Then, I took Aidan to the off-leash dog park. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a friendly black Great Dane wander over to your toddler and give him a kiss. I have to admire my son’s chutzpah, to stand there mouth open for a kiss while a horse of a dog licks him. Fearless, that one.

On Saturday we took Aidan to the water so he could throws rocks into the lake and chase ducks and seagulls. Of course, I neglected to dress him for the occasion so he had no choice but to stand on the shore and only look at the water. Apparently packing sandals for a kid who’s going to the beach is just too much to ask of me.

On Sunday we skirted Seattle Center (to avoid Bumbershoot crowds) and explored Pioneer Square. I love Pioneer Square. It’s kinda seedy in some places, and definitely not somewhere I’d ever want to be alone at night, but during the day it makes for marvelous exploration. There are alleys galore, and that’s something that suits me right down to my toes.

You see, I love alleys. I have a preoccupation with them, actually. I’d probably get very, very distracted if I ever lived in New York. For me, each alley is a story, and I’m always looking for that story.

For example, we finished our walk down by the pier and turned up one street too early, so we cut across an alley to get back to the street we’d parked on. In that alley was an old door that said “Seattle Steam Corporation.” Weird, right? There was a huge old smokestack coming out of the top of the building, and a weathered yellow sign to the right of the front door that read, “Fallout Shelter.”

Shoot, that story practically writes itself.

Of course, this weekend wasn’t all fallout shelters and friendly Great Danes. There was a crazy homeless guy walking down the same street as us screaming profanities, and an unfortunate nap in the car that resulted in an apoplectic toddler. I think I’m going to blame the crazy homeless guy for that too.

As I said, it was a good weekend for adventures. We might have done too good a job at having them though, because I’m finding it more difficult than usual to focus on getting my stuff done today. Despite what my lazy brain is telling me, I know I will not, in fact, be more productive if I watch a few episodes of Mad Men while Aidan naps.

Oh, shucks. It looks like Don Draper disagrees.

At other times, three days will fly by and you’ll come out the other end wondering why these wormholes keep happening to you all while those same wormholes wonder why you keep happening to them.

Way back at the beginning of July, Wes and I scheduled a getaway weekend to Victoria, BC. This was to be our first trip away from Aidan and, as such, we decided to make it three days. Three days sounded like enough time to relax while not enough time to reduce me to pitiful, babyless tears. We scheduled. We waited. And then we left.

Now that I’m back, I laugh at the Erika and Wes of a month and a half ago. Fools! Three days is a pittance! You guys can go away for longer than that! Three days will whiz by and by the time you get back your kid will have decided he likes his grandma better anyway so just stay an extra day! You might as well!

My son’s betrayal aside, we had a marvelous time. Canadians really are the nicest people. Maybe that’s just because the ones we talked to were in the service/hospitality business and were paid to be nice, but I don’t think so. My verdict is in: I like Canadians.

One of the things we did was a wine tour of the Cowichan Valley. If you like white wines, the Cowichan Valley is the Promised Land for you. All the Pinot Gris your liver can stand, and not a few other kinds as well you’re unlikely to find at a grocery store (which is where I normally buy my wine).

An added bonus of doing a wine tour is a byproduct of having little class. You see, you’re supposed to spit your wine out at the tastings into these little buckets they provide. Because it’d be déclassé to get a buzz going at a wine tasting. But no one spits out the wine, and by the end of the tour everyone’s having a real good time. Except the driver. Because drunk driving isn’t fun for anyone.

For me, though, the highlight of our trip was riding mopeds around the city. I have a lingering mistrust of motorcycles and Wes reckoned the time was nigh for me to just get over it already. We rented two mopeds, I realized I had no idea how to turn when I was halfway across an intersection, I almost got run over by an inattentive elderly woman, and we somehow made it all throughout the city in one piece.

We even did that thing where we sat next to each other at a red light and chatted. Do you ever see motorcycle drivers do that? Don’t you ever wish you knew what they were talking about?

I have a pretty good guess. They’re probably talking about how much their butts hurt after riding on juddering motorcycles for a few hours.

Now that this trip is in the past, we have no plans from here to forever. That means I’m back to regular blogging, back to editing and revising my novel, and, as soon as this accursed boot is off my foot, back to exercising!

Diversions are fun, but now I’m rested and ready to dive back in. With exceptionally long blog posts, apparently. And a pantry full of wine!

Serves me right for unplugging for a week, though. I should have known there’d be a price to pay. A full week of reading, chasing Aidan around, and marveling at the absolute worst July weather I’ve ever seen (rain! wind! thunderstorms! I even saw a locust, but there was just one of them so it didn’t qualify as a plague. Wes says it was a cricket, but I’ve already established that he doesn’t know things) and all I have to show for it is an alarmingly decreased work ethic and the hint of a suntan.

