Unless you are magically, cosmically, soulfully connected with your fellow travelers, just wandering around will very quickly wear everyone’s patience thin, because there are only so many coffees you can stop for, and so many windows you can shop. You soon discover that without work, the only structure a day has is meals, and you’re just waiting around for an excuse to eat another one, so as to put off for a couple of hours the discussion of which way to turn at the next corner. Which is really the dreariest way to look at a meal. I found myself automatically pacing out the snacking, so that we wouldn’t get full, and so would be able to stop and eat whenever something caught our fancy.

First, some Vietnamese sandwiches–I saw the word “Saigon” out of the corner of my eye when going down a staircase in the market, and the goods were delivered. Actually, they weren’t that good, as Vietnamese sandwiches go (very skimpy on the fillings, and no sausage at all), but the restaurant itself was fantastic because it was just a regular kitchen range stuck in the empty space formed by a small U-shaped diner counter. This was all inside a larger hall, with a Bavarian meat place across the way, so it felt a little like Edward Hopper goes to a low-rent World’s Fair.

Then we wandered through the market, and got some mini doughnuts (staring transfixed at the automated mini-doughnut-maker killed a little time). Then we wandered around and looked at produce and incredibly gorgeous flowers. I wouldn’t mind living in Seattle, just so I could get some of those flowers every week. Eventually we wandered over to the monorail (another thing I’d wanted to do on the previous visit with the whole family, but didn’t get to before everyone’s blood sugar crashed), and guess what? It was closed. For repairs. And will be until 2007–or 2009, if you believe the skeptical alternative weekly. So we took the free shuttle bus, which was distinctly unfuturistic.

But at least seeing the Space Needle reminded Beverly of coming here long ago with my dad to visit his maiden aunts, and she started a story with “After her lobotomy…” You know that’s going to be good, right? This involved brain-pruned Aunt May chatting with a drunken sailor on the bus (see–that would never happen in the sticks, right?) and inviting him to church, where he got up and declaimed “Thaaa ain’ whaaa the POPE shaaays!” too often, so then she took him to the Space Needle instead. (I’m sure her maidenhood was preserved–or maybe that had been permanently restored by the lobotomy. I think she was the only one of the aunts–of course there were three–who got married, but it ended badly.) Anyway, also after the lobotomy, my mother said, Aunt May was very fond of pizza and beer, and was greatly delighted by some man outside a bar saying, “Blow it out your ass!” So nice to learn about your roots–so much becomes clear.

After some more wandering around, including across some train tracks and through a hole in a chain-link fence that a bum had just squeezed through, and an all-too-brief ride on an historic streetcar, we reached temporary safety: Borders Books & Music, where we made a protracted consultation of every Seattle guidebook in stock, looking for dinner options and a hotel bar for a drink beforehand. We tried several that looked promising, but: this hotel is too smelly (old men and cigars), this hotel is too cheesy (lots of “in” words on the brunch menu), this hotel is too cool for school (comforting to know the W hotels have made crappy service consistent across the franchise). Finally we gave up and headed straight for dinner at the ungodly hour of 6:30. I’d wanted to go to Harvest Vine, this Basque place that Gabrielle at Prune had recommended for my previous trip (yup–it had been closed too), but at this point it involved driving, and I felt jinxed. I thought my brother might drive off and leave me and my luggage by the side of the road if we got there and found it to be closed as well. (I know–why wasn’t I calling these places beforehand? Because my brain was so fried by then, I didn’t think of it.)

So instead we played it safe and walked to some sushi place nearby, the name of which escapes me. We got to walk through a patch of city that changed significantly every four blocks, which is the best part about cities, and the air was brisk and invigorating. The restaurant was pleasant enough, after we dodged the offer to be seated at the sushi bar–“It’s more fun!” said the irrepressible hostess–and flopped ourselves into a comfy semi-booth.

But I’d forgotten the peril of Japanese restaurants: sooo many choices. Of which I was incapable then. On a good day I can’t remember what everything is on a Japanese menu, and at that point I couldn’t even begin to articulate questions for the placidly blond waitress who stared at me in that very West Coast “I’m trying my utmost to understand you” way, nodding encouragingly. We got some sushi and random appetizers, half of which were not what I thought they would be (and I hadn’t thought through just how enormous salmon cheeks could be). It was all fine, and we ate with gusto (damn, you bet!), especially once the sake came, and in about seven minutes, the serene and impeccably groomed waitress returned to clear the plates, exposing a hopeless mess of soy-soaked rice wads, scraps of chopstick wrappers, fried octopus tentacles and random bits of garnish.

We sipped the rest of our sake and felt our feet warm back up. My brother said something like, “Maybe I should come to Seattle more often–I might just get used it.” One tiny step toward his coming to New York… My flight was due to leave in a couple of hours, so we gathered ourselves for one final shlep, at least this time with a purpose: back to the car. As we were zigzagging back to where I thought the lot was, Casey said, “It’s cool, Zor, how you can just know where you’re going here. I’m completely turned around.” This from someone who can find north in a dense forest by looking at which way all the plants are straining.

But I guess it’s all the same skills: Casey tracks cougars; I track bus lines. I do think most mountains look the same, whereas Casey can probably see distinct plant neighborhoods on each one…but wouldn’t see the differences between Astoria and Greenpoint. Casey will chew up seemingly random weeds and apply the paste to a bug bite, and I’ll swallow a whole plate of beef tendons to fill a hole in my stomach. And he’s probably sitting around in Duvall right now, telling his friends, in a language I barely understand, all the weird little details he noticed about me and my visit.