I’ve Been Space Needled!

Our vacation to Seattle was a success: we did the full-on tourist thing, visiting the Space Needle, Seattle Art Museum, Pike Place Market, Experience Music Project, Sci-Fi Hall of Fame, and many other venues and shops. The weather was also better than expected, with no rain after the night we arrived and temperatures nudging close to twelve degrees.

The four-day excursion also brought us to a place called the Can Can, which featured performers/dancers. It wasn’t Can-Can dancing, and it wasn’t Burlesque; I can’t really describe it as anything other than entertaining. My ladyfriend swooned over one of the dancers, whom I’ll admit was a handsome man thing. I swooned over a coffee barista at the Space Needle, so she and I are even in that regard. We certainly had our fill of dining out for a while - with no grocery store and no hotel-room fridge, we were going out for meals every night (and I think we’d had enough of that after night two).

We hit up the shopping on the way back, with a visit to a Target store and the Premium Outlet Mall. Evaluation: bedding and housewares are cheaper. Clothes, at the outlet mall, are a great deal. Everything else is pretty much the same price, once you work in the exchange rate and the fuel used to get there. But we did come home with some new bedding, I bought some $25 pants from Banana Republic and $50 Nike shoes, and my ladyfriend came home with some a couple new shirts.

There was still a weird sense when visiting the US, even though it’s no more or less safe than Vancouver, and the people are pretty much the same, that we’re still not quite fitting in. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s probably not helped by the growing anti-US sentiment that Canadians seem to have. Or maybe it’s just the fact that we’re tourists, and we’re not supposed to feel at home. But it is odd, that driving just two and a half hours south, something still seems completely different.

I’m glad we decided on Seattle rather than Vegas, which was the original idea. Weather in Vegas for the time we were in Seattle: rain and highs of 13. Ha! Take that, sin city!

Roomy Pants

Over the last year I’ve managed to lose weight without really trying. I’m not talking double digit pounds being shed, and in fact I’m sure some of it has been from muscle atrophy as much as it’s been from reduced fatty deposits - since giving up the Carrot Top Do-It-Yourself Bodybuilding Regimen, I’m not the beefcake I once was. Some of it was also from my bout with unemployment, where I reduced the number of too-large lunches that I’d gotten used to when I could still afford the payments on my golden hovercraft. Now I realize this won’t win me any sympathy but the biggest change my still non-svelte physique has impacted is the pantaloon department.

Almost all my trousers are about a year, maybe two years old. All but one pair are 33″ waists, and I’m probably around 31.5″ now. It means my leg-hiders are now too loose to stay up without a belt but not so loose that they fall off my shapeless lower half. I’d probably be stylish as hell if I was 19, since the ‘I May Have Pooped My Pants, But You’ll Never Be Sure’ look is still totally in with the young men these days. But I’m too old to rock the poopy-pants look. And I’m not a hipster so I can’t wear suspenders.

So I’m at a crossroads, and both paths are mostly beyond my control: I will either regain my lost bulk and my pants will magically fit again, or I’ll stay at this odd pants size and wait for my collection of waders and clam diggers to wear out and I’ll replace them with some less roomy. Incidentally, my old friend Erwin has written about his recent skinny-jeans purchase. Give it a read and imagine seeing Erwin in his new clothes. I do it at least three times an hour.