Feeding Squirrels On My Way To Work

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Our 85th geocache find was a cache named "Seattle Library Series #1." That cache was hidden outside of the Northeast branch library. It was placed by a relatively new geocacher, who had promised to place a cache at every one of Seattle's branch libraries. There never was a Seattle Library Series #2. After that one cache got muggled, it was archived by its owner, who eventually dropped out of geocaching altogether.

Recently, a well-known and prolific Seattle geocacher has started the library series again, with a whole lot more success. A few other geocachers have pitched in to place caches outside of their neighborhood caches. Although, with one exception (so far), this caches are all micros or smaller, and mostly quick finds, I am excited by this series. I love any excuse to visit Seattle's beautifully designed libraries.

I went out on my own last Sunday morning and found the Montlake cache - that was find 364 for us. Phillip and I found the Capitol Hill cache on our way to work on Wednesday, and had the honor of being the Second To Find. I dragged Phillip out of bed last night, after yoga class, and we found the (new) Northeast branch cache, followed by the Greenwood cache. We tried for a non-library cache after the Greenwood cache, but ended up logging a Did Not Find. Then we found the Fremont library cache - which is the one library cache larger than a micro. I had wanted to look for the Queen Anne library cache as well, but Phillip wanted to call it a night.

This morning, Phillip suggested that I do some solo geocaching, so I did. I started by finding the Queen Anne library cache. Along the way to the Magnolia library, I found two non-library caches. The Magnolia branch cache was the only one we (or I) found while the library was open, and so it was the only one I went inside while geocaching. I walked out with two DVDs: I Heart Huckabees (awful) and House of Flying Daggers (wonderful).

We've now logged finds on seven of the new "Seattle Public Libraries" series. There are four library caches left for us to find, and many more branch libraries ready for cache hides.

After the Magnolia library, I tried for four more geocaches in the Magnolia and Ballard areas, and found two. The two I didn't find were due to muggle activity making it too risky to search. I had two more caches on my list, but I was ready to call it a day before then. I'd left the apartment a little after nine o'clock and came home a little after one o'clock - and logged my six Finds and two Notes.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

After reading the first page of Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban (loaned to me by a Spanish-speaking coworker), I decided, as an experiment, to compare the same page in our copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. My coworker had told me that words invented by J.K. Rowling, like "muggle" and "Azkaban," remained the same in the translation. I did, however, discover a curious bit of translation on that first page, which should be obvious, even if you don't read Spanish.

In español: "En una mano tenía la linterna y, abierto sobre la almohada, había un libro grande, encuadernado en piel (Historia de la Magia, de Adalbert Waffling)."

Here is the same sentence, in the original English: "...a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot), propped open against the pillow."

(I wonder: Is "Bathilda Bagshot" difficult to say in Spanish?)

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

So, what do you do, when you discover that the situation you told everyone that you disliked, that you were willing to do only until someone permanent is hired, isn't so bad once you get into it on a regular basis? What do you do, when you realize that being responsible for the satellite clinic is a different experience than filling in every once in a while? What do you do, when you realize that not only are you getting used to it, you are actually looking forward to it every day? What do you do, when everyone is receptive to the idea of you continuing the mornings in the satellite, afternoons in the main, schedule on a permanent basis? What do you do?

Monday, October 02, 2006

When I first started working at my present clinic, I noticed an odd rhythm about it. Of course, I'd worked at only two clinics and a bookstore, before it, so maybe my basis of comparison wasn't so strong. Now that I work in the satellite clinic in the mornings, and my present clinic in the afternoon, that odd rhythm seems even odder.

It goes like this: A patient approaches the front desk. One of us at the front desk calls the patient over. Immediately, another patient approaches the front desk. The second front desk person calls the second patient over. Immediately, another patient approaches the front desk. The third front desk person calls the third patient over. Then, just as the first patient is wrapping up what they needed, another patient appears. The next patient finishes, and another patient appears. It can go on like that a half and hour or more, with all three of us helping one patient after another after another - and yet there is never more than one patient in line. It would make an interesting study for an expert in crowd behavior, I think.

I had a dream this morning that my grandmother (on my father's side) was telling my family that when she was a little girl, she once had breakfast with President Theodore Roosevelt. (It wasn't that my grandmother was alive today, but rather that everyone in my family was younger in the dream. I may have been a teenager.) Everyone listened politely to my grandmother, but behind her back, no one believed any of her stories. I defended her, sort of, saying that there was probably some truth in her story - that she probably did have breakfast with President Roosevelt - maybe along with 499 other girls who were on a field trip. We were all making fun of her, however.