…two of the nicest folk on planet Earth.
Patty had a signing at Aunties (Spokane’s largest indie bookstore, an institution in Spokane)—and we got together for Lennies’ Thai, which set my diet back 2 weeks, but the evening was worth it. We had great food, a great time, enough starchy food (rice and thickening) to take more weeks dieting off, but hey! We love that restaurant.

Of course it was freezing rain, and Patty and Mike and their daughter (who picked them up from another location) had a 3 hour drive into the dark afterward, but we hope to reprise this in warmer weather, maybe in the other direction. Patty threatens to get me on horseback again—Jane swears my figure skating may have restored the core flexibility that would enable me to stay on horseback again without clutching the saddle. I confess to being a chicken rider these days: ‘chicken’ is gripping a secret close fistful of the horse’s mane so if I fall the horse gets his hair pulled, while hoping the horse knows that. It’s the “I’ve got a handful of hair and I’m not afraid to use it” method of riding. Actually, it’s more to prevent me going off head first. I’ve gotten that iffy in balance.

When you drive I-90 out of Spokane in bad weather there are 2 places to worry about: toward Idaho, there’s 4th of July Pass, which is a bottleneck of the sort you may imagine. And in the other direction, there’s the far sneakier Ritzville, which must have offended some ancient gods, or something: it catches the unexpected worst of whatever’s going—wind, ice, snow, volcanic eruptions, whatever: it piles up at flat, unassuming Ritzville, which does not look all that threatening. But it’s dangerous: it actually has more elevation than it seems to. We thought if our friends could clear Ritzville and take the southbound exit, things would rapidly get better: the Columbia River Valley has generally warmer weather, so the closer you get to the river, the weather gets milder.

Anyway, everybody arrived safely and a good time was had by all.