Chinese New Year and TET Celebrations in Seattle collided this weekend with far less pollution and far fewer people than last year’s adventure in Shanghai and Hanoi.  While it was awesome to be in a crowd again while visiting the International District, I missed the craziness of the scooters in Hanoi during TET.   I did find my favorite Taiwanese crackers at the Uwajimaya Supermarket and sampled some egg tarts-always tasty but the crust seemed so heavy after the light airy layers of pastry goodness found at the KFC’s in China.  Warm buttery heaven egg custard deliciousness in my hand…ahhhh…I miss it so.

To get everywhere we needed to go, we took advantage of multiple transportation options since we don’t have a car here in Seattle (Enjoy our Kia, little Mia!).  For lunch on Friday with David Axelrod giving a talk at my work, we booked a Zipcar and enjoyed hearing all about David’s journey working with Obama.  His book looks like a winner and I can’t wait to read it.  Thom, hurry up and read, read, read or I’m stealing it.  SERIOUSLY.

I got to ask David the inevitable question–How does HIllary win in 2016?  He felt she got beat by Obama because she was too confident going into the Primaries thinking she was destined to win without too much effort and also she wasn’t as authentic as Obama when campaigning.  This time around, hopefully she will be herself and make history as the first woman President.  I’m here to help her in any way I can.  Go Hillary!

On Saturday, Thom and I jumped on the Metro Bus first, walked ALOT to get to the International District and then found another bus to go to the SoDo district to explore highly rated Silver Platters for our first vinyl purchases (at least in the last 20 years).  What goes around, comes around and the cool hipster thing to do now is to use the cloud for your music on the go but go retro and use vinyl records at home for a leisurely music experience.  Well, this year Thom got spoiled rotten with a turntable and speaker for his birthday.

New hobby!  After wandering the streets by the stadiums to find a Car2Go, we finally found one after exploring some cool home stores (handmade desks for only $1800.00-what a steal) and finding the main Macrina bakery–it was a high carb day for sure!  Can you say half price day old potato rolls???  We really just went in to use their bathroom after being locked out of the Starbucks facilities in the International District.  Upon asking for the key to the Starbucks ladies room, I was informed that the store had “closed the bathroom for the day”… at 2 p.m.  WTF!!!  Even paying customers were s%#t out of luck, literally.  I get that on a busy day with the CNY festivities that they might not want to clean up hourly but that’s just basic customer service 101.  Shame on them.  Luckily for us, Macrina was awesome–bathrooms AND bakery products.  Win-Win.

Sunny beautiful skies welcomed us outside to walk the dogs around Seattle Center.  Back home, we found a table at CostPlus World Market that would hold our new turntable and Bose speakers, so we hopped into the closest Prius Zipcar and off we went.  You have to rent it for at least a hour so we grabbed the table and raced to catch the sunset from Kinnear Park that overlooks the city.  Scores of tourists from France and a wedding party were also enjoying the city lights.  Gorgeous!  A must see for tourists and city residents alike.

Sunday dawned a new day and I had to get a start on the week with LOTS of work to do starting at 6 a.m. and continuing pretty much all day.  Why must I be one of “those people” who feel a need to work hard to be the best.  Shame on me. But I’m lucky to have a great career that allows me to take care of my family so work I will.  On Friday, I leave for a journey to the Midwest where I hope to combine work with a visit to see Mom and Becky, snowy roads not withstanding, next weekend.  If thwarted by crappy weather, at least I will get to see my best friend and sister from another mother,  Patti, in Indy and will wind up somehow in Detroit on Monday to work for a week.   Oh boy–Detroit in the middle of winter–what fun.  NOT.  At least my busy weekend was capped off with another incredible sunset-it never gets old and I will be dreaming of returning to it (and Thom and the puppies) as I toil away in Motown.