ANOTHER ONE GONE: Another day, another school shooting in the Pacific Northwest. Today's carnage was in Troutdale, Ore., just east of Portland. A soccer-loving 14-year-old freshman got up this morning, went to his high school, Reynolds, and within minutes was gunned down on campus. Just another school day in the U.S., it seems. ...
Tomorrow will be one week to the day that the shootings at Seattle Pacific University took place, so close to our home.
Tragic, terrible, and all too common.
SPINNING WHEELS: I can't remember the last time I felt like I had less to show for a day.
This morning, shortly after rush hour, we headed a fur-piece up I-5 to Everett for an oil change. Long way to go to get an oil change, isn't it? But it's 'free' at the dealer where we bought our car, so there we went.
Unfortunately the academic materials I thought we had in the car with us were not, so the kids were stuck playing a knock off of the game Connect Four on a cheap handheld unit in the lobby. CJ was protesting how impossible it was to beat the computer, so I asked him to let me have a go. I handed him the game back within 60-seconds, computer defeated. I suggested he try a bit harder and longer.
It took 50 minutes to get to the oil change, 55 minutes to get home and 55 minutes there. All in all, darn near three hours for an oil change. Ugh.
We were home long enough to get dinner started in the crockpot, do some chores (cleaning, watering), walk the dogs and then it was time to head south, to West Seattle for the kids' yoga class. The class isn't until 4:30, but we leave two hours early because if you wait longer, traffic is awful. So, our strategy is get south, get some stuff done there, and then go to class.
Well, the drive southbound was awful. I could tell that trouble was brewing on the Viaduct before we got on because of the backup, so we took Alaskan Way, along the waterfront. That was mostly OK (except for some CRAZY taxi drivers), but when we got to the stadiums and were trying to head down First, gridlock again. That let me know that something really bad was going on on either the Viaduct or I-5, pushing traffic to the surface streets. Turns out it was a gnarly wreck on 99 just south of the West Seattle Bridge, closing 99 to southbound traffic for hours and hours, and dumping thousands of cars onto surface streets.
We killed what little time we had to waste at Rick's house, checking on a few things and making a few quick fixes, and then it was off to yoga. We got there about 5 minutes before class was to start and found the door locked and the space dark. Uh oh.
I started doing some mental math, wondering if I'd somehow messed up and last week was the last of our 6-week session, but I didn't think so. I told the kids we'd wait until at least 4:35 and if no one showed, we'd take off. We were just about to leave when one of the teachers came hustling down the hallway to tell us the other teacher (whose space we meet at) was stuck on 99 and that there'd be no class today. Argh!
And so, by 4:45, we were headed back north toward home, with 2-plus hours of having accomplished almost nothing again (although this time I did remember to bring the Time for Kids magazines and worksheets with us, so at least the kids did those).
Certainly, tomorrow will be more productive. It almost *has* to be.
SPIN OFFS: NASA released a new public outreach video today showing some of the many ways the space agency's work affects people in their everyday lives. Check it out on YouTube (http://youtu.be/U1Hrq3L0DxY), or right here!
Your day could be described as traffic Purgatory.
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