My kids call this "the stink rink" that "smells like crayons" and is over by the "really good Mexican place where they were playing that stripper video on TV." All of this is true. Skate King is situated by...mumble mumble...off the such-and-such outlying freeway cloverleaf in HuhWhuh? Washington. I have been there three times and still have to GPS it. It's in one of those strip-mall type places that make me feel unreasonably depressed.

And yes, there is a Mexican taqueria which is actually really good, and gave me flashbacks to living in the Mission District in San Francisco. When we ate there, some Shakira video showing her in a nude opaque body stocking was playing on every television screen (the song was about a wolfman/woman or something aggressively stupid, and the video would have been infinitely better if she really were naked, rather than Barbie-naked, which is to say, naked but not anatomically correct...which was disturbing and transfixing in its not-okay-ness. This prompted Nico, my older son to ask, "If you're a singer, why would you wanna be a stripper? Isn't it better to be a singer than a stripper? And if you DO wanna be a stripper, why not just be a stripper?") All good questions. Wrong review though.

Back to Skate King. You go in and the smell is baaaaaaad. "Crayons" is actually accurate, but perhaps kind. But, as I told them, you get used to it--suck it up! Then you walk in and it's got it all: loud carpet, dingy everything, seedy snack bar with stumbling bumbling skaters, clumsy as foundling giraffes, and "Huh naaaame is Rio and she DANCES on the saaaaand" (on a good day) and perhaps something by Dan Fogelberg (like maybe the one where he gets all sexual discussing a racehorse) on a bad day.

It is, in short, a time capsule place, something unchanged from decades past, which is nothing more and nothing less than it purports to be. We've been there several times, but on this last one, my intrepid younger son, Maximo, creamed it big time and really hurt his shoulder. I mean, he was really hurting--pale and clammy. When I asked for a bag of ice, one of the attendants came over immediately to check on us (there are always visible on-the-floor safety peeps--you can tell them by their one-skate-up nonchalance, casual backward grapevining panache, and, on occasion, the comet of lavender pixie dust that blossoms up behind them as they bust their semi-Olympic moves...and also sometimes they bark, "Don't hang on the WALLL PLEEEEAAASE" as they pass.)

In this case, though, the guy was very concerned, and hailed the owner, who was also very maternal and sweet and said, "We're going to call the paramedics. It's no charge to you and it's standard procedure for us." Well, cool! That set my mind at ease. The paramedics got there fast and gave us their opinions on the injury, which aligned with my own, and the owner followed up throughout the whole affair. This impressed me; I forgave the bad smell. These are good people.

Sure, Skate King smells like crayons. It's a relic, but I'm happy it's around. In that perverse, egocentric way of parents,, I want to inflict my own childhood memories on future generations--particularly those under my direct supervision.  And hey, we live in a grey, rainy state. Rollerskating is 30% less cold than ice skating (and its practitioners haven't stigmatized it anywhere near as much); it's cheaper than the movies, and it's indoor calisthenics for Healthy Family Fun. So smile wide and...breathe through your mouth, for godsakes.

The day after getting back from Spain this August, standing up from my bed, I pulled my back out in one blinding nanosecond and was reduced to a paralyzed, gelatinous lump on my bedroom floor. In denial that I am so old, or so pathetic, that I have now joined the Doan's Pills generation of back pain sufferers, I slept that way until the next day.

I'm not sure if it was the ridiculous plane ride I endured back home wedged between two women with suckling babies who show tremendous promise in the arena of professional cookie crumblers and cracker dusters, or the fact that overseas I was prone to randomly engaging in canyon hikes in 5-inch heels while intending to merely head to brunch...but the next day when I awoke, I realized my back was truly thrashed. As in, when thirst became unbearable, I slinked downstairs at the rate of eleven inches per hour like that messed-up creature from Ju-On who makes cracking-bone noises when she moves...excruciating. Also I got more acquainted than I ever could have wanted with the general state of cleanliness my floors had succumbed to during my three weeks away.

Anyway, things went from worse to...well, similarly worse until I finally broke down and called my parents to come down from Bellingham to cart my crumpled skeleton off to get pain pills. An informal poll on Facebook led me to foray into the world of chiropractics; I truly had no idea what type of doctor or therapist to even look for.

After a largely useless (but not wholly, because it did yield opiates) hospital visit, I blind-dialed Rank Baty because his office was close to me. When I explained I was only able to walk if I braced myself by clutching my knees (think, two figures in on the evolutionary diagram) his office fit me in the next day.

Baty himself moves at an unhurried pace. Wearing slippers and comfy clothes, he's not into chit-chat; after assessing my condition in about 3 seconds, he mutters something good-naturedly about how my shoulders pointed one way, my head another, and my hips yet another, he sets to work in that low-key way he has which is like watching your grandmother water flowers.

In freakish pain, I'd been so worried he'd be rough, or abrupt, or jar me into a worse injury. Not Baty. He touches here, here, there, lightly, and  there is a small muffled crack, and holy sh*t, I can actually move my leg. Another few angles--krick!--and my god, I can...stand upright?! The process was so gentle I couldn't believe it.

