A Seattle Fall with Friends, Family, and Fido

Well, I just finished a whirlwind trip through Seattle, WA, USA. My mum-in-law had surgery and needed some help during the recovery. She is literally the worst patient (so many stories…)! After that, I got the pleasure of house-sitting for one of my favorite dogs in this gorgeous neighborhood near a lake in Seattle. That pup is so cute and as she gets older, she gets more and more cuddly. She, however, does not like the chilly rain. You and me both, pup!

What happened to October?

Lucky for me and my love of the tropics, I am currently in Medellín, Colombia (writing this from jet-lagged memory, so it’s likely exaggerated… you know me!) This city is high in the mountains and is the perfect temperature nearly all year round. I judge temp by the texture of the coconut oil I use as lotion. Liquid is too hot. Rock solid is too cold. Here the coconut oil is a lovely creamy texture like peanut butter. Just perfect!

I made it to Seattle from Utah just in time for my MIL’s birthday and right before her surgery. I don’t think her birthday was the best with the surgery date fast approaching and me trying to kill her during a run with friends, but what can you do? Her surgery went smoothly, and she came home the same day. With restrictions regarding lifting things and unable to put her hands above her head, she needed loads of help. I’m just glad that she could wipe her own butt. That would have sucked otherwise!

She had drains put in and my job was to empty those suckers at least twice a day. I used to work in a lab, so I have no problem with blood and fluids and such. No worries. The hard part was keeping her new dog and old bird from ripping them out. Okay, the real hard part was keeping my MIL from letting the new dog and old bird climb all over her. And keeping her from doing laundry and doing dishes and pushing and pulling. I pretty much yelled at her constantly to let me or someone else do it for her. Worst patient I tell you! But still a sweetheart. It’s hard to play host when you are down for the count. She healed well, though.

Why is it so cold!?!

I keep all of my cold weather clothes in Seattle just in case I come visit in the fall… or winter… or spring. Think London weather. Cold and rainy. Rock solid coconut oil. So it was weird to unpack all my summer clothes (some of my synthetic clothes melted in the Costa Rican tropical hot-hot and had to be recycled!), and pack up all my sweaters and pants and socks to head to the house-sitting gig I was lucky enough to be in town for. It was so good to see my friend and her pup. The doggo is a Cavapoo and very well behaved. Everyone I met while walking her was just so in love with her.

The small size of the doggo also means that she has a small bladder. The owner subscribed to this service that delivers patches of grass for apartments and balconies. That way, the pup could pee whenever she needed too (or poop if she had an emergency). I was thinking it would be that kind of grass that you find rolled up at home improvement stores. Nope. They grow this stuff hydroponically, so that there was no plastic base. The entire thing could be dumped into the compost bin. How cool is that!?!

So now I’m house sitting, trying to keep a dog alive and happy. Plus, trying to keep a whole lot of houseplants from dying miserable deaths (I’m way better with pets than plants!). And now I’m trying to keep the grass patch alive. You have to water that sucker! But not too much water. I took the pup outside to pee first thing in the morning because that is concentrated urine and I didn’t want to kill the grass. I know, I’m a weirdo. What can I say? That grass was fascinating.

Halloween!!!

You know what my favorite holiday is? Halloween! It’s huge in Seattle. Maybe even bigger than Christmas. People go all out decorating houses and stores. My running group organized a Halloween pub crawl one bus line away from the condo, so I threw on a red dress (not really a costume, but the only thing I own that would work) and headed down in the rain. I had such a great time catching up with everyone and whinging about the rain.

I am not a late night person, so I ducked out early when I realized my bus back was coming in three minutes. I can totally make that. Here’s the thing. The bus I want is going North but the street to catch the bus is East-West. I mistakenly head to the wrong side of the street and watch as my bus cruises past going the opposite direction. Sigh. I resolve myself to walking back to the condo in the rain. Halfway there, I spot another bus going the same direction. Home in no time!

Spending time in Seattle ended up being really great for reconnecting with old friends. So many fun meals with people I miss on the regular! I even managed to make it to several runs with my running group. How I love and miss my running group! I have so much fun with them. Since my in-laws were kind enough to lend me a vehicle for the month, I was even able to make it to a couple of meals with former co-workers. So… then this happened. I don’t drive much anymore and I have forgotten that traffic is a for real thing in Seattle. Like for real-for real.

How long will this take?

I figured it would be no big deal to wake up early to meet people for breakfast on a Monday morning. When I left the condo, my driving app said that I would get there five minutes early. Perfect! As I start to drive, that same app kept changing the arrival time, making me later and later. WTF? Traffic looks fine. What is going on? And then traffic was no longer fine, and I suffered through stop and go chaos for so long that I ended up being 20 minutes late. I hate being late. It was extremely nice of my friends to wait for me at the restaurant and so good to chat with them. Now I remember yet another reason why I don’t drive much anymore!

With all the eating out and being too busy to cook, my stomach really took a turn for the worse. I think I might have gotten accidentally dosed with some glutens somewhere. Plus, I don’t normally eat a lot of rich, processed foods. But when you go without for a year while living abroad, you see the frozen foods and chips and peanut butter cups and you just want everything. It’s almost like they make the crap-food to be addictive… Fresh food is expensive in Seattle ($3 for a bell pepper!). It’s the opposite of food in México and Costa Rica, where farmer’s markets are so common and imported processed foods are taxed heavily.

People talk about traveler’s diarrhea in terms of going to a developing country, drinking the water or having some sort of street meat, and getting sick. Not me. I usually do really well until I get to the States. It’s probably just that I don’t make the best choices when there is so much candy and sugar and salt readily available and staring me in the face down every aisle. I ate an entire tub of peanut butter during my stay! My gut was not pleased. I did appreciate that I could put toilet paper in the toilet (instead of the trash) while in Seattle. Not so in Colombia. You will hear all about that soon. It’s an adventure!