On the road

A few highlights from life on the road this week:

Dinner: Cafe Presse in Seattle. Anywhere that the appetizer is beer with fries and mayo can't be all bad. Cauliflower soup was nutty and good. I confused myself by ordering the beet salad because I don't like beets, and it was kind of just a plate of beets with some blue cheese on the side. I confused myself further by eating a number of said beets, which were not horrible but were still beets. When I commented "whoa, that's a lot of beets" it prompted one of the clients we were having dinner with to say "Remember that you've eaten a lot of beets. Tomorrow when you go to the bathroom don't freak out. No need to schedule an appointment with your doctor. It's just the beets." Um, thanks.

Rental car: PT Cruiser. Emerald green. It has the turning radius of a cruise ship and when my colleague and I took several wrong turns on our way from dinner to the hotel we learned quickly that attempting tight u-turns was only going to result in multiple humiliating three and four-point turns in the middle of the intersection. I'm driving without my glasses but haven't admitted this to my colleague yet. I think she just thinks I am a total jerk driver because I keep having to get over for exits at the last minute and cut people off; but then people expect that when you drive a PT Cruiser. This morning parking at the client's offices we were very satisfied to park next to an identical PT Cruiser. Good stuff.

Breakfast: Cruising downtown Bellevue for a spot to get a quick bite for breakfast, we spot Blazing Bagels. Exactly what we wanted! I pull into an awkward driveway that leads down a hill to an empty lot with uneven pavement and confusing signage. It's empty and early in the morning so I leave the car parked somewhat haphazardly and we walk to get our blazing bagels. Within 45 seconds a grumpy old man is chasing us down (I remember him waving a rolled up newspaper over his head but that's doubtful) saying if we don't move the car immediately he's going to have it towed. Fine then. Colleague goes to get the bagels, I go to get the car. It is at least 15 minutes before she emerges and I see no one else enter or exit, but there's nowhere to park the car so I wait. As she gets into the car, coffees and bagels in hand, she informs me that they're not open for business - they officially open this weekend and they are doing a "soft" opening a few days this week to start getting operations ramped up. Apparently no one knew where anything was, they didn't have most of the things they were supposed to have (eg, bagels) and the woman cursed violently at the toaster most of the 15 minutes that she was in there. The upside: our coffee was free.