Kate's Space

Amsterdam airport is funny.  If anybody doesn't show up in time for boarding they call them out really loud over the loudspeaker and reprimand them.  "Passenger X Y travelling to Z, you are delaying the flight."  Makes me laugh.  I'm off to Florence in an hour.  Will add more travel observations soon.  Internet access about to expire...

I woke up this morning at 5:20 AM and decided to go into work to get a head start on the day.  I recently pulled my hip-quad muscle, so I brought in a zip-lock bag full of ice.  As I'm sitting in my office this morning, icing my hip, completely focused on the document I'm editing, in a benedryl daze (love allergy season), I look down and realize the bag has been slowly leaking for the past half hour.  Right into my crotch.  So I have this giant wet spot.  Great.  My jeans are seriously soaked through, the chair is wet, the ground has a little puddle.  I'm slightly horrified, but luckily it is so early that nobody has arrived yet.  I'm so wishing the bathrooms had those hand dryers.  Anyway, I wrap a sweater around my waste, limp to the bathroom, and do my best to dry my pants with a wad of paper towels.  Thirty minutes later I'm still in the drying phase.  Luckily my coworkers are late risers.  What a morning.  And it's only 8am.

 

Lessons Learned:

I had some wardrobe issues this morning related to the color red.  I was getting ready to go to the airport, and since I was going to be on a long flight, I wanted to be comfortable so I chose this long-sleeved red shirt.  Since I messed up my foot last week I can only wear certain shoes, so I was going to wear my red boots.  Red shirt plus red boots...too much?  Both are somewhere between deep and bright red.  I was a little worried about red overkill but I went anyway.  As I got out of the cab I got a glimpse of myself in the glass of the airport doors.  Ugh!  My suitcase is red.  As I got in line for security I took out my wallet which was red too.  I tried to conceal it.  This was embarassing.  As I sat down to take out my computer, my stomach dropped as I saw my red backpack.  And the backpack is a whole other shade than all the rest, so it adds this horrible clash factor.  People can have favorite colors, but this is getting ridiculous.  I'm the kind of person people blog about or talk to their friends about.  Ack!  I hurt my own eyes.  What was I thinking?  Stacy and Clinton would not approve of this.  KStar would probably send me back home.

Enough people asked about the podcast that I decided to bring it back.  It's not the highest quality content in the world, but if you're really bored have a listen.  http://pencilstar.com/Documents/katestory.xml 

 

Oh, and Happy Heart Day

A young boy, bent at the waist, stares intently into a sewer, his face a mere two inches from the grates.  A short walk away, two girls search through the pebbles that make up the walkway, collecting only the whitest, most beautiful stones.  The blonde girl with ringlets proudly displays a handful of sparkly white rocks.  I widen my eyes in approval and make my way past a giant orange sculpture by Andrew Calder called "The Eagle."  I smile because, unlike most people, I can see the eagle.  Continuing on my journey, I walk along the outdoor amphitheatre where a girl diligently climbs up each platform unhaltered by a floor-length floral dress, her fluffy brown workboots peeking out through the bottom in contrast.  A mother chases her son who runs down a hill, flapping his arms up and down through the air.  She smiles at me, shrugs, and says "I guess I'm going that way."  As I exit the park, I look up to see a family of five in the distance, racing toward the park.  They're all going slow enough to make sure everyone keeps up.  The boy slows down, distracted by a dog.  The family arbitrarily stops on the sidewalk, the unofficial finish line.  The mother looks at me and proclaims, "I got last place."  The girl, giggling, agrees.

 

This is my favorite place in Seattle.