Wow! What a day.
I went over to Katie’s early in the morning. She’d made cinnamon rolls and we chowed down along with her Korean roommate Ginny–the rolls were fantastic. We did a little bit of work, then I headed back to meet Winnie!
Soon Winnie and I were off towards the Arboretum. We took the scenic route along back of the medical buildings, across the Montlake bridge by my old house, then through the neighborhoods to the Arboretum. It was a day that oscillated between normal cloudiness and stunning, warm brilliance. We walked among the flowers that bloomed. Winnie snapped lots of pictures–she’s always got a picture for every story that she tells. After a long peregrination, past a sequoia grove and a rhododendron glen, and after having an old fellow take a really cute well-framed picture of us with a flower on its branch poking out between us, we finally made it to the hill overlooking much of the arboretum. We looked for some dry grass to sunbathe on but didn’t find any, so we settled on a long delicious hug and then found a bench to sit on. We sat there for a long while talking more about our past lives at the UW, pulling out the umbrella when it started slowly to rain.
We took the bus up the Ave to get a quick lunch at Sizzle and Crunch, then Winnie dropped me at a bus stop whence I went to do my first field trip for my Community Music class. The times and logistics were all screwed up–I met a group of classmates on the way, and we all went to the wrong place first. But we finally made it to where something field-trip-y was going on; it wasn’t the fandango workshop, but rather a community potluck and forum focused on pregones, oral street culture involving door to door sellers and street market-makers. A Pregon was something like a cry, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” but had also a musical component to it, and was very much part of the texture of living in South America in the last centure (to some extent in this century as well). The forum was mostly in Spanish :D with some translations, which was fun, I got to see how much I could understand. We also got to listen to some fandango performed by a big group, including our Profesora and her esposo, which I thought was beautiful. Plus I had a tamal and some Cuban dish involving plantains. Kids were running around like crazy during the whole event, which was super cute.
I ducked out at around 6 and caught the bus with Catelyn from the class. We ended up talking a bit about my unschooling, that was fun. Got back to the UW just in time to watch some UFC fights with Brandon. I got some beer on the way, sat down with the Mercer squad, had a shawarma that Fielder had made. There were lots of fights, and the crew wanted to make mojitos, so I ran to the Sketchway to get sparkling water. I ran into Winnie on the way at the DM (which did not have sparkling water) :D I Leroy ofo’d my way back to Stevens from the Sketchway, with the groceries in the basket of the bike, in record time.
We watched a few more fights and drank mojitos. Had a great time goofing off with everybody, especially Jacob Watkins, catching up with Alex, and so on. The night wore on, and after the title fight Brandon and I had a fun wrestling match. I remembered some side control techniques from judo and managed to hold him down with my superior weight. J and Brandon and I got it into our heads to go outside and fight. After a good deal more goofing off, we walked to a grassy knoll by the docks and had at it. First I fought J–we decided to go no takedowns at first. I tried to mock-punch but J’s punches had real force behind them and it was hard not to reciprocate :P I appreciated J’s Leeroy, but she didn’t want to get too beat up and bowed out. Brandon and J fought, then I fought Brandon. We went for takedowns. Man, it was exhausting once we were on the ground. Brandon had technique and used his legs really well, so I had to compensate with brute strength and effort. I got a lot of mock punches in from a top position, but eventually got choked by Brandon’s sneaky leg tactics and had to submit. Our second fight was even harder fought, with lots of crazy takedown attempts and, did I mention the leg kicks?! We really went at it. Again I got a nice dominant position and landed lots of mock punches, but I couldn’t figure out how to deal with Brandon’s legs and eventually he got me with the same choke :/
We sat on the dock catching our breath. I was really spent. We sang “House of the Rising Sun” on the way back to Stevens. Some samaritan, one of Jacob’s friends, had ordered pizza. I chowed down hungrily, and sat down with Jacob and his buddies. Chowed on a serrano pepper, which baited a poor Jacob-buddy named Sebastian into doing the same. The fellow was dying, but bonded with me over it. I found out that Jacob had broken up with Mackenzie after 2 years in anticipation of grad school long distance–he seemed to be dealing with it really well.
Shirt covered with mud stains and jacket with zipper busted off, I went over to Cedar to say hi to Winnie on a whim–she was still up! We hung out in the Cedar common room for quite a while :D :D Walked her over to Wells Fargo to deposit some drug (ahem, SPS T-shirt) money and headed back to Stevens, where I crashed hard.