I’ve had adventures, though! I climbed a very steep hill made of discarded coal (it sat atop the bones of a defunct coal mine) and shared a hiking tip with Wes that my Dad taught me. I did drunken crossword puzzles with my sister-in-law and her husband (I’m decidedly better at crossword puzzles when I’m tipsy). I tried a Bacon Bloody Mary that was absolutely, positively disgusting. I ate approximately four million salted caramel macadamia nut clusters, and I listened to Aidan say, “Water” when we went to the pool.

Admittedly, my adventures are of the tame sort. That’s just how married suburbanite mothers roll, though, I’m afraid.

Slightly less tame was the handgun class Wes and I took before we left. We shot a variety of .22 and 9mm caliber semiautomatic handguns, and I learned two things:

• The .22 caliber Colt 1911 handgun is my most favoritist ever, and I want to write it pen pal letters I miss it so much.
• Glocks hate me. And I hate them. I might as well not even fire them, because I’m fairly certain I’m far more likely to hit the target by chucking the Glocks themselves than by trying to aim and fire them. Ridiculous.

The gun class was odd though. I expected the class to be mostly dudes, but there was an alarming preponderance of women in the class. Pretty women. Like, the kind who wear makeup, do their hair, and wear the kind of pants that sit so low when they sit guys like sitting behind them because then they know what kind of underwear the girls are wearing.

I later found out that the women were all of a group of friends who’d bought the Groupon together, but still. Do attractive women flock together or something? And why do they look so natural holding handguns?

On the writing front, I finished my short story before I left. I’ll edit and revise, and then make it available free for download because it’s fun and short and good practice for me. I’m scheduled to start writing Novel #3 in September, I’m attending a writer’s conference in August, and PWNED is likely going to be available in print format in four weeks or so. Woo hoo!

As for my second novel, Enemy Accountant, I’m still revising it so it won’t be available for public consumption for awhile. It’s good, though. I’m excited to share it.

And that’s about it. It feels good to stretch my neglected blogging muscles, albeit at the expense of a post that has a point. Maybe next time, eh?

And thus ends my tribute to the hard-working question mark.

The reason I’m so excited is because Wes and I are packing up the baby and some clothes and heading out for a family vacation next week. Man sakes alive, it’ll be a good time. Ping pong (I am a ping pong ninja), reading outside in comfy chairs while soaking up sorely-needed sunshine, swimming, eating, and relaxing. It’s going to be legen-wait for it-dary.

And then, AND THEN, we leave next month to go to Victoria. Just the two of us. As in, Aidan gets to hang out with his grandparents all weekend while Wes and I escape. Things I am looking forward to most about the first vacation I’ve taken with just my husband in over three years:

• Eating meals for three days in a row without anyone screaming at me/demanding things from me.
• Sleeping in every morning.
• Being able to pay attention to my husband without also paying attention to a busy toddler.

Things I’m dreading just a little:

• How much I’m going to miss Aidan’s little face and kisses and hugs. I give me about 24 hours before I start missing him.
• How long it’ll take him to warm back up to me after we get home. Maybe it’ll be an instantaneous, joyful homecoming. But maybe he’ll have forgotten me already. Time will tell.

Either way, this trip will be a good thing. Wes and I could both use some down time, and I’m really looking forward to missing my son, if that makes any sense. Absence makes your heart a transponder, or somesuch.

The flight went well, only one random guy saw my boob (he wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been staring), and we only got a little lost finding the hotel.

More tales to come!

Seriously, was my brother not the cutest little kid? Look at that grin! In case you're curious, I'm holding my pet rat in my hands in this picture.

By the time you guys read this, Wes and I will either be on a plane or in California.  We’ll be spending the weekend celebrating the marriage of my little brother to his high school sweetheart, and, as such, will be away from computers.

Please join me in congratulating my brother Nick and his fiancée (soon to be wife!) Karen!

I didn’t want to lose my working out momentum, so we’ve been taking advantage of the fitness classes offered here at the resort complex.  We did tennis the first day (such fun!), and yoga the next day (stretchy and sore but still fun).  Today though?  Today we did the Total Body Sculpt (aka: Total Body Torture).

I mean, doesn’t total body sculpt sound like you just lie there while someone carves you into a hot statue?  I’d love to lie down while some sculptor guy makes me look like Jessica Alba.

Everything on my body hurts.  I will be physically incapable of dressing myself come morning.  So, I’m going to dull my pain with more shortcake and drown my sorrows in decaf coffee.  Doing an hour of sadistic muscle torture totally burns off a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, shortcake, a Long Island Iced Tea, and cheeseburger, yes?

Yes.

He says my Latin is rusty and provincial at best, but he’ll allow it.

All silliness aside, this post is going to have to serve as my online presence for the better part of next week, as Wes and I are packing up the baby and getting the heck out of Dodge.  By which I mean we’re going on vacation for a week.

