Skye and Jared drive up to Seattle with their boys for one night. They arrive just at dinnertime, and we feed them vegetarian Chinese dishes. Skye and Jared leave after dinner to attend a concert at Seattle Center. Bree, meanwhile, heads off to her school’s homecoming dance, coincidentally also at Seattle Center.
Jan, Lyn, and Angela stay behind to watch Leif and Auden. We all walk down the street to the Red Apple market and let each boy pick out a pint of ice cream. Back at home, Jan shows the boys Bree’s new 3D printer, and after they’ve had some ice cream, he lets them each pick a little 3D toy model from an online catalog that he can download and print for them. The boys pick a gecko and a hammerhead shark, and Jan queues up the first print. They’ll each take a couple of hours, so the boys will have to wait until morning to get their toys.
In the late evening, Jan collects Skye, Jared, and Bree from Seattle Center.
We spend the morning with Skye, Jared, Leif, and Auden. Lyn comes over and then we go out to Madison Kitchen for coffee and some time in the park. Leif and Auden are happy to run around the playground while we watch.
Leif and Auden are happy to see their newly-printed shark and gecko. The shark is sturdy, but Auden shakes the flexible gecko a little too hard and its tail breaks off. “It’s okay”, he says, “geckos can regrow their tails.”
We drive up to the Volunteer Park Conservatory. It’s a sunny Sunday morning, so the park is crowded — especially with a “Pet Parade” event going on. Leif and Auden spend some time watching the pets (mostly dogs) dressed up in costumes. We tour through the Conservatory’s set of greenhouses and admire the orchid exhibit they’re currently running.
We have lunch nearby at Coastal Kitchen, and then it’s time for the Hibbard-Swansons to hit the road back to Salem, OR.
In the afternoon, Angela’s brother Johnny arrives from Los Angeles. He’s come to town mostly to see a pre-season Clippers basketball game, but will spend a few days with us as well. It’s great to be able to host him for the first time in a long while.
Bree and Angela attend a Victorian circus-themed charity event to benefit the Moisture Festival, a Seattle comedy/cabaret show.
Jan, Angela, and Johnny have lunch at Belle Epicurean in Madison Valley. Jan and Johnny make the 10 minute walk back to Madison Park. It begins to drizzle a bit, so Johnny’s happy he’s wearing his all-weather coat with hood, and Jan’s happy to have his hiking rain jacket and his wide-brim Outdoor Research “Seattle Sombrero” rain hat.
Before heading to our house, they stop by the Red Apple market. There’s a table outside: two people from the Nature Conservancy are collecting donations. Jan says, “We support you!” One of the people behind the table says, “We could tell from the hat.”
Angela and Johnny watch the Clippers play a pre-season basketball game at Climate Pledge Arena.
In the morning of the day when Bree has to take the standard PSAT test, she’s a little anxious. She’s generally anxious about taking tests, even ones she’s well-prepared for.
She wails a bit, then wails while spinning around. She stops spinning. “Now I’m anxious and dizzy.”
We’ve heard that there will be a partial solar eclipse visible from Seattle today, but we’re not sure when it is.
Jan goes outside a little after 9:00 am to pick up the paper — and notices that the light coming through our front yard magnolia tree is casting crescent-shaped shadows on our house. That’s a sign that the eclipse is happening right now. The dark middle portion of the crescents is actually the shadow of the moon blocking the sun.
Jan goes inside to tell Bree and Angela, then goes downstairs to the basement to search for the eclipse-watching sunglasses we bought for the 2017 solar eclipse. Somewhat miraculously, he finds the sunglasses immediately. We all enjoy observing the eclipse through the glasses.
Jan goes next door to share the experience with the Hausers, who had just been talking about not being able to enjoy the eclipse without glasses. The Hauser kids are suitably amazed to witness the moon eclipsing the sun. A random man out walking his dog comes by, so Jan lends him a pair of eclipse sunglasses too.
