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Thursday,
April 20, 2006

Seattle, Rock One

Or, "This is Melanie on four ounces of alcohol!"

This morning dawned early and overcast when I forced myself out of bed to continue the neurotic cleaning before the trip, because God forbid anyone should come into my apartment when it's in its usual messy state -- I might just self-combust from the shame (BTW, Bill, feel free to borrow anything from the Wall O' DVD -- just check first to make sure it isn't Region 2). Luckily the bulk of the work had already been done in the previous two nights -- all we had to do was run a couple of laundry loads through the machine, tidy up the living room and vacuum it, set up the feeders and leave a note for the lovely and talented Denise.

After packing, showering, shooing the Boyz out from under the bed (I had the brilliant idea of turning on the hair dryer and blowing hot air at them -- it worked a treat) and closing the bedroom door, we flung the bags in the Hoosiermobile and set off for the airport. The less said about that, the better -- the plane to Seattle turned out to be a TWA relic, with the tiniest seats imaginable (I'd tried to get upgrades to business earlier, but since I bought the tix on Travelocity I wasn't eligible for that), so I spent the intervening four hours in a remarkably squashed position, reading the first 1/3 of ENGAGING THE ENEMY and glancing out wanly at the rugged mountainsides passing below.

However, that was the last unpleasantness of the trip (so far, anyway) -- Sea-Tac turned out to be a huge, echoing airport that was amazingly empty when we landed, so getting our bags and grabbing a taxi was a doddle. After eagerly sniffing the atmosphere (Fresh air! Moisture! Green growing things!) and oohing and aahing at the mountains in the distance, we were deposited at the Crowne Plaza in downtown Seattle. As this is a vacation, I'd rented a small suite for the weekend, and it turned out to be quite charming, if decorated in a variety of shades of brown -- Lyndon claims to be having '70's flashbacks.

After flinging down the bags and using the odd, low toilet (or as my beloved put it, "Crouching Toilet, Hidden Paper"), we decided that we were simply too tired to go out in search of food, and decided to settle for the hotel restaurant. Eating in con hotels had prepared me for the worst, but the Regatta Bar and Grille was simply spectacular -- after fresh bread (me) and a cup of creamy chicken soup (Lyndon) as a starter, we both had a seafood trio of Dungeness crabcake with aioli, white salmon on a bed of wild mushrooms, and macadamia nut-encrusted mahi-mahi with a spicy chili-lime sauce, balanced by some of the best asparagus I've ever had and saffron rice topped with pickled ginger. Yum!

As we were on vacation, I decided to have a drink with dinner, and ordered something called Three Sheets to the Wind, with Malibu run, Limon, sour and Sprite. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear -- it was like a refined, grown-up Electric Lemonade, and perfectly accented the seafood. So I ordered another, and became downright soused, but in a pleasant and well-fed way.

After repairing to the bar for a apres-dinner beer for Lyndon and an inning of the Mariners-Rangers game playing right down the street, we decided to turn in for the night and enjoy the taupe environs and wireless internet connection of our hotel suite. And there, dear readers, is where I shall leave you until tomorrow, whereupon we will tour the Seattle fun spots with the lovely and talented Vonda McIntyre, and wrap up the day with a family dinner at my aunt's house on Mercer Island. By which time I should be sober, but hey, you never know.