly, we have to make a promised stop at Magic Mouse Toys in Pioneer Square.  We’ll start with breakfast (or brunch or lunch depending on how long it takes us to get up and out of here) in Pike Place Market and check out the stuffed animal store My Kid saw last night when we were looking for a restaurant.  She’s looking for a toy lemur but the ones we’ve found so far are apparently the wrong breed.  (She’s looking for one that looks like “Mort” from The Penguins of Madagascar.  It’s a search that began on Sunday at the Woodland Park Zoo on a day spent with The Husband’s father.  (Yes in addition to juggling work and family and friends and sightseeing The Husband must carefully coordinate the time he spends with each of his divorced parents.)

 

There are more errands to run and things to fix and check off the list of things for The Husband to do for The Mother-In-Law.  At least it is Saturday and The Husband won’t be dialing into his office.