Jan goes to the pet store to buy some more fish for our aquarium. We currently have neon tetras, powder blue dwarf gouramis, and julii cory catfish. All three are “community” fish that like to swim with others of their kind — but their numbers have been dwindling, so we’re down to just one lonely neon and one lonely cory.
Jan comes home with more of each kind of fish, including 5 new neon tetras, and goes through the process of getting the fish ready for the tank. An hour later, he sees all six neon tetras swimming in a group.
Moxie introduces his other family. For a number of months, we’ve known that Moxie sometimes disappears somewhere else to spend the night, but we haven’t known where he’s been going. Today Moxie finally reveals the answer to the mystery.
When Jan leaves the house in the morning, Moxie follows him along the sidewalk. If one is willing to walk very slowly and wait for him, it’s possible to get Moxie to walk all the way around the block. Jan turns at the corner of East Garfield Street and walks slowly up the hill, with Moxie tagging along. When the two get to the front of house number 4015, Moxie suddenly meows. Jan stops. Moxie meows some more.
Moxie turns from the sidewalk and walks in through a gate up to the front door of a house. He meows some more, then walks back to Jan.
A young man at the side of the house sees Moxie and Jan, and asks if Moxie is Jan’s cat. The man introduces himself as Dion, and says Moxie is the friendliest cat he’s ever met.
Apparently this past spring, Dion and his brother Dean noticed paw prints inside their house. They thought a raccoon had come in through one of the open upstairs windows (which have no screens). A few nights later, they were relieved to see that the intruder was in fact a cat — Moxie. They later witnessed how Moxie enters the house: he hops up on a side fence, walks along the fence, hops onto their garage roof, then leaps over 10 feet of air to the house’s roof, then walks along the roof until he finds an open upstairs window. Apparently Moxie likes to come in and scratch their Persian carpets.
Happily for us (and Moxie), Dion and Dean like Moxie. They do find it a little surprising to wake up at 3:00 am with a cat next to them. They don’t feed him, but just shepherd him outside. They could tell he was well-fed and cared for, but never knew where he belonged. (We used to have a collar on Moxie, but years ago he worked out the trick of getting it off.)
We’re happy that Moxie was kind enough to introduce us to his friends. The two had tentatively referred to him as “Clifford”, but now they know his name.
Angela and Jan fly to California for Angela’s 30th Stanford reunion. This will also be the occasion for a small family reunion: Liya happens to have a long weekend off from school too, and has already arrived at Stanford. Today also happens to be Evan’s 22nd birthday, so the four of us will get together for dinner to celebrate that. (Bree has school, so she’ll stay at home on her own.)
Angela and Jan make their way from San Jose airport up to Palo Alto and check in at the new Nobu hotel in the downtown area. They make the long walk onto the Stanford campus and find the place where Angela can pick up our reunion badges and whatnot. Liya comes to join us there — it’s the first time we’ve seen her since she started her junior year in August. We walk over to Evan’s room in Ng House. We hang out for a while playing vinyl records on Evan’s retro turntable.
Eventually we’re joined by Evan’s Choate friend, Sen-ching, and the five of us call an Uber for the ride to a Georgian restaurant called Bevri. We call the restaurant to tell them we’ll be a little late — and discover that our reservation is actually at the Bevri restaurant in Los Altos, not Palo Alto. Happily the Los Altos location isn’t too busy, so can hold our table for the longer time it takes us to get there.
Evan and Sen-ching discovered Bevri a while back, and they order two of their favorite dishes: one’s a bread-shaped boat full of melted cheese with an egg in it; the other’s a plate of large soup dumplings. The food’s all interesting. Angela’s college friend, Dana, meets us at the restaurant and joins us for dinner.
