The exciting conclusion of my seemingly never-ending quest to get to The Presidio. Don’t forget to read Part 1 and Part 2!

After my many attempts to find Presidio, certain historical accounts, both fictional and non, started to make sense to me.

I understood, for example, a bit of how Moses felt, wandering the desert for 40 years.

I have a better inclination of what drove Dorothy down the yellow brick road in the company of three gay mutants.

And perhaps the greatest fictional work of young souls leaving home in search of themselves, (I speak, of course, of Britney Spears’ Crossroads), was now more achingly beautiful that it had ever been.

After a day spent pulling out my hair and kicking the innocent, I met up with my husband and we had dinner with some friends who lived outside of the city. I told them about my mishaps.

“Why the fuck would you want to go to the Presidio?” they eloquently inquired.

I told them about the views. I might have omitted all the stuff about Duran Duran and caramel apples. One of our friends shook his head, explaining that most of the Presidio wasn’t that great. I should just go to Golden Gate Bridge. And when I asked him about the bridge and surrounding park in further detail, he explained something to me that might have made my head explode. All the positive attributes I had accredited to the Presidio? They applied to Golden Gate Park.

So, naturally, I decided to go there.

(more…)

Dear Seattle Center;

Okay, I admit it: I’m officially worried about you. This post was going to be another Dick Move!, but when I started to consider things a little more, I switched gears from “blinded by rage” to “concerned about your well-being.”

Seriously, we need to talk.

Have you completely given up?

Because it’s starting to feel like it. When I visited back in the spring with Desiree, I had hoped that the things I witnessed (cranky personnel, jacked-up prices, and a general air of pure hate for mankind) were simply a phase you were going through. I mean, you have gone through phases. Remember this? Or the time you thought you should go back to your original color? Sigh. But we got through that together, didn’t we?

I figured, the next time I see Seattle Center, it will be cheerful and upbeat and back to its old tricks. But that wasn’t the case.

I once again had out-of-town visitors (including Katie and my poor, easily-corrupted cousin) and since none of them had ever visited the Space Needle, it seemed like an obvious excursion. Why? Because people LOVE you, Space Needle. And for some reason, you think that it gives you license to suck.

(more…)

Warning: some of the links in this post go to sites that quack, loudly. It is horrible and designers of those sites are morons. I suggest turning off the volume on your computer should you intend to click on anything.

-

I recently wrote a guest post for a travel blog, imploring people to be tourists in their hometowns. After all, no matter how tacky the results, you’re almost guaranteed to have fun, snapping photos and eating samples of local delicacies, and speaking with fake Minnesotan accents (which I believe to be one of the most noble of all American accents).

As an intro and example, I mentioned how several weeks ago, my friend Desiree came up from Florida to visit me and our friend Jamie (another Floridian who happens to live in Seattle, too) and how the three of us embarked on one of those tacky Seattle Duck Tours. I mentioned how it was ridiculous and silly and a lot of fun.

We even bought the obnoxious tour photo. (I am too lazy to edit out the copyright. I wonder what will happen.)

- (more…)

Though the extensive cloud-cover, rain, and 50-degree weather suggests otherwise, it’s nearly summertime here in Seattle. I’m quite excited, because it means that those of us who live here can emerge out of our Snuggie cocoons and venture outside, squinting, somewhat horrified, at the sun.

It also means that quite a few folks will be heading up to Seattle from various locales in search of fun and interesting things to do. Any many of them insist on bringing their children, because apparently you can’t leave a four-year old in a hotel room alone, and leaving them alone at home is an even bigger no-no (I’m speculating here).

So, after nagging my friends who are parents (yet again) and searching the recesses of my brain for any suppressed childhood memories about Seattle tourist attractions (which only resulted in me uncovering a memory about how I was afraid of Shilshole beach because I thought mutant starfish lived there), I’ve come up with my Top Ten Seattle Attractions for Kids. Remember: I have no children. And I’m kind of afraid of them, anyway. So if this post is totally off, remember that you’re the one taking advice from a childless blogger who swears like a sailor. (more…)

I am extremely excited, and honored, to introduce my very first guest blogger, Christine! Despite a very busy schedule, she look some time to write a post about an important subject (of which I know absolutely nothing): taking your little one to a theme park for the very first time.
-

I still remember my first trip to a theme park. My parents took my brother, sister and me to the Magic Kingdom. My aunt, uncle and two cousins came along too. It was a great day. Sunny, lots of ice cream, Disney characters, fun rides.

Now, twenty-four years later, I’m the proud mother of a two-year-old boy, Jackson.
-

Isn't he cute? I'm biased, but I think he's gorgeous.

-

A couple of weeks ago, my fiancé, Jason, and I were able to take Friday afternoon off; we decided to make the most of it and bring Jackson to Orlando for his first theme park experience. We stayed with my brother, and he came along. All four of us had a ball, and I learned that bringing a child to a theme park requires planning and proper expectations in order to have a good time.

