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Unemployment Log:  Entry date 20130221:  Location, Living room floor

Well this just arrived.

The wheel spacers I "helped" Jeff pick out.

The very nice FedEx guy offered to bring the box into the house for me. I thought he made the offer because I was standing there, blinking into the bright light of open doorway,  hair unbrushed, still in my pajamas, no socks or shoes, no bra (wince) and he could see I needed all the help I could get. "I got it." I told him as I shoved the signature pad back at him. I swooped up the box at his feet and stiffly marched back into the house to drop it into William's gaming chair. The only piece of furniture currently in the living room. I waited until Mr. FedEx was back in his truck before gingerly laying down on the floor and apologizing profusely and whole heartedly to my back. Who knew they could pack one hundred ninety seven thousand pounds of forged steel into a 10in x8in x8in box?  A box which the cats were happy to put to good use.



Mao & Shamrock playing box fort.

Yesterday William and I went to Tacoma to have lunch with my dad and stepmom.  After lunch I had to drive him up north to Bothell so he could spend the rest of the week with his dad. Then on the way home I planned to meet with friends in Bellevue for Happy Hour. That's a lot of running around on a day when I was up before dawn. Starbucks to the rescue.

It's not just being single that causes us to be Sleepless in Seattle.

My folks and I planned to meet at Duke's Chowder House.  The restaurant sits on the waterfront of Commencement Bay and is easy to get to if you know where you're going. Having been there only a couple of times before I was going to rely on the force to get me there. The force had always been strong in me but it had recently let me down when my sister in law and I were going to an estate sale in Pacific. So I'll admit I was a bit nervous. But, it's 25 miles to Tacoma, I had a quarter of a tank of gas, a venti cappuccino, it was drizzling....and I was wearing sunscreen. We hit it.

Here's the thing about going to Duke's, my GPS always tells me to turn Right after we exit the freeway. And every time I get to the stop light, I look to my right and see a bridge that goes over the river and leads to....nothing.  So naturally I turn Left. The force tells me I am right, the GPS lady goes berserk. Make a u-turn, she tells me in her overly polite but insistent voice. Make a u-turn.
William, "Mom?"
"We're fine."
In 200 feet, turn left.
I turn right
At every intersection we pass through.
Turn right.
I continue straight ahead. 
"Mom?"
"We're fine."
The GPS is so busy recalculating the route to get me back on the bridge to nowhere that I was expecting sparks and smoke to start pouring from my dashboard. In fact the GPS becomes so insistent that I turn around I start to doubt the force. I mean, it let me down last time. What if it's wrong again. I decide to pull over.
Turn right
I turned right.
From the passenger seat, "Oh my God, finally!"
But there, 30 yards ahead of us is a One Way Do Not Enter sign. To my right is a One Way Do Not Enter sign, and to our left is a Dead End sign. Being the only choice we turned left, down a narrow alley the ended in the worlds smallest pay parking lot. Thankfully there was one open spot because I honestly don't think I could have turned the car around otherwise.
William, "You have to pay to park."
"We're only going to be here for 5 minutes while I check the map on my phone."
"It's 25 cents minimum. Do you have a quarter?"
"Honestly, we're not going to be here that long. Relax."
"Fine." He tilts his seat back and ducks below window level.
"Are you hiding?"
"Yes.  I am not gonna get in trouble because you won't pay a quarter to park."
I ignored my traitorous son and found our location on my phone. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw that we were very close to our destination and, until I had followed the GPS, we had been traveling on the correct street to get there.
"You can quit hiding now, we're leaving." I told William.
Eight minutes later when we park outside of Duke's William turns to me and says, "You're such an outlaw. You totally stole parking from the city."  I had no clue what that was suppose to mean but that didn't stop me from basking in the glory of my son's pride.  If not paying 25 cents for 5 minutes of parking makes my son think I am a bad ass...well I can live with that.