Location, Location, Location

We have to move. The guy who owns the condo that we're renting in Vancouver wants his place back so he's asked us to move out by July 1. It's exhausting looking for new digs, especially when we're only here for a few days per week and somewhere in there I'm also supposed to be getting some work done. This weekend is Memorial Day Weekend so I'm also trying to get ready for that. We're boating to Port Ludlow and I'm trying to get some of the food prepared in advanced.

The good news is that we really don't have to make a speedy decision. We can always spend a month or two in a hotel until we find something we really like. The problem is that absolutely every other place is bigger (which is a good thing) but it's also more expensive and less desirably situated. Vancouver has lots of apartment inventory to choose from but there are very limited options in the downtown area where we are now.

Now, I can walk to more coffee shops than I can count, two of which are Starbucks. There are two movie theaters (one of the blockbuster variety, the other of the historical artsy-fartsy variety), plenty of restaurant choices, a Red Box, a national park, the library, and the Columbia River - all within walking distance. The grocery store is just out of walking range but there's a nice store nearby. The location is unrivaled, and absolutely unavailable at the rent we are currently paying.

Bigger might be nicer, but that means we have to buy or rent more furniture and there's more to take care of. I'll get laundry in my new apartment which will be a huge bonus, but I have stacks of quarters that have been amassed and are all queued up and ready to go. What will become of those?

Perhaps, in our new place, my socks will be less likely to defect.

Another Narrow Escape

Is it me? Or, did my shoes raise a stink? Because, my socks want out. Recently, and I'm talking in the last year or so, my socks have been making increasingly more daring attempts at escaping the laundry cycle and I'm left to wonder why. This trend commenced when I started using a coin-op for laundry (which may be my answer right there). I can certainly understand my undergarment's distaste for a poor man's laundry facility, snooty undergarments that they are, but I don't always use coin-op. Indeed, I only use it half the time. That being said, I have never witnessed such brazen attempts at home where pocket change comes out of the laundry and is not required, in fact, to operate it.

Until today. I found a blue-striped sock hanging outside the cuff of Hubby's blue-striped shirt. (Maybe they were in cahoots.) And then, for reasons I can't possibly explain, I checked the other sleeve and there I found the blue-striped mate, no less, hiding completely out of sight in the other sleeve, laid flat along the length of it.

Something is definitely afoot.

Get It?

Fire

Obama

Civil Liberties

H/T 76003.1414

They must not be that much fun.

Spam!

Spam is a big deal in Hawaii. So big, they shut down a stretch of a busy retail-fronted street and have a festival devoted to the canned meat.

The Waikiki Spam® Jam is a street festival that celebrates the people of Hawaii’s love for Spam®, a canned meat from Hormel Foods. In Hawaii, you will find Spam® at all grocery and convenience stores, many restaurants and in most homes in Hawaii.

This street festival is great for all ages, as the event includes Hawaii’s top restaurants, two stages with free entertainment, and a variety of Hawaiian crafters. This is also a special event that benefits the Hawaii Foodbank, the largest non-profit in Hawaii that feeds the needy.

So big, the Waikiki Spam Jam offers air and hotel packages.

We sampled Spam Yakisoba for dinner.

Comparing Tax Day to running a marathon suddenly seems wholly inappropriate. It's nothing like running the Boston Marathon this April 15th. It was just after my last post that I learned of the news of the horrific events that were unfolding in Boston.

Finish last tax return. Check.

Post to Chocolate Chip Mint about finishing last tax return. Check.

Post to Facebook. Wait... what's this? A friend posted that someone had bombed the Boston Marathon and urged people to search news sources for more information. A quick search resulted in an article. It had pictures. I was staring at my screen in disbelief when my office manager came around the corner with another tax return. (We weren't nearly as close to finishing as I thought.)

I spun around in my chair to face her and she laughed at the blank look on my face. She had very good reason to think my expression was simply the glazed over look of the overworked and overtired. I tried to correct her. I told her someone bombed the Boston Marathon. I had to say it twice before she looked past me to the images on my computer screen.

Unbelievable.

Of course, my first thought was for the Grump and the offices of the Internet's Most Exclusive Blog. But it only took me a moment to consider that it was highly unlikely the Grump was a participant although there was a very slight possibility he was an onlooker. Staying in touch with the site assured me that everyone affiliated with 76003.1414 was safe.

How crazy was this week for Boston and it's neighbors? Other worldly. I am six time zones away watching the events unfold with everyone else from every place in the nation (and well beyond). I feel so far away but still feel the nationalism such a tragedy inspires.

How can preparing 200 tax returns in a few compressed weeks compare to that? I have my legs. I have my life. We, here at Chocolate Chip Mint, wish to express our sorrow for the people of Boston and Massachusetts, for the participants of the marathon who traveled great distances and fervently chased their aspirations just to get there, the onlookers, the organizers of the marathon, runners as a community, people all over the world who were connected to the Marathon in one way or another, and  people who had nothing to do with the Marathon but were caught up in its events nonetheless. Above all, we express our condolences to the victims and their families.

What do such tragedies inspire? Where do we go from here? The purest moment is already gone. The media frenzy will dissolve into politics. Politics will dissolve into passivity. We'll all move on and forget. There will be movies, eventually.

Just for now, we are together, united somehow. That's all we have and we should embrace that, if nothing else.

Hey, look at me! I'm avoiding work! Woo hoo!

It's 4 pm on the Left. Waiting for one more client to come in but then I'm outta here!

It's all just ones and zeros now.

Battle Day!

...as my Office Manager calls it.

March 31st was my last day off. Tomorrow is my next day off.

Today is like running the last mile of a marathon. Exhausting and exhilarating, all at the same time. Dazed, fazed, derelict in avoiding work. Charged up, worn out. Confused and focused. Hopeful and hopeless.

Kellie is already at the office doing battle. She bought a latte for me and put in on my desk to lure me in.

It's working.