Seattle, day one

Reuben appeared the moment I stuck my head out of my bedroom door. I gave him a ‘good morning.’

He eyed me with curiosity that was more anticipation than apprehension. “Good Morning!” Anticipation with a pinch of glee.

“I’m the kid of the house.”

“And I’m the guest of the house, I guess.”

Lauren surfaced and started scurrying me around – “the bagels are in the freezer, the fruit is probably bad, these veggies are looking feeble, but those should be ok, there are plenty of eggs, do you want a cup of coffee?”

Of course.

Chris was there as well, hadn’t seen him since Cat & Rich’s wedding. He looked good. They all looked good. After we exchanged greetings, Chris said to Reuben, “do you want to get the paper off the front porch, please?” They were off to Shabbat School, and needed to leave kind of right now.

Lauren talked me through the keys, the car, the GPS.

“I’ll probably just hang here until you return, but thanks so much. If I do need to roll, I’m all set – you guys have really hooked me up.”

The six-year-old returned with the paper. Pointed to a photo on the front page. “This guy looks kind of like you!”

“Not nearly as handsome,” I retorted.

Chris chuckled “In town a few hours, and already made the front page!”

“Not as a good guy, I’m afraid. Evidently I ‘Kill for God.’” My Post-Intelligencer likeness has been accused of murdering six people. He doesn’t really look that much like me.

They have to get going. More pleasantries out of the way, and they get into the car and go. On their way out, Reuben shouts “You can’t use my Leapster! You can’t play Leapster unless you do ten minutes of the Word Game!”

“Isn’t there a nicer way you can say that?” Lauren is eager to make up for lost time, but can’t let decorum go unaddressed.

He lowers his voice a bit. “You can use my Leapster as long as you play ten minutes of the Word Game for every ten minutes of Leapster.”

“Ok. Thanks! See you guys at noon.”

And they’re out. I warm up the coffee and defrost a bagel. A text from Rashmi reminds me that the U.S. Open semifinals are on. I breakfast to tennis, check on my couchsurf in Portland and walk around their house. Beautiful place, set in the Northwest wetlands. Very green, the sun struggles to break through the clouds. I step up onto their wooden patio and over toward a mosquito-net tent and am faced with a spider who’s stretched his web across the deck, guarding the passage. I recall the spiders at the gas station last night: big, unmoving and plentiful. This gal is something special, however, and her net is quite an achievement.

“It’s ok, I’ll go back the way I came. Good luck out here with the flies.”

And then it’s back to another cup of really good coffee, chill and write this till they come back from Shabbat School. Life is good.

What the fuck is a Leapster?