our little adventure last night
Feb. 23rd, 2011 08:10 amMet with photographer last night. Seems like great guy, really seems to know his stuff, pretty sure we're going with him. Spent entirely too much time chatting with him... long enough that Starbucks wanted to close. Well. There went our Cunning Plan of calling a cab from the Starbucks. So we walked Photographer out and said goodbye, and started off back in the direction of home(ish) for lack of a better idea, while we tried to ascertain the best next move. Theoretically, the same bus that brought us there might be running... but it was freezing (literally - it'd been snowing earlier but was now too clear for it), and I hate standing waiting for buses when I'm cold. Better, if you're not too far from known areas, to walk. So we did.
Walked for a while down empty industrial/business area until we found a familiar street that looked like nothing, but which I knew would go through because it was the street address of one of my former jobs at the Seattle Center, walked up that, and followed our noses (and the neon lights) back to a populous strip of restaurants and so on. Had dinner at 10:30 at a pub in Queen Anne, then spent twenty minutes having pub call us a cab, watching for cab, seeing no cab, having cab company call pub to say they came but couldn't find us. Eventually stood outside for ten minutes, watched cab settle in in front of another restaurant a block away. Thought "hang on, that's how they keep saying they've come without us seeing them." Attempt to get cab's attention. ...Cab picks up another fare and drives off, the bastard.
Eventually we gave up on the pub calling them (since clearly the cab company couldn't figure out that this pub with the giant sign proclaiming its name was not whatever that other unmarked restaurant was), and walked over to where bartender said there was a taxi stand. Did not find taxi stand. Did not find anything at all. Suspect bartender just wanted to get rid of us so they have the place to themselves until closing. Started walking back so that we could just catch a cab in front of the other damned restaurant, since it seemed to be such a magnet for them, but fortunately only got halfway down the street before another cab showed up and accepted our hail. Hurray!
Herein came an interesting discovery: When I first moved to the city, I was petrified of cabbies' driving. I mean, really - I thought I was going to die pretty much every time I got in one, because of their habit of speeding and zipping between obstacles and all. But... turns out now that The Boy and I have been using them often enough in the last few years that I'm pretty much over it, and now regard the whole thing with much the same attitude one takes to a roller-coaster. Yes, it seems like you're going slightly too fast and you might hit that monorail pylon, but it's just an optical illusion. Or, you know, a guy who spends his whole working life driving. Same thing, right? Sure.
This realization, I have decided, should not be questioned too much. And should not be applied to cabbies in Las Vegas, who are, in my experience, actually insane and possibly slightly homicidal.
So we got home at about 12:30 (oh god oh god oh god, weeknight), threw ourselves into bed...
And I woke up this morning with a really awful sore throat.
Argh.
But there were nifty things online this morning, at least: IKEA instructions for a Henge. Yes, like Stone Henge. It's adorable. ♥
Walked for a while down empty industrial/business area until we found a familiar street that looked like nothing, but which I knew would go through because it was the street address of one of my former jobs at the Seattle Center, walked up that, and followed our noses (and the neon lights) back to a populous strip of restaurants and so on. Had dinner at 10:30 at a pub in Queen Anne, then spent twenty minutes having pub call us a cab, watching for cab, seeing no cab, having cab company call pub to say they came but couldn't find us. Eventually stood outside for ten minutes, watched cab settle in in front of another restaurant a block away. Thought "hang on, that's how they keep saying they've come without us seeing them." Attempt to get cab's attention. ...Cab picks up another fare and drives off, the bastard.
Eventually we gave up on the pub calling them (since clearly the cab company couldn't figure out that this pub with the giant sign proclaiming its name was not whatever that other unmarked restaurant was), and walked over to where bartender said there was a taxi stand. Did not find taxi stand. Did not find anything at all. Suspect bartender just wanted to get rid of us so they have the place to themselves until closing. Started walking back so that we could just catch a cab in front of the other damned restaurant, since it seemed to be such a magnet for them, but fortunately only got halfway down the street before another cab showed up and accepted our hail. Hurray!
Herein came an interesting discovery: When I first moved to the city, I was petrified of cabbies' driving. I mean, really - I thought I was going to die pretty much every time I got in one, because of their habit of speeding and zipping between obstacles and all. But... turns out now that The Boy and I have been using them often enough in the last few years that I'm pretty much over it, and now regard the whole thing with much the same attitude one takes to a roller-coaster. Yes, it seems like you're going slightly too fast and you might hit that monorail pylon, but it's just an optical illusion. Or, you know, a guy who spends his whole working life driving. Same thing, right? Sure.
This realization, I have decided, should not be questioned too much. And should not be applied to cabbies in Las Vegas, who are, in my experience, actually insane and possibly slightly homicidal.
So we got home at about 12:30 (oh god oh god oh god, weeknight), threw ourselves into bed...
And I woke up this morning with a really awful sore throat.
Argh.
But there were nifty things online this morning, at least: IKEA instructions for a Henge. Yes, like Stone Henge. It's adorable. ♥