I came home from Spanish class last night, exhausted. I read a couple of blogs (The Comics Curmudgeon and Small Town Misfit) as I ate a quick dinner, then I went to bed.

One my way home from work yesterday, I stopped by the library and picked up The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, which had come back to me a lot sooner than I expected. While I was at the library, I browsed through the DVD shelves and found Lost in Translation, which I checked out. I'm curious to see if I still love that film as much as I did the first time I saw it. (Last week, I watched The Virgin Suicides, also directed by Sofia Coppola, and I loved it a lot better than I did the first time I watched it.)

Toward the end of class last night, I felt like next Monday is a long way away. I took that as a sign that I'm enjoying the classes. We didn't study "ser" and "estar," as promised. Instead, we talked about food, about "desayuno, almuerzo, y cena," and about time. I realized last night that I have a lot to learn. I also realized that I'm quite a bit ahead of the other four students. I was the only one, for example, who could recite "los días de la semana" without prompting from the instructor. I then realized that no one had talked about what Spanish lessons they'd had before this class. It seems to have been assumed that none of us has had any. That's just fine with me.

I tend to worry about things too much. During this past weekend, I was sometimes concerned that I'd never received a confirmation of my enrollment in Spanish class. But then I'd remember that I have never, ever received a confirmation for any of my yoga sessions. Still, to be on the safe side, I printed my emailed receipt of payment and brought it with me tonight.

I got to class early, and parked in one of the limited spots in front of the building. As I waited in the lobby, students for the German, Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic classes kept arriving, and one of the instructors (for the German class) would ask them if they'd parked in the correct lots, as the email had instructed them to. "What email?" I wondered to myself, "I never got an email." But, eventually, I realized that I'd used my Yahoo! Mail account for the class, and I hadn't checked it since early this morning. I stopped worrying.

This Spanish class should be interesting - in a good way. Tonight was only the first class, and I can already tell that it's going to be unlike any Spanish class I've ever taken. The instructor is from Venezuela, and he's lived in the United States only six months. His English is excellent, but several times during the hour and forty-five minute class, he had to ask us for the English name for an object. He is a linguist by trade, which means that he is teaching us not only how to say things in Spanish, but why it's said a particular way in Spanish. He seems to love talking about word roots and history. He's teaching the class by logical associations. For instance, he told us, at the beginning of class: "Soy casado." When the class (there are five of us students) looked at him puzzled, he repeated "Soy casado," while pointing at his wedding ring - and we all understood. Tonight's class was almost entirely pronunciation (Latin American style, not Spanish). On Wednesday, he promised, we will study the basic verbs "ser" and "estar" (both meaning "to be"), but unlike other Spanish classes, we will learn not that one is "temporary" and the other is "permanent" - but why some things are associated with "ser" while others use "estar." (As an example, he asked us rhetorically, "Why do we say in English 'I am hungry' but not 'I have hunger' or 'I am making hunger'?")

When I got home tonight, I checked my Yahoo! Mail and found my confirmation.

Overheard at the bus stop this morning: "Man, if somebody could figure out a way to make hot chocolate caffeinated - I tell ya, they'd be rich!"

Overheard in the hallway, later this morning: "They have these new versions of Reader's Digest now, with big text. It's just like the regular version, same stories and all, but the text is bigger sized for people that can't see the small text."

After we posted our Did Not Find for that multi-cache on Queen Anne Hill, the cache owner went to check on it. The cache had been moved (I'm guessing by landscapers), so the cache owner put it back. Phillip and I had been looking it the right spot. I went out right after work on Monday and found it. Then I decided to go to nearby Seattle Center and look for a geocache there - it was a puzzle cache that Phillip had solved a long time ago, but we just hadn't gotten around to looking for it. I looked and looked, for a long time, but could not find it. So, I'd cleared up a DNF and created another one. I was still feeling discouraged with geocaching.

The cache owner checked on that Seattle Center cache, and found that it had been moved to the wrong area, so the cache owner moved it back and emailed us. I went out on Wednesday and found it. Then I looked for another cache in Seattle Center - and found it, too. I was feeling better.

Over the past week, we learned that two more of our DNFs were caused by the caches not being there - stolen by muggles. We learned that another geocache, one of our DNFs, may or may not be there, but the trail leading to it had grown over. I felt sorry for the cache owners, but glad to know that those DNFs were not the result of our geocaching skills.

Around 10:30 Friday night, Phillip, on the spur of the moment, suggested that we go find a "recommended at night" geocache. It was one of the "Totally Tubular" series - one that we'd fallen behind on. As with all Totally Tubular caches, it was easy to find, but difficult to retrieve. That's the fun of them - they involve ingenious mechanisms. The one Friday night was a difficult one, and we were ready to call it a DNF until I decided to try one more thing - and retrieved the cache.

Yesterday, Phillip and I looked for six geocaches in Westlake, Ballard, and Magnolia, and found all six. One of those six was in a wooded area where satellite reception was difficult, and we were ready to call it a DNF, until Phillip decided to look in one more spot - and found the cache. As of yesterday, we have 285 Finds on our record, and Phillip is asking what our 300th Find will be. Geocaching is exciting again.

I had a dream this morning. Phillip was out of town, and I decided to take a Flexcar for a drive. In the dream, Phillip and I lived in Lake City. I went out to my reserved Flexcar and found some guy trying to take it. I approached him, and the fellow was friendly and apologetic when he realized that he was trying to take the wrong Flexcar. His was parked next to mine. We drove off together, following the same route, until he turned left and I turned right. I decided to stop into a McDonald's close to home (in Lake City), for a Slurpee. Once I walked into the McDonald's, however, I decided to order a hamburger and fries - which I was not supposed to do. When I looked at the menu, I saw that this was a McDonald's unlike anything I had ever seen. I could not recognize anything on the menu. Everything was vegetarian, consisting of exotic vegetables and fruits I had never hear of, and apparently all of it was Japanese. (It wasn't a Japanese McDonald's, and there were no Japanese people working there - this one McDonald's just happened to specialize in exotic Japanese food.) I didn't know what to order, so I let the guy behind the counter make suggestions. I didn't know what he was suggesting, so I just agreed. As I was waiting for my order, I looked over at my Flexcar, parked in the lot, and realized that I had the wrong set of keys in my pocket. (Apparently, in the dream, a Flexcar required two sets of keys to start - one set stays in the car, the other set you take, and I taken the wrong set.) As I started to walk out to the car, a woman behind the counter called me over - my soup was ready. After some indecision (car or soup), I went over to the counter. It was a creamy soup, served in a large, shallow, ceramic bowl, with a spear of asparagus floating on top. The woman behind the counter explained that I should take a cup and use it to help myself to the soup - it was "all you can eat." The soup was very good. It was the most amazing McDonald's I had ever seen. I wanted to tell Phillip about it as soon as he got back. I walked out the the Flexcar, to switch keys, and there was Phillip. He hadn't been out of town, and didn't know why I'd thought that. I started to tell him about the amazing McDonald's, but he nonchalantly explained that he knew all about it - it is, after all, very close to home. Besides, Phillip went on to explain, it isn't a McDonald's - it's a Wendy's. I looked up at the sign, and it was a Wendy's. Then I noticed that the Wendy's sign was placed over the outline of where a McDonald's sign used to be. Phillip and I went inside and I noticed that the Wendy's restaurant still had a Golden Arches pattern in the carpet and walls. End of dream.