Last Day in Seattle

How does this happen? I turn my back on this blog for a few minutes, and next thing I know, two weeks have passed. There’s only one logical explanation. When I think of it, I’ll let you know.

Oh, well. As I was saying, our last day in Seattle was more about stories than photos, and there are reasons for that. George and Curtis took off early in the morning for the Discovery Institute conference, leaving Grace, Jacob, me, and Harper to make our own fun. Unfortunately, things got off to a bit of a rough start. We decided to take a walk to the lake, but (as everyone knows) you can’t walk to the lake without first putting on make up. It would only take a minute, I said. And it would have only taken a minute, had Jacob not accidentally locked and then closed the bathroom door with no one inside.

No big deal, I thought. I broke into my mom’s bathroom hundreds of times as a kid. I had to, because I needed to get my money out of her purse. (Yes, it was my money. At least, after I got it, it was.) I snagged a bobby pin from Grace’s dresser, bent it open, and inserted the straight end into the hole in the doorknob. Breaking and entering is like riding a bike. The finesse comes right back to you. Of course, in my mind I was a safe cracker and this was a delicate moment — like in The Italian Job, when Stella almost breaks the glass behind the door on the safe Steve substituted for the Worthington 500 she was expecting to find in the back of the armored car that had just dropped through the street and landed right in front of her stunningly beautiful, black-leather clad, MINI Cooper-driving self. The imaginary beads of sweat popped out on my brow as I gently pressed the bobby pin against the small mechanism inside the doorknob to release the lock. Steady . . . steady . . . okay, press. Um, press. Are you pressing? Yes. I’ve been pressing. (This conversation is taking place between the voices in my head.) Okay, so forget finesse. Press harder. Jiggle the doorknob. Why isn’t it opening? Grrrr.

When all else fails, there’s always Google. I mean, maybe there’s more than one kind of lock with a round hole in the center of the knob, right? So I typed a question in the search bar: How do you unlock a door with a round hole in the knob? Eureka! I had my answer. There’s only one way to open it. The way I was trying. But, you must be careful because, if you press too hard, you can break the mechanism.

Great. Apparently, whoever lived in Gypsy Cottage before the Romjues pressed too hard.

By this point, Grace needed a bathroom as well. She got a screwdriver and we removed the doorknob. We fiddled with this and messed with that, but no luck. We tried the window from outside. Locked. (And spidery, I might add.) After an hour had elapsed, I called Curtis’ cell phone. I was in the process of leaving a message when Grace announced she’d gotten it open. I’m not sure how, but at least now we could take care of business, beautify ourselves, and walk to the lake. Bathroom matters in hand, we just needed to put the baby in her stroller, which was . . . in the back of the car Curtis and George took. Fabulous.

The day continued to unfold in much the same fashion — I’ll spare you the less than inspirational details — until late in the afternoon, when we returned from our feeble attempts at adventure, hot and sweaty from carrying the also hot and consequently unhappy baby in her Baby Bjorn front carrier, and found George and Curtis at the house. Curtis was in the process of listening to my morning phone messages about the lock and the stroller. “Bummer,” he offered. (The sympathy seemed sincere.) They’d come home during a break, because he and Grace needed to get spruced up to perform at the final banquet for the conference. George was supposed to attend, and I was going to stay home with Jacob and Harper.

Then George surprised me. I knew how much he’d been looking forward to this evening for a long time, but he said, “Jeanne, I want you to go in my place. I’ve been enjoying this conference the past two days, and I’ve met some amazing people. I want you to have the chance to meet them, too.”

“But you won’t get to hear Curtis and Grace sing!” I said.

“I know. And I hate to miss it. But I really want you to go.”

So I went. I had no time to shower or even re-apply make up, but I threw on the nicest clothes I’d brought and hopped in the car. We drove downtown, then hauled their sound gear to the 17th floor of a building on the corner of 2nd and Columbia. I only had George’s little Sony Cyber-shot camera with me, but here’s the view to the south:

That’s Mt. Rainier in the distance and Qwest Field to the right. Notice the empty bleachers. Later in the evening I took this shot:

Seahawks game!

Here’s a shot of my lovelies doing what they do so well:

Hearing them sing would have been enough to make the evening for me, but I also got to share a delicious dinner with Anika and Janine, both employees of the Discovery Institute, both former SPU choir members with Grace, and both as charming and delightful as they could possibly be. Grace later observed that, from her vantage point, our table was having the most fun. SCORE! Er, I mean, I’m sure everyone else was having a lovely time, too.

After the event ended, we said good-bye to Grace, Curtis, and Harper, and they took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. George, Jacob, and I rose early the next morning and shared a tasty breakfast at Macrina’s Bakery on Queen Anne with his sister, brother, and sister-in-law (all mentioned in my Day Two post). Then Tony and Sharon drove us to the airport.

Thus ended our Seattle adventures. Now we’re home. Have been for two weeks, apparently. And, among other things, I’ve been thinking of ways to show up more consistently around here — maybe even launching some weekly features. But that’s a post for another day, so stay tuned. (Please. I like you.)