Greetings from Ballard

I spent Saturday with my friend-in-fandom of many years Pam and her husband Rick, whom I'd seen at a couple of conventions and talked to online many times in the past 25 years, but had not simply hung out with since they visited us in Maryland in 1997! They had been at the aquarium, so we met them downtown, walked through Pike's Market, then headed to Ballard for lunch at the Thai restaurant Secret Savory and a visit to the locks, which already have lots of salmon passing through -- and therefore seals hunting the salmon. Despite the wildfire haze, it was a lovely day and so great to spend time with them!

It was also the first day of Pokemon Go Fest, so I went to Idylwood Park in the morning to do some research and a couple of raids, then caught lots of Pokemon over the course of the day to eventually capture Diancie and a bunch of other new and rare creatures. Though we didn't see most of the Mariners or Orioles games, they both won -- the Mariners by a lot, the Orioles squeaking by -- and in the evening we watched You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, a lot of which is very cringey, not least on the occasions when it's somewhat on the nose about performative upper class Reform Judaism.