what a gas.

In what may well be My Exercise Quotient For The Winter, I went on a run with my friend Nancy at Gas Works Park, an unfortunately named, but pretty, park in northern Seattle. We ran to the Fremont Bridge. David and I know Fremont from our haphazard journey to Woodland Park Zoo a few weeks ago. The neighborhood boasts not only of being "the center of the universe" but even has a Latin motto: De Libertas Quirkas.

It has a Latin motto, so it's settled. I must live there.

My favorite part (other than spending time with Nancy, and getting gifts of Professional Running Clothes Such As I've Never Had Before) was the lunch buffet at Bengal Tiger Indian Restaurant in the U-district. We met up with her friend Donna, also a nurse, and her friend Erica (not a nurse, who looked politely interested as conversation turned, inevitably, to shop talk.)

Any hoo.

In other news, I threw my keys and wallet down the trash chute today.

We won't even get into how I managed to accomplish this feat of incredible ridiculousness, but due to some unnamed maintenance person at the apartment complex, I have them back, in non-compressed form.

Instead of discussing my retarded behavior, we will laugh at the even-lamer remark made by one of the front desk people, who misheard the word "keys" and said, "Wait, a tree? Is it your tree or someone else's tree that's stuck in the trash chute?"

Even more annoyingly, she said it in that flat tone of bureaucratic indifference that translates,"I-really-don't-give-a-fuck-and-hope-I'm-not-the-one-responsible-for-
doing-anything-about-your-dilemma-but-I'm-standing-here-so-I-suppose-I'll-
have-to-feign-interest-and-ask-you."

If I hadn't been more worried about my keys becoming one of those tidy cubes-o-crap you see in cartoons involving the joys of trash compactors, I would have told her to go back to looking unhelpful and dour silently, please.

I mean, seriously. Why bother to pretend you were listening if you're going to say something that asinine as your response?