Below are some of my tips for success with small children at theme parks, based on years of personal experience as a child, and my new parental perspective:

(more…)

Please, Please do not read this post at work. Or around children. Or your mom. The photos included are most certainly Not Safe For Work, and don’t want to receive an email lecturing me about not having warned you. Because I just did.

-

Dear Friends;

Despite my incredibly foul mouth, my godless behavior, and my penchance for desserts with the word “sex” in their title, I am a bit of a prude.

No, seriously. My mother and I once had a brief talk about sex. It started with her asking me a question, and me responding with, “We are so not having that conversation.”

And that was the end of that.

I mean, I was raised Catholic. And as Stephen Colbert notes, Catholic girls either come out really repressed, or really crazy. And I fall firmly in that first category. I mean, when my doctor asks if I’m sexually active, I kind of want to tell her, “No. No I am not.” Even though I’ve been with my husband for 9 years. Because having someone think I’m in some weird sexless marriage is actually preferable them knowing I have sex (which I totally don’t, by the way).

Welcome to my neuroses, folks. There’s plenty to go to around.

You might wonder why, then, neurotic as I am, I would decide to visit something as racy as New York City’s Museum of Sex. And really, the reaons are two-fold. The first is that I’m actually able to talk and write and think about sex, in the context of something as culturally enriching and wholesome as a museum! And the second is that I think it’s good to confront the things in life that make you uncomfortable. And, boy, is there stuff in the Museum of Sex that would make anyone uncomfortable, prude or no.

I will tell you now that, after the jump, the photos get … racy, to say the least.

(more…)

Note: Photography is not allowed inside the Tenement Museum. All of the pictures of the interior of the building are property of the Tenement Museum and can be seen on their Flickr photostream. Most of the exterior photos are mine, unless otherwise noted.

-

The challenge I’ve presented to myself before writing this blog post was as follows: tell you about the Tenement Museum. Try, to some degree, to incorporate exactly how much it meant to me. Make some reference to the current situation that immigrants now face in Arizona.

And do everything without getting too emotional.

I seriously doubt I can do that. Because here’s the thing: my family is right off the boat. As in, there was an effing boat.

This is my father, at left, with his brother. And the boat they came in on. Circa 1950.

(more…)

Convinced I haven’t alienated all of my god-fearing readers with this post, I’ve decided to run the rest off by writing about my visit to The Cathedral of St. John the Divine on New York’s Upper West Side.

Prior to visiting the cathedral, my only familiarity with St. John the Divine was as the preferred name of a flamboyant gay man I once met.

But it might have been Karl.

Whatever.

The truth is, despite being an accused heathen and confirmed heretic, I quite enjoy churches. I think they are often pretty and serene, and if I’m able to ignore the unpleasantries that come to mind upon hearing the term “organized religion”, I tend to have a good time. Our visit to St. John’s Cathedral was no exception.

It helped that it was a beautiful day. I suppose I have god to thank for that, but really, who’s keeping track?
(more…)

By now you’ve all heard about the volcano that erupted in Iceland, grounding thousands of planes across Europe, costing the airline industry millions of dollars, and dumping a copious quantity of incredibly fine ash across the continent. In other words: it’s made a pretty big name for itself, as far as volcanoes go.

If you have not heard about it, let me be first the welcome you to Earth. I assume you are here to take the Kardashians back to their home planet, and I’m more than okay with that. I never really accepted them as part of our species, anyway.

Also, seriously, how on (insert your planet here) were you able to avoid news coverage on this issue? It’s been covered in absolutely every paper and news outlet I can think of, despite the name of volcano itself being practically unpronounceable. NPR actually provides the correct pronunciation, which is actually worse that trying to spell it. Eyjafjallajokull. And just an FYI: in Icelandic, the double-l is actually pronounced as t-ll. That should clear things up, right?

My infant tongue can make of this name nothing longer or more explicit than Eye-uh-fyall, so we’ll just go with that.

Just last week I was quietly lamenting to my husband that it would be nice to visit Eye-uh-fyall, and our exchange shed some light on just how much of a space cadet I am.

Me: I’d really like to go see that volcano in Iceland.

Rand: Again?

Me: Zuh?

Rand: You know we’ve been there, right?

Me: What the crap-hell are you talking about?

Rand: You remember the hike we went on in Iceland? We saw that glacier that was up on a mountain?

Me: Uh- huh … you mean that was the same place?

Rand: Yup.

-

(more…)

Okay, first, a few disclaimers: my friend Christine suggested we visit a grocery store called Stew Leonard’s while we were in New York. Christine is all kinds of lovely, and I trust her judgment completely (check out some of her brilliance). Sadly, we didn’t have the sort of visit I (nor Christine, I suspect) would have hoped for. Nevertheless, I’m completely glad we made the trip there: it was fun and surreal. Plus, how could I not go to a place that’s been described as “The Disneyland of Dairy” in The New York Times? And while things didn’t exactly go as planned, I actually like it when it happens during travel. It usually makes for a good story. And let’s be brutally honest: sometimes Dick Moves! make for great stories.

Like Disneyland, Stew Leonard’s even has its own clearly marked exit off the freeway, and has a street named for it.

Yay! I love cow products!

-

(more…)