a rare and radiant maiden
Or, My Day, by Me
up until early afternoon, anyway

I left here at 6:45* this morning so I could stop and buy gasoline then see Frank, who still had his hat on when I walked in.
"I'm moving!"
"Good God, you move every five minutes - this must be, what - the fourth time in fifteen years?"
He thinks. "Just the third."

He was years in a very pretty and ornate downtown building:

The Security Building, dating from 1926, was Olympia's first modern office block. It is a small-scale example of the popular Chicago or "skyscraper" commercial style of the early 20th century. This style used more windows than ever before, with ornamentation reduced to decorative bands at roofline and at the top of the ground floor level. Olympia's only skyscraper - standing just five stories tall - was designed by Seattle architect A.H. Albertson. Because it was built on mudflat fill, it was given an "earthquake-proof" base of 300 foundation pilings driven 60 feet into the ground.

From the red marble floors at its entryways to the elegant terra-cotta designs dancing along its roofline, the Security Building abounds in fine architectural details. Mother-of-pearl granite pillars frame the Fourth Avenue entrance. Napoleon gray and Belgian black marble are found inside the main lobby, beneath an opulent ceiling of molded plaster rosettes. The ground-floor Security Bank, for which the building is named, left the site long ago. But its huge bank vault can still be seen at the rear of the shop beside the entrance on Washington Street.

That was fine, but would be harder for me these days. The big earthquake (the ground was rolling madly and it sounded like a freight train - Wa He Lut was very close to the epicenter) damaged it a bit so there was no elevator for a while, and then Frank moved to a place near the Capitol Museum, which looked like it had evolved from an old motel (but who knows). That place was easy to park in and uninteresting, but very cold, and didn't do Frank any good as I think he's not warmed up yet.

Right now he's in an interesting building with a lot of whacky alternative healer-type women, that either was part of or is just next to K Records, I've forgotten, and across from Fish Tale Brewery, a microbrewing operation that hogs all the parking. Olympia, in its wisdom :( removed almost all the parking on the street last year and formed the parking space in front of the building into an exact replica of a legal parking space, but shy six inches. That means it looks exactly like a parking place, but if you park there you receive a fine of something like 150 dollars.

After leaving Frank I went to buy some coffee, organic mixed greens, yoghurt, tomatoes (which I don't buy often), and something else... oh, well. Then I drove home in the perfect cool but sunny day, stopping for those bastiges who started taking down the trees along my road. When I moved here it was lovely and green, then in 2006 I think it was, a barbarian force commanded by an offshoot of a major logging army clearcut a large section nearby, causing much anguish to man and beast and neutralising the aspect of natural beauty people moved here to enjoy.

Following that, it was announced (by way of a large sign) that a fire department was to be built next to the clear cut area, so different bastiges chopped down all the trees NEXT to the place where all the trees had been cut down, then they decamped leaving no more of the fire department than its heralding sign.

At home I edited Therapy down to five minutes, then jumped back into my car and went to my noon dental appointment. My dentist, a rare and radiant dentist named Lenore, is actually on vacation in Sun Valley (which is what - Idaho? Can that be correct?) and I'd been offered a different date but told I could come in anyway if so desired, which is what I did. We spent a relaxing long time talking about movies as Jill cleaned my teeth, which she said look AOK. The receptionist also lives on Summit Lake, but at the other end, and she said "they" are putting in a housing development. Ugh.

Then I drove home, stopping for the bastiges (a large cedar dropped as I waited /me shakes her fist). At home I put the groceries away, and drank some strange juice Tiff brought me the other day, which is from a South American berry or fruit by way of Costco. By that time it was, oh, say 1:30, and I fired up the puter, set the newly re-edited Therapy to baking, and talked to Candide for a while about mankind (bastiges!), films (black and white American gangster films of the Thirties, and Q Tarantino's overblown oeuvre), intelligence, time, jobs, travel, ballroom dancing, accountants, my puter and Derek's remarks, and things like that. Then DING! the machinima oven finished baking, so I skittered off to zip and upload and email Fau.

Then I watched a few Busby Berkeley snippets on U2b, made some robot poses in QAvimator (nothing much, just for card posing, but only just getting into it), and uh... dunno - some other pointless tasks, I'd guess. It was boring to write this so anyone who can actually force themselves to read this far should get a prize or a kick, one or the other.

*Unless I'm very tired I always wake up a minute or so before the alarm goes off, which means I could go ages using it without needing to hear it. I think it must have some bearing on the fact that for the past X weeks I somehow manage to see 11:11 displayed almost every day - I must know it's 11:11 and subconsciously look, then think, "Why is it always 11:11 when I look at the clock?"