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Friday morning, after sleeping until after 10:00 (and thus too late for breakfast at the B&B), I headed down to Broadway (the main drag of Capitol Hill) to Caffe Minnie’s (which I think is at least a little better than this review), where I had their Frank Sinatra omelette (Italian sausage, black olives, garlic, and pepper jack cheese).
Returning to the B&B, I called my parents, who were already on their way from their home on Bainbridge Island (a 30-minute ferry ride from Seattle), although this time they were driving through Bremerton and Tacoma because my father had had a doctor appointment to deal with the effects of his cancer treatments. (He was diagnosed with a brain tumor when they were on vacation in Hawai’i last May. He seems to be doing well, although his mental acuity is down a little from what it used to be. Prognosis is good.)
After arranging to meet them at Marie Callender’s at Northgate Shopping Center, I headed to Seattle’s SODO district (originally “South of Dome”, but with the demise of the Kingdome, now “South of Docks”) to visit a military/outdoors store called Surplus Too. (Corner of First and Lander. Also within a block of there are Home Depot, Sears, and the Starbucks corporate headquarters. It’s a butch fags dreamland, I tell you!) I had first found Surplus Too in January 1999, when a friend from Seattle and I jaunted down there. That time, I didn’t buy anything, but this time I came out with two pairs of 16" rubber boots (black LaCrosse [“Monarch,” I believe] and gray Northerner; the gray ones have a foam insole, making them both more comfortable and probably better for the feet) and a pair of elbow length rubber-coated gloves. (Later in the weekend, I was told that Surplus Too tends to be expensive — not that I was complaining at getting two pairs of boots for less than $45 total — and another place was suggested for my next trip: Ed’s Surplus.)
I had wanted to stop in at Zanadu Comics in the U District or Comics Dungeon in Wallingford on my way to lunch, but I ran out of time. Up to Northgate it was. Beautiful weather, and looking at the views, I was reminded just how much I love Seattle. Even in the rain, it is home.
At Northgate, I was struck by (but didn’t comment on) how much older my parents are starting to look. (My father turned 60 in 1999, and Mommy mother turned 55.) In my father’s case, the cancer and subsequent treatments have a lot to do with it, I’m sure; among other things, they hastened his receding hairline. His illness probably didn’t help my mother any, but as well, her hair is grayer than I remember (although I know she used to color it when I was a kid, and may have continued for quite some time).
Leaving them, I headed north, expecting about three hours to Vancouver. My estimates to the border (2.5 hours) were fairly accurate, although extended by a little bit as I made three exits along the way in attempts to find a new memory card for my digital camera. (I finally found a Circuit City at Bell’s Fair Mall in Bellingham. Interestingly, prices have fallen a lot on these cards, as I paid half of what I did for one in Reno eleven months before, and got twice as much memory.)
The wait at the border was only a few minutes, and then I got the rundown of “where are you from, ho long are you staying, what are you doing” questions, plus the “do you have any produce, guns, or cigarettes with you” ones. Alas, my estimates for getting from the border to Vancouver were way off, because two highways merged into one and sent four lanes down to a single one to go through the Richmond tunnel: it took over 45 minutes to go a mile. Needless to say, I was not in a great mood when I got to Vancouver proper.
Before leaving California, I had tried to get a map of Vancouver city streets based on the hotel’s address, but to no avail. Yahoo! Maps and MapBlast! (same source, actually) will give you maps of Canadian cities, but refuse to do anything with particular addresses. (I’ve since been recommended to get Canadian address maps via http://www.mybc.com.) I had called the Dufferin Hotel for direction from California, but misheard the person: he said 1st, but I thought he said 41st! My maps didn’t show Seymour Street, so after driving around in what I figured should be the right area, I finally headed back to Granville Street, found a phone, and called again. This time I got better directions, and was at the hotel (a couple miles further on, all the way into downtown) in a few minutes.
Checking in, I met a couple other guys who were in for Rubbout — Mike from Seattle, and Don from Orlando. They sort of offered to do dinner with me, since they were on their way out then, but I needed a nap first. The room was — as I had been warned by Barry from San Francisco and Sandy from Austin (both of whom had attended Rubbout 8; Sandy was in San Francisco the previous weekend) — a hotbox. The entire weekend, it was like the heat was tuned on. Fortunately, there was a fan in the room, which I ended up having turned on almost the entire weekend. After about a 90-minute nap, I wandered around the nearby blocks looking for a place to eat, but nothing really appealed; I ended up back at The Gate of India with some tandoori chicken.
(I was walking around in the gray boots, with my pants tucked into them, of course. I never got such looks — and comments [“Hey, boot boy!”] — from the passers-by. Most notable was a guy at the Kitto Japanese restaurant whose head turned away from his dining partner to watch my feet as I walked by!)
After dinner, it was over to Chuck’s Pub for the Friday night bar night, which was basically just a get-together, plus a coat check hosted by the Vancouver Leather Alliance and a door prize drawing. (It turns out that Chuck's is in the same hotel as the Lotus Club, which used to be Vancouver's gay country-western venue, so I had actually been to the building before; the Lotus Club is now a goth lesbian club or some such.) About a dozen or so guys were there — Bill commented about how hard it was to get locals to show up — including the five Americans (me, Mike Don, and Bill and David from Port Townsend; Bill is the founder of the New World Rubber Men). (Bill Houghton also commented that Chuck’s usually had a drag show on Friday nights, with Saturday being the more leathery night. Uncertainty on just what they might find could have had something to do with the turnout, I suppose.) The beer was good and the company friendly, though. A bit overly friendly, if you count the tight little jerk-off circle we had in the middle of the bar at one point!
A guy named Don tried his best to pick me up, but I wasn’t really attracted to him, although I appreciated the attention. I didn’t go home empty handed, though — in fact, I didn’t go back to the hotel at all. Nice view from up on the 23rd floor of that apartment building in the ’burbs.
Spring in the Air
Surplus Too
Home Depot
Starbucks
My Parents
At the Border
Dufferin Hotel
Dufferin Business Card
Rubbout 9 Button
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