Wes’ parents have, wonder of wonders, been able to find a rental vacation house east of here that’s large enough to afford every one of their four kids and five grandkids enough room to exist comfortably side by side for a week.  This was no easy task, and we’re all looking forward to filling up that house with as much food, laughter, and merriment as we can.

That said, I’ll likely be too busy cavorting in the sun and thwacking tennis balls to hunch over a laptop and screed out my innermost thoughts and wishes “Dear Diary” style.  I wish you all a fabulous week, and I’ll see you on the flip (and likely sunburned) side!

I immediately began planning the trip out in my head. I had everything planned out (including the meals I’d make beforehand so that Wes wouldn’t starve) but when my mental train arrived in Washington DC, I was suddenly confronted with a dilemma: How was I supposed to get from the airport to the hotel?

I posed this question during a staff meeting and was met with a short answer from seasoned East-coasters: “Just take the Metro.” Um, what?

They might as well have said, “Just grease up and luge yourself there” for all the good telling me to take the Metro did for me. I have lived the entirety of my happy little life in the suburbs of the West coast. Not only have I never *successfully* taken mass transit on my own, I’ve yet to read a map correctly.

So, when posed with the possibility of reading an arcane color-coded map populated with what looks like garish tape-worms, I was understandably shaken and stirred. One of my colleagues, a DC native through and through, took pity on me and looked up the route and sent me excellent directions.

Once I arrived, I managed to procure a Metro pass (even though I initially stood in the wrong line and had to break my cool imitation of a jaded East-coaster in order to ask for help) and hopped onto what I hoped was the right train.

This picture just about sums up how I was feeling at that moment. I had managed to get on the yellow line, but was it going in the right direction? If I had gotten on the wrong one, I’d have been on my way to Virginia, you see.

Right after I took this picture, a woman sitting in the seat across from me snapped her head up and demanded to know whether I had just taken a picture of her. I, being terrified of East coast natives (word on the street is that they eat polite West coast suburbanites like me for breakfast) promptly denied the accusation and showed her the picture for proof. She then commanded me to take another picture, but with me smiling instead of terrified (I did, but then erased it when she wasn’t looking.)

I managed to transfer trains successfully (though I had to ask a few billion bystanders for help in the process) and made it to my hotel safely. Now that I’m home and safe, I look back on my Metro adventure with fondness.

If I actually knew where I was going I’d probably really enjoy reading a book on the way to work. I might never get used to the scary teenagers on the bus (one of whom either threw me a gang symbol or the ASL sign for a**hole, I couldn’t tell which he was going for and was too afraid to ask) but I might get better at blending in. My good manners made me stick out like a sore thumb there.

I had loads of good adventures while here. I’ll write a post about riding the Metro soon (believe me, I’m gonna need a whole post just for that) but for now I’ll just regale y’all with tales from a reekingly liberal conference which, in itself is not a bad thing, when you’re conservative it’s tantamount to be being the red-headed step-child.

It’s funny, I noticed this at the Republican caucus as well, but people get really dumb when they assume everyone agrees with them. One of the keynote speakers called conservatives every name in the book and resorted to the kinds of petty stereotypes that you find in simple minds and it cheapened everything she said.

During one of the panels, someone asked the speakers if there was room in politics for progressive Republicans as well. There were crickets chirping and then one of them answered with a flat “No.”

I tried to stand up and “out” myself as a progressive Republican but the moderator of that panel must have smelled the conservative on me and steadfastly ignored me. I feel like by making the conference profoundly bipartisan, they cheated themselves out of roughly half the constituents who want the same things but don’t want to be called names.

Throughout the conference people kept telling me, “Oh, you’re a Republican so you can’t support that.” When they took the time to actually find out what I thought, a lot of people realized that we want the same things.

For instance, look at healthcare. The Dems here are lobbying strongly for universal healthcare. I want to completely reform the healthcare system in our country and get rid of healthcare insurance entirely (ala the good old times when doctors could actually afford to practice good medicine.)

We truly want the same thing: Access to good healthcare for everyone in the nation. How we go about it is different, but honestly, what I’m interested in most is a system for making healthcare accessible to everyone in country who needs it without bankrupting them every time they get a hangnail. If the best system, the one that won’t add to the huge national debt we already carry, is universal healthcare then woohoo, sign me up. If that best system is reforming the healthcare system, then let’s rock that. Sometimes people get too hung up on the titles, on what Dems or Republicans are supposed to think/support, that they to miss the point entirely.

It’s so funny because I wonder if, at times, splitting the nation into two parties isn’t a diversionary tactic meant to keep us from affecting real change. We’re too busy calling each other the downfall of America to notice what our politicans are doing right under our noses.

I suppose that’s enough of my big fat opinion for now. I’m going to go back to my room for now to prepare for my epic 12-hour journey tomorrow. Wish me luck as I spend four hours in the lovely airport in Colorado, waiting to haul my tired self onto my fourth plane in 48 hours. It’s gonna be a HOOT!