anacronyms

Sunday morning. Homemade cappuccino not as good as store-made cappuccino, but it also cost me a hell of lot less than $3.

Picking up where I left off last night, once off Chuckanut Drive, we headed back to I-5 and south to Everett, where we visited the sxKitten’s cousin. After that, we went south again, jumping off I-5 in a vain attempt to find Fremont. We wound up on Eastlake and, on a whim, stopped at a convenient parking spot. We started down the street and the sxKitten pointed to a rustic-looking place.

“How about here? They have free WiFi.” I looked at the menu and saw calzone, then looked inside and saw a big pizza oven out in plain view. In we went¹.

Here she is sitting at the table, checking out the location of the glass museum, which turned out to be in Tacoma. We didn’t make it.

My calzone was excellent, as was the sxKitten’s sandwich. And they had root beer on tap.

We left Pazzo’s and drove in the general direction of downtown. The Miata is fabulous in traffic, light on her feet and sweetly nimble, and with sufficient if not stunning power, so I enjoyed the drive. I always seem to do in this car. The company was mighty pleasant, too.

More by luck than good judgement², we wound up at Seattle Center, turning toward the Needle whenever we saw it. We parked right across the street from the Science Fiction Museum, having made no false turns at all, and in we went.

I don’t know if I’d describe the SciFi museum as riveting. It’s interesting to people like me who grew up with the stuff, and it is very well done. Let me reiterate: VERY well done. It leads you through the history of sci-fi, but it doesn’t touch on sci-fi’s bastard cousin Fantasy much, and as such it has its head firmly in the past. The coolest things: Neil Stephenson’s handwritten first draft of Quicksilver, handwritten in fountain pen and piled to an astonishing depth. Fritz Lieber’s image on the wall in the Hall of Fame section. Nichelle Nichol’s annotated scripts from Star Trek episodes. Letters to/from sci-fi greats.

I realize that this is a personal list. I’d say that if you have read a lot of sci-fi you’ll enjoy the museum. Personally, I think that Halls of Fame are silly popularity contests, rife with political bullshit (I note that Ray Bradbury is in the Hall, but Larry Niven is not: not that this necessarily means anything. I’m just saying) and the HoF stuff is dullish anyway, and is in fact the one part of the musuem that I’d seriously improve if I were in charge.

Anyway, the sxKitten and I enjoyed, sore as our feet were getting (it’s harder to do this stuff at 45 than at 25), and we left. The gift shop was a bust, nothing interesting at all, so we wandered over to the entrance to the Experience Music Project, where I took this:

Right, we have to wander off and pick the kids up on Mayne Island. More later!

1. I don’t understand why places charge for WiFi. What does it cost, $50 per month? $100? You’ll get way more business than that if you offer it for free. Businesses that offer free WiFi seem to be better businesses to me, too.
2. I risk getting in trouble with the Navigatrix, who has a nearly unerring sense of direction, and who navigated us with nearly flawless precision throughout the weekend, but when we’re out together just wandering, we seem to have very good luck.