Skagit River Bridge Collapse

Paraphrased quote from several news reports regarding the collapse of the I-5 Bridge: "...the only connecting bridge between Anacortes and the Mainland collapses spilling cars and people into water..."

As a local who grew up in Anacortes and spent the first 20+ years of my life there, this make me *itch* because I know of AT LEAST 4 simple alternate routes to Anacortes from Mount Vernon and/or Burlington. The I-5 Bridge isn't what you use to get to my home town, it's what you use when you want to bypass all the towns along the way so you can get to Bellingham and/or Canada.

It SHOULD read "Drivers on their way to Canada will unfortunately be forced to endure up to a half-mile of Mount Vernon and/or Burlington. If you need to go to Anacortes, you'll already know of nearly a half-dozen alternate routes that are SO MUCH BETTER than taking I-5 all the way to Burlington".

I guess wat I'm trying to get at here is that they just need to leave my home town OUT of this :)

FOURTH OF JULY DEMOLITION DERBY? YES PLEASE!

I think I know what we're doing for the Fourth Of July this year... Demolition Derby in Monroe! We owe a huge debt to Todd and Andrea who showed us the wonders of the Demolition Derby some dozen years ago, and I admit I was VERY skeptical at first because, really, what kind of people pay to watch other people get into car wrecks on purpose?

AWESOME people pay to watch other people get in to car wrecks on purpose, THAT'S who!

It is my hope and my belief that a Demolition Derby is the closest I will ever come to an apocalyptic Mad Max future AND I LOVE IT!

If we DO end up going, it'll be Molly's first ever Demolition Derby. This one's a little pricey ($20 per adult, $10 per kid), but I think it's going to be worth it if for no other reason than the "BYOBus" event! Bring a bus and as long as it's running, you can wreck it!

Not sure I handled that right?

Molly and Cougar played at the park today after school, and Cougar's little sister ("Johnnie") who is maybe 5 years old came along with us. I offered to watch all the kids so that their big brother (Joshua) could get a few things done. This is maybe the 4th or 5th "Play Date" we've had over the course of us all living in the same neighborhood and going to the same school and being in the same class, so it's not like we're * familiar* or anything.

Walking back to their house afterwards, the littlest girl grabbed my hand and kind of cuddled into me, she's very sweet :)

So then we were at their house and the kids are running around, and Johnny comes up to me and gives me a GREAT BIG HUG and I say "Awwwwww thank you!" and then she turns her face up to me all puckered-up in the universal little kid sign of "Gimmee beeeeeg keess!" and I just instinctively bent down to kiss her right on the lips!

I stopped just short of actually kissing her and just kind of air-kissed at her making a "MWAA!" sound, which seems to have satisfied her and she went off being a kid again, but I have mixed feelings about this...

I *think* I handled it okay? I mean, how weird would it be to have sombody you barely know kiss your kid? But on the other side, kids NEED lots of hugs and snuggles and kisses... would it have been better if I had gone in to a long dissertation about how it's inappropriate and wrong and oh look now you have a hang-up about kissing that you can tell your therapist about in 20 years.