A birthday, riding, and a trip into Seattle

Wednesday of last week was a very full day here in the GPNW. I spent another hour in the dentist's chair having my new gold onlays installed. It was a laborious process. Although they're fabricated from an impression of one's teeth, final adjustments must be made by grinding on the surface. One of them is in the way back and it was very tedious. My dentist loves doing gold work, he was very happy about the project; me, not so much.
Meanwhile, Jim was taking his bicycle in to the shop because the back wheel was making a funny noise. Turns out his Bontrager wheels have a design flaw that makes the spokes loosen up. Previous incarnations of that wheel have had catastrophic failures, so Jim decided new wheels would be in order. Happy birthday to him!
The day ended on a very pleasant note with dinner at the Calcutta grill. It's on the top of a landfill that has been converted to a golf course. The view from the deck is just spectacular. We went with my Step-Mom, her husband and daughter and had a delightful time. Good food, good friends, good fellowship. What more could you ask for? Oh yes, a spectacular sunset.

In early July, I had an appointment with a cardiac electrophysiologist at Swedish medical center in Seattle. He looked at my Life Watch recordings from the big cardiac event of April 18. The monitors are only a 3 lead recording and so do not provide a ton of detailed information. His put was that he was not convinced that it's atrial fib, that atrial flutter is not contra-indicated. Flutter is better than fib, in that it's easier to treat. I'm going in this Tuesday for another stress test while hooked up to a 12 lead EKG. He's hoping to provoke another arrhythmia event on the treadmill. So, I'm not taking Flecainide for a few days. It's very unnerving. As much as I don't like the drug, after stopping it I realized what a security blanket it has become. We rode yesterday out in the Carnation Valley, and I have to say I tip-toed up the hills with a close eye on the heart rate monitor.
These are escapees from the Party Pony company. Someone left the back gate open. Shortly after I took this, they headed out for greener pastures down the road. Jim went back to tell someone at the party place that they were gone. The woman working there seemed to be more upset that Jim had opened her gate, than the fact that her ponies had gone on walk about. People!

Another view of the river in Carnation Valley, this time with geese.

Friday we had Vicki and Dave over for dinner. I made this. It was a new recipe for me, and I was stressing over it, so much so that I forgot half the meal which was the salad. Fortunately Vicki and my sous chef, Jim, bailed me out on that one. Next time, sticky notes!

Today we had a tenacious marine layer move in. The idea of hiking was just not that appealing so we decided to go into downtown Seattle and walk around. This is 6th Avenue on the way to the exorbitantly priced parking garage.


As all tourists must, we walked down to the Pike Place Market.

The fruits and vegetables are always so lovely to regard.

This is City Fish.


Flowers from the Carnation valley.

This is the Pike Place Fish Market, these are the people who throw the fish. See the young woman on the right? She's a guest fish catcher. She looked pretty dang thrilled about the whole thing.

Donut robot. It automatically puts batter into the fat, flips them over and dumps them out at the end of the conveyor.

Hammering Man. He's a kinetic sculpture in front of the Seattle Art Museum.

We had a pretty interesting sky. It does not appear that the clouds are going to burn off today.

So that's been the latter half of last week and today. We're down to 6% on the truck's oil, so tomorrow there must be an oil change. Diesel engines are very adamant about having clean oil.