We’d been planning to have dessert in Palo Alto, but Evan wants to return to his dorm room to straighten up before his friends start showing up for a birthday party at 9:00. Liya will attend the party too. (The fact that the party is in Evan’s room, where Liya is staying, will obligate Liya to stay up until the party winds down at midnight. Still on East Coast time, Liya’s exhausted by the time she finally gets to bed.)
Jan, Angela, and Dana go to Salt & Straw on University Avenue, and wait in the long line for ice cream. They eat their ice cream in a nearby plaza, then say goodbye to Dana and return to the hotel.
Jan and Angela meet up with Angela’s childhood friend, Dwight, and his wife Leigh for breakfast at Hobee’s. Angela and Dwight have known each other since second grade. He and Leigh now live in the Catskills of upstate New York, where they own a drive-in movie theater. They give Jan and Angela a ride back to campus, and the four walk together to the Tressider Union to meet up with Evan and Liya.
Angela heads to the first of many reunion events, while Evan takes Jan and Liya to the Arizona Garden at the edge of Stanford’s campus. The garden is full of really interesting cacti and other desert plants, including a giant yucca tree. From there, the three walk to the Town & Country Village mall, where they have tasty chicken burgers at Kirk’s. The place is empty when they step up to the counter to place their order — but when they turn around, 40 high schoolers from neighboring Palo Alto High have walked in to get lunch.
They catch a Marguerite Shuttle back to campus. Evan and Liya go off to study. Angela takes Jan to the Class of 1993 Discussion Panel, which is actually fairly interesting as alumni panels go. Janice, a classmate of Angela’s, opens with an personal account of wrestling with mental illness.
Jan leaves early to meet up with a longtime friend, Michelle, who lives in Palo Alto. Angela, meanwhile, meets up with her childhood friend, Bernie. We reunite at Angela’s Chi Omega reunion off in Palo Alto, then walk back to the hotel and, eventually, back to campus for the Class of 1993 reunion party. It’s far too loud to have good discussions, but Angela does reconnect with a number of classmates. Jan’s surprised to see a man he recognizes (and Angela doesn’t), but for the life of him, Jan can’t remember how he knows this person. He’s relieved when the man explains to a third person that he used to work at Google, and that Jan had done some work with that group.
In the morning, Jan goes over to Menlo Park to see Aarati, a friend from his days at Cozi. She moved to Palo Alto a while back with her husband, Andrew, and they now have two kids, Alex and Alicia. Angela attends a class at Stanford’s Design School.
Jan makes his way back to campus, and reconnects with Liya while she’s finishing up a tour of some of the interesting trees on the Stanford campus. They have lunch at the Treehouse; Angela comes to join as well. Later they go a Asian-American / Pacific Islander reunion event at the Old Union where they’re serving boba drinks. Liya goes back to Ng House, while Angela and Jan go to a reunion event for students that lived in Madera House (now called Okada). After that they head to another off-campus event for the Class of 1993.
Jan meets up with Evan and Liya again for dessert in downtown Palo Alto. On Evan’s recommendation, they go to Somisomi, a taiyaki (Japanese waffle) place. Afterwards they spend a little time at the hotel before Evan and Liya return to campus.
Bree has been working on a Halloween costume of Mabel Pines, a girl who appears on the cartoon Gravity Falls. Bree’s modified a pink sweatshirt to add the star and rainbow that appear on Mabel’s outfit.
Mabel is also known for carrying a grappling hook gun. Bree it trying to work out some way to shoot the hook and then reel it back in. Jan remembers that he has just the thing: a fishing reel.
We don’t fish, but a couple of years ago, Jan and Liya had been camping at a lake in the Cascade Mountains and found that some thoughtless hiker had left a broken fishing rod and reel by the lakeshore. He’d packed out the trash, but held onto the still-working fishing reel. It was not at all clear when or if this reel would ever find any use. But the reel turns out to be a perfect attachment for Bree’s grappling hook gun.
Bree and her friend Charlie dress up for Halloween as Mabel and Dipper Pines from the cartoon, Gravity Falls.