Echoes

Spent the morning in bed watching ducks argue on Cottage Lake and not writing my games. Because that's how I roll. Then we packed everything up and schlepped off to meet Amanda's friends who took us down to Pike Place for a late lunch. For those who haven't been, the area around Pike Place Market is a noisy chaotic intricate Brownian motion live action diagram of little card table stands, bigger stands, shops, stores, hippies, hipsters, tourists, natives, buskers, cars creeping and jerking along, trying desperately to find parking on a street that they should know never has parking.

We walked from one end down, grabbing bits here and there. I ended up with
A bowl of nummy butternut squash with croutons
A Diet Coke for sweetie
Four different kinds of nuts, a pound in total
A CD by a guy who looked like Elvis Costello and played a banjo
Han Bao
Potsticker with soy and chili oil
Turkish delight in various flavors including bergamot, rose, and liquorice
A pastry made of filo dough with spinach and feta inside
A not-fresh lemonade that I regretfully declined

The streets come crashing down the steep hill, piling into Pike Place just before they hit the ocean, where a new carousel has sprung up since I was last here, next to the aquarium. The streets are comfortingly uneven, tipped and cracked and rolling, and missing pieces draw my eyes to climb the hill. The sun is bright, shining off the water, and I'm in the city. It feels good. It feels right.