Entries Tagged 'Urban Utopia' ↓

Yesterday I celebrated my first year-anniversary of moving to Seattle, and was convinced (after a couple of glasses of wine) to accept a free tarot reading.

Now, first off, I don’t believe one bit in psychic nonsense. I consider it simply another form of therapy or counseling, albeit with someone who doesn’t have any sort of “serious” book-learning. Granted, there likely are a fair amount of counselors and therapists who also have no serious qualifications.

Anyways.

The first card, which was supposed to represent me, was The Hermit, which described me fairly well. The second, to represent where I want to be, was the Princess of Cups. Also fairly accurate. The third, to represent my movement from my current situation towards where I want to be, was the Prince of Wands. The fourth, to represent the method by which I proceed towards my goal, was the Eight of Cups (Indolence). The explanation for this was fairly redundant with that of the Prince of Wands.

Finally, the “outcome card” was The Chariot which has a nice little description:

The Chariot alerts us to the fact that a conflict is arising. However, it also gives us confidence in our ability to meet it and defeat it. Energy, will power, and resolution are available. If all resources are focused on the job at hand the potential for success is high.

In the card a knight stands ready to fight. He has many shields behind him, representing the many battles he has won. Two watches stand on either side of him representing conflicting emotions or planes of thought. The promise of success is within his grasp, as portrayed by the rich green palm fronds in front of him.

Essentially, the summary version of his interpretation is that I am in a difficult situation and must remain emotionally strong to work my way through it to eventual success. Pretty good advice for just about any situation, really, and it has served me well this last year.

All in all, it was an amusing / entertaining little ritual to be involved in and I recommend you try it out if given the opportunity. I could certainly see how people who are less grounded than I may be taken in by it. The question I asked will remain triple-x top secret, but the fellow doing the reading did a good job of interpreting my reactions to various things and all in all told me what I wanted to hear. I am pleased.

Yesterday I met up with Graham for the first time — we planned to have some Thai food and see Sweeney Todd at Lincoln Square. But, what? I’ve already seen it! Yes yes, but I didn’t mind seeing it again (without chair-kicking fuckwits behind me) and Graham worked backstage of the show before and wanted to see the film version. Also, Johnny Depp.

We met at Bellevue Square, at a fountain outside of Macy’s. He came from the parking garage across the way and I from within the mall, so there was an awkward moment where I recognized him before he recognized me. I gave him a couple small gifts (a totally-gay deck of playing cards and some Japanese candy) for late-Christmas which broke the ice a bit before dinner.

Before we saw the movie, we walked a (round-and-)round-about route to a nice Thai restaurant in Bellevue named Chantanee. I had the “Princess Favorite Chicken” which was chicken in yellow curry with cashews, broccoli, and carrots. Tasty tasty! I’m not sure if Chantanee is better than Buddha Ruksa, but it easily beats the piss out of any Thai places near Southcenter, or what I remember of Sawatdee in Minneapolis. The staff was very friendly and we were out of there sooner than expected.

So, we arrived at the theatre about 45 minutes early and to kill time fed $4.50 of tokens into Jurassic Park III, a really bad light-gun game. We fought a Spinosaurus and the fucker went down three times before he finally died and our in-game avatars tried to hide their man-love feelings from each other as the credits ran. Graham had triple my score at one point, but if anyone asks, I let him win to be polite.

After the movie I waited for the 55x back to Seattle and as I boarded a bus the driver shooed me away from the fare box and instead asked me to sit up front and talk to him. That was a bit.. odd.. but I obliged. I guess he thought he was doing me a favor saving me $2.50, but I already paid up-front for my bus pass, so /shrug. He seemed a nice-enough old guy, though clearly a bit sad and lonely. We discussed my move to Seattle from Minneapolis, differences between the two cities and Bellevue, and the impending light rail system before he dropped me off and I walked home.

All in all it was an enjoyable evening. Graham is a very nice fellow. Bellevue is also surprisingly lovely — everyone I encountered was polite and friendly. Even the people with little kids went out of their way to be courteous.

The other day, a boss of ours took John and I with to visit the Apple store over our lunch break, which is located in Southcenter mall in Tukwila, a suburb of Seattle. The store is pretty small, with computers on each side of the store and a small island in the middle with iPhones, iPods, etc. It was packed with people, at noon on a Thursday.

I figured, hey, other people are just coming here on their lunch breaks too. They grab a bite to eat at the food court and then walk around the mall a bit. Right? Only, Southcenter has no food court. There is a Johnny Rockets, a Rainforest Cafe (essentially Chuck-E-Cheese for tweens and their parents who can afford $18 per plate for lunch), and a few other restaurants with separate buildings beyond the parking lot — an Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, and something else I can’t recall the name of — all fairly pricey and certainly not a quick lunching. No World Wraps, Pita Pit, Pagliacci Pizza, nothing of the sort for just grabbing lunch and going elsewhere 15 minutes later. Do all of the people crowding the mall at noon on a Thursday have jobs with two-hour lunch breaks so they can hang around the Apple store for 30 mins, take an hour to eat at Olive Garden, and spent another 15-30 minutes stuck in parking-lot traffic while searching for the perfect spot? An alternative, I suppose, is that they bring their lunches to work to eat at their desk, and then spend their lunch break at the mall.

After work, the three of us went to Fry’s to get some work-essentials. As we drove past Target I noted how useless the building was — nothing but blank empty walls — until you reached the entrance. In Seattle, a better example of use of space is Uwajimaya Village, which is essentially a mall with a grocery store (Uwajimaya) surrounded by small shops which are all connected to Uwajimaya. All of the surrounding stores have their own street-facing storefronts and can be accessed separately of Uwajimaya, or while you shop for groceries. Oh, there is a food court too (and questionable-quality apartments above it all) while remaining about as large (maybe smaller) as a suburban grocery store.

The above simply works, and without the need for massive parking lots adjacent of each other for two stores which try to sell everything. Instead, there is specialization of shops and a central point of collaboration between them to provide a diverse set of services and goods to each customer that walks into the complex.

Back to Fry’s. The store itself seemed like a cross between a K-mart and a Radio Shack. They had some neat components for sale, null-modem cables, external 1.44mb floppy drives, etc. but seemed really slack on brand-name goods, probably to keep prices low. Another effect of low-prices, I assume, is that their employees had little care in following through with a sale. When Bakha wanted to buy a laptop, he had to ask three different employees for information on their return policy — receiving only one bit from each, and piecing it together himself. This, after one employee responded that he didn’t work in that area and didn’t think to direct him to someone who did.

So, the customer is on their own in the über-mega-store and after being funneled through the single entrance to the checkout area and directed to a numbered register by someone-who-I-can’t-imagine-justifies-their-$8-per-hour, your bag and receipt are checked at the exit 30 feet away. When did this become commonplace? Why is the customer treated as an unwelcome guest, and then as a criminal after making purchases? More importantly, why do people tolerate it? I can see the appeal now of the Apple store, where employees are so obnoxiously helpful and friendly. I, for one, will now never purchase anything from Fry’s. Fuck that store, fuck their employees, and fuck their policy of treating their customers as mindless cattle who probably stole their cheap slave-labor goods.