Today our big plan was to meet up with Cerise in F-Dub and get ourselves out to Orting to say hello to an old junior high teacher we both TAed for in 9th grade. We stopped off to see my sister and have breakfast at the shop, but she was too busy with her architect for much visiting, so we had our bagel and got on our way. Met up with Cerise at the Barnes and Nobel which Val used to work at on Pac Highway, only to discover that Cerise assumed I had found directions to Orting before we left. I had also wrongly assumed Cerise had directions since she was organizing the trip…
Lewis and I did have a Washington/Oregon map on hand which thankfully at least had the town of Orting listed, so we managed to navigate ourselves (albeit somewhat circuitously) to the town and land on the very doorstep of the middle school we were aiming for! It was funny seeing our old teacher, who was looking much younger and more sprightly than I remember her. It’s funny how old and boring you think your teachers are while you’ve got them, only to discover that they were the age you are now when you had them. It turns out she’s was just 30 when she was teaching at Totem, and didn’t even have kids until after we lost touch.
Feeling inspired by our Orting success (and also our delicious Mexican food lunch) we got ourselves back to Federal Way just in time for high school to be letting out, and for us to stop by another new school to see a favorite old teacher, Mr. A. By the time we found his new school, and classroom, and got checked in and all it was just about time for him to leave, but not before he recommended us a new book and made us all merry with his unhinged sense of reality. Seeing Mr. A is like reminding yourself that there’s a whole different way of looking at life out there. As he rode off into the sunset (literally, after having ridden his bike through the halls at his school) we went back to Barnes and Nobel and Cerise and I each bought a copy of his recommended book. We also spent a few minutes saying hey to Cerise’s mom (another teacher!) at her 1st grade classroom in Auburn. I haven’t seen Judy in ages – it was really nice!
That left us just in time to get over to Steen’s house, for she had made us dinner! Cerise didn’t stay through dinner since her lady was waiting for her at home to make her tasty steak, but it was neat having ¾ of the band in one room at the same time. Lewis and I stayed a bit longer to chat and watch Hot Shots, which Joel had just brought home for Steen. That movie is pretty classic, even if all the jokes are ham-handed and cheap. My cold was catching up to me, so we left pretty early.
Lewis was feeling like getting some reading in at an exciting location so we took a pit stop off in Capitol Hill after getting the name and vague location of a coffee shop from Lonnie. We had a bit of a time finding the place, not having realized that 15th Ave and 15th Ave South were so disparately numbered, but we did eventually make it to the proper cross street and intersection. The Victrola Cafe was very pleasant – good chai, good brownie, nice art, chill clientèle, and grooving music. I made it all the way through this week’s Stranger, which is always a really heartening read for a homesick Laurie.
I’m going to miss Seattle an awful lot after our trip this time. But when do I not?