It's always interesting to hear how other people view my life.

My supervisor asked what I had planned for this weekend. I told her that Phillip and I were going to my friend Scott's retirement party this evening, and then, on Saturday, we were going geocaching with our friend Emily and her boyfriend. "You always have something planned on weekends, don't you?" she remarked, seemingly impressed. (It's funny. From my perspective, it seems like we stay at home a lot.)

My co-worker asked me to tell her about my friend Scott. I explained that he's a manager for the UW, that he helped both Phillip and me to get jobs at the University, and that he's married to Phillip's ex-boyfriend. "That must get awkward," remarked my co-worker, sympathetically. "Not at all," I replied, "We're all good friends. In fact, they live just a half a block from us." (I saw, at that moment, how it could appear to be a situation to be avoided, but I'd never thought about it that way before.)

And each time I told friends and patients that I was going to a friend's retirement party, I felt old.

I miss being able to read on the bus during my commutes to and from work. (The ride is too short.) I miss my walks across campus. Those are about the only things I miss about working on campus. (I certainly don't miss my job there.)

I did some solo geocaching this evening. I looked for two caches that Phillip wasn't interested in. One of them was called "The Ugliest Spot on UW Campus," and it lived up to its name. During the search, I thought about what an odd game geocahing can be at times. Some guy finds the ugliest, smelliest spot on a beautiful campus, tells the other players about it, and those other players rush out to see it, just to brag that they've been there. The other cache involved putting together a computer version of a jigsaw puzzle in order to find the coordinates of the hide. I spent about two hours Tuesday night assembling the puzzle. I found both caches.

The UW campus continues to gain interesting geocaches. How much geocaching would I be doing during lunch if I still worked there?

In the summer of 2004, I took a walk and discovered St. Mark's Greenbelt, a secluded and wild area very close to home that I had never known had existed. The sign at the trailhead said something about it being a joint effort between Seattle City Parks and St. Mark's Cathedral. In the spring of 2005, we began geocaching. From time to time, I've thought about hiding a cache under the bridge in the greenbelt. It seemed like a great spot for a cache - it's not well known, and the steepness of the trail assures that not many people climb down there. I kept putting off the hide, though - mostly because of that joint effort. It's listed as a public park, but is it also considered church property? Would I need permission for a hide? All this time has passed, and no one has hidden a cache in this perfect spot, so it's either unknown to the rest of the geocachers, or it's not so perfect.

Last weekend, grossi hid a cache called "St. Mark's Greenbelt" - under that very bridge. It got published last Tuesday. I didn't try to grab it after work on its first day, because it was pouring down rain, and I didn't trust that steep, muddy trail. A few of the Tiresome Usual Suspects found it, of course. I found the cache after work yesterday. It had stopped raining for a little while, and the trail was still plenty slick. I didn't bother using the GPS receiver, since I knew exactly where the cache was hidden. (I didn't remember there being two bridges down there, however.) It was our 161st find.

I'm not bitter about being skunked on the hide. It was my fault for procrastinating. Besides, as I wrote in the log, "Lose a hide, gain a find. Life is good."

Given that the majority of my immediate co-workers are women, and given that the TV show "Gilmore Girls" is written for a female audience, I find it curious that I'm the only one in my workplace who has any interest in the show at all. I find it curious that whenever I try to remember the name of the actress who plays Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bedel), I always come up with Tempestt Bledsoe, who is not in "Gilmore Girls" at all.

Meanwhile, I'm pleased with the ads I'm seeing for the movie version of Curious George. From the brief clips, it appears that they've tried to keep the look and tone of the books. (I enjoy the books.) I'm also pleased with the apparent updating of the story (I'm assuming for the sake of political correctness): Instead of the Man in the Yellow Hat capturing George in a cage, George stows away on the ship. I think that's nice.

Phillip and I volunteered at the 3rd Annual CfY (Community for Youth) Silent Auction and Wine Tasting last night. I was assigned to work at the coat check. Perhaps I shouldn't complain, since it was for a good charity and all, but my job was a nightmare.

I worked with two other people: A CfY employee and the high school student he is mentoring. When our job began, we had two coat racks, not nearly enough hangers, and no check numbers. How do you check coats without numbers? We'd take people's coats and hang them up. The hotel got us another rack and a box of plastic hangers. Then the event organizers got us some numbers - cardboard raffle tickets. We'd take people's coats, give them a ticket, and try to figure out how to attach the other half of the ticket to the hanger. We knew the system wasn't going to work, however.

There was an estimated 350 attendees at the event - most of them had coats to check. At various points during the event, people would leave and want their coats back. Some coats had no numbers, some coats had numbers too small to read at a glance, some coats had had tickets, but the tickets had fallen off, and none of the coats had been hung in any particular order. We had to ask the coat owners to help us look for their coats. (Of course, the majority of the attendees had worn black coats.) It would have been a whole lot more efficient if there had been no coat check at all - at least then the attendees would have had a general idea where their coats had been hung up.

Phillip worked at the registration desk, which, he told me, wasn't any better organized. When Phillip had volunteered us, Gladden was still alive, and he had requested that he and I both be assigned to registration, which ran from 4 to 8. Instead, he got assigned to registration, and I got assigned to coat check, which ran from 5 to 10:30.

A little before 8:00, the student had been gone for a long time - it was just me and the mentor helping people find their coats. Phillip came by to tell me he was going up to the 6th floor hotel room reserved for the volunteers, and he left. The auction was over, and the mentor suggested that he and I go watch the ceremonies until things got busy again. As soon as we got in the ballroom, the mentor and I got separated. The room was hot and crowded, and the presentation wasn't very interesting, so I left and went out to the main room. Phillip was sitting at one of the tables - no one was up in the hotel room, and he didn't have the key. Several people were busy searching for their coats. I sat with Phillip.

After talking over the situation, Phillip and I reached a decision. We told one of the organizers that we had to go, and we left the event at about 8:30. We walked out to the car, and Phillip suggested that we go get something to eat - but he had no preference. Although the volunteers had been supplied with sub sandwiches and snacks, I was a little hungry. I suggested the Thai restaurant on 15th, and Phillip agreed.

As I drove up Madison, though, I realized that I was actually more in the mood for IHOP. Phillip agreed to that. We had a late dinner at IHOP, and was served by the best food server since Pho Nuong. A disappointing evening ended in a good night.