Thursdays are my days to stay home in the morning and take the hypermuffin to gymnastics class. After I drop her off at home with Andrew and the baby, I drive to the Park'n'Ride and take the express bus to downtown Seattle.

Today as I was looking at the wall with the electronic bus schedule display, I looked down and saw a lime on the sidewalk. A whole, unblemished lime. It must have fallen out of someone's grocery bag. So I picked it up and put it in my lunch bag.



Not the actual lime...

but clearly a close relative

What does this mean? Is there symbolism around tasting of a forbidden lime, a la the apple or the pomegranate? If I eat of this, am I doomed to be tart for the rest of my life??

What would Jung say about finding a lime and bringing it home with one? And more importantly -- what say you, O Internet? I ask you a simple question: What, oh what should I do with it now?

Poll #1196086 Arrr, it be a scurvy poll what ye be seein'
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What to do with the lime?

A few weeks ago I took my seat on the 41 headed back up to the Northgate Park 'n' Ride, and found a mysterious piece of folded paper sitting next to me.

OK, it wasn't really all that mysterious. It was -- nay, it is, for it is sitting here to the right of my laptop, next to the congealing remains of my oatmeal with brown sugar and diced apples -- two sheets of paper, stapled together at the upper left. The first sheet lists the ingredients for "Thai Rice Pudding," and the second sheet has the instructions. (They probably should have tried to fit both chunks of text on one page, to save paper. Then again, they shouldn't have gone to all the trouble of printing it out only to abandon it on the bus.)

There's a hand-written phone number at the top of the page, next to "N-gate QFC." So now I know the Northgate QFC's phone number without having to look it up in the phone book. Thanks, mystery bus person!

Anyway,  here is what the paper says. Now we can all make Thai Rice Pudding in the comfort and safety of our own homes. I'm transcribing it word-for-word, down to the missing close-parenthesis in the first paragraph. ;-)

The scary-looking Zymogenetics building has a big banner on it reading:

FDA APPROVES RECOMBINANT THROMBIN!

Fill in joke here. Please note that "Hey, Recombinant Thrombin is my favorite band!" has already been taken.

You may recall that my dashing husband polytrypos has a habit of misadventures on the Metro bus. There was another one a few weeks ago as he was busing home after his 4 - midnight shift.

Two guys got on the bus and walked past where he was sitting. One of them did a double-take, continued past -- then turned back to talk to Andrew.

"Excuse me, but I can't help but wonder -- are you R. L. Stine?" he asked.

"Um," said Andrew. "No."

"Are you sure?" the guy asked. (That questions always cracks me up. What was he supposed to say -- "Gosh, now that you mention it, I suddenly remembered that in fact I am!")

So, what do you think? Is my husband holding out on me to preserve his extensive royalties from my Visa-slinging ways?

(Letter sent May 3, 2005)

Hi all!

Life continues interesting here in sunny Seattle. Today is the one-month "birthday" of our little sugar-cone, Vivian Joan. In just a few short weeks she has gained many skills. We call her our "baby mage" because of her wild and expressive hand gestures. But while most magicians practice White Magic or Black Magic, we're pretty sure she practices Pink Magic... specifically, Pink Magic With Little Flowers and Bunnies On It.

(Fun baby game: Watch Vivian making hand gestures. Provide voice-over commentary naming the spells she's casting.
(Baby flings one hand up towards the sky) Catherine: "Chain Lightning!"
(Baby shoves tiny fist into mouth) Andrew: "Sustain Self!"
etc.)

So, this morning Andrew headed off to work as usual. He got on the bus and sat there, as is the usual way of things. At one stop the bus failed to start moving again. "Hmmm," he thought. "Wonder if there's a technical difficulty." The bus sat there. And sat there. Then, some policemen got on the bus.

"Aha!" Andrew thought. "They're here to take someone away! Wonder who?" And he started looking around to see who would be taken off by the fuzz.

Only to be surprised when they came for him.

Yes, someone had mistaken Andrew for a dangerous terrorist, and had reported his presence to the local authorities. The police took Andrew off the bus and spent 10 minutes or so running his identity through their computer systems, and then apologized and let him go. The Metro Transit Authority man ran him in to work in his little Metro Transit Authority van.

Now, I know Andrew has a beard and was wearing his black bomber jacket. He may also have had unkempt hair. But a terrorist? If Andrew were going to wreak havoc upon civilized society (which I'm not ruling out, mind you) I think he would be a bit more subtle about it than resorting to crass violence. He would probably (this is just a guess) manipulate people and institutions so that his desired outcome was achieved, without anyone being able to trace anything back to him. (Come to think of it... this might explain a lot about the state of the world today. ANDREW! GET OVER HERE!!)

Regards to all from the Palatine cell of the insurrection.

-- "Blade of Justice" Catherine, "Mad Dog" Andrew, and Vivian of the Shining Fountain of Spitup

The "new" old Taurus is getting all its fluids changed today. It also needs a new transmission pan -- the one it has is leaking a fair amount, according to the lube'n'tune place where I dropped it off this morning. The estimate for everything (transmission flush, new pan, cooling system flush, oil change, check all fluids) is $264.95 (sigh).

We had quite an adventure last night!

We were on the bus home when I suddenly gave a start and asked "Where's my purse??"