So many people say chiropractors are quacks...whatever dudes. All I can say is, I went in there practically crawling (not kidding at all) and I left walking. It took another few adjustments til I was back to almost normal, but I surely didn't expect those results that fast. I am extremely grateful! The only reason I withheld a star is because the office itself is a little shabby and run-down; boxes and some general untidiness which, while it makes me feel rather at home, seems it could be tidied up for visitors ;) However, major results. Baty Rank helped restore me to my most evolved hominid!

Restaurant Review: Pies and Pints

It took me an unforgivable amount of time to span the three requisite blocks to Pies and Pints...well, that, and I wasn't sure kids could eat there. But lo, they can, and they did, as did I, and we have demolished upwards of 18 pies between us at the time of this writing. That's pot pies, of course--both brought to ubiquity and nearly destroyed by the Swanson's empire.

I'm happy to report these are much better pedigreed pies, however, and wouldn't even get a locker next to those nasty microwaved sludgepockets we ate as kids. One thing that differentiates this pub from many in Seattle is that the waiters and staff are actually really damn nice; helpful like the teenage neighbor guy who is active in the Lutheran church. Earnest, even. I asked the server what he recommended and he unabashedly listed his own personal favorites, which I love. "Everything's good here," and "I dunno, can't really go wrong" make me want to light people on fire. Seriously.

Anyway, he recommended the beef burgundy pie and the chicken, and strongly suggested the beef gravy. This is important, because although I am not always in gravy's corner, we did order one with and two without, and I would like to stress that the gravy one was at least 313% more delicious. Even the bitter Soviet judge gave the gravy a 5. Get. The. Gravy.

My younger son Maximo got the rebellious "breakfast at night" option (a bacon and egg pie) which we also recommend (get the gravy) for other mavericks looking to go "rouge" by ordering breakfast fare at 7pm.

The pints were good, or at least they seemed pretty good to my boys, who both got inebriated by 7:45 and had to have their stomachs pumped at Swedish because I threatened to take their Legos away if they wussed out at only 3 pints apiece.

(waits for Social Services to ring doorbell). In the event that Seattle's humor goes the way of its fashion sense, I should explicitly note that this was a joke...

Right. Anyway, this joint is a reliable option for friendly service and good comfort food. The pies are a bit small if you're the type who likes to eat so much at dinner that you feel like a folding chair has opened up in your stomach when you get up to leave. Or if you're just really hungry. I recommend getting some supplemental soup-age. Rumor has it the sweet potato fries are phenomenal, but alas I cannot comment, not having partaken. The roasted red pepper and tomato soup was good, clearly made from scratch, but on the lighter side (it tasted like something you might see accompanied by a little heart icon on a menu, if you know what I mean). I will be back to try more!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/trophy-cupcakes-and-party-seattle#hrid:2bdZtyifqaNwRnGmJxuDyQ

http://www.yelp.com/biz/judy-fus-snappy-dragon-seattle#hrid:DnSk5WEhE9uKbQWKkF6_kA

http://www.yelp.com/biz/scarlet-tree-restaurant-seattle#hrid:GpBWi1i8pjhiYIEGThs7NQ

If being impressed with the fantastically visualized grandeur of a CGI landscape is the same as liking a movie, then I liked "Avatar."

Except it isn't, and I didn't.

This? Groundbreaking?! The ever-popular Puerile Savages Who Are Wiser Than Us, ravaged ruthlessly by uni-faceted frat-boy soldiers fond of pugilistic statements ending in "bitch!" who just wanna "getter done!"and be "home by dinner"? Seriously?

Don't the writers ever have any karmic backlash from regurgitating cliches which fatigue even the very WORD "tired'–and may in fact be clinically dead?

I like to think there's some penalty, like an outbreak of back acne or something.

And for those reviewers who say, "Well, at least the kids will like it," I should let you know that my 9-year-old, the first of us to comment as we left the theater, pronounced it "The most predictable movie I have ever seen in my life." Later, at home, he said that even "iCarly" has better stories...and in any event it's shorter. If you knew my kid, you would appreciate the utter damnation issued with that comment.

I should no longer be surprised, but I can't help being (always!) disappointed. So many talented writers in the world...there's just no excuse. Why trouble to perfect a human-seeming wince or pained smile on a rendered character, and leave its REAL humanity at the pancake-flat, J. Jonah Jameson cartoon level? I'd rather see claymation, or people's hands moving plastic soldiers around, or yanked about with visible strings...set to dialog that makes me actually give a damn. Since we got to the theater late, we had to sit on the floor in order to all sit together, and I felt every murderous second of its 2.5 hour running time.

I should note that I do think 2D caricatures (rather than complex characters) work sometimes, in some movies, such as parodies, like the zombie movie "Fido," or, well, comic book movies, like the recent Spider-Man franchise. But in this tsunamic belch of self-importance–complete with flying dragons and jazz hands!–it is not working within the rules of its own atmosphere to have crap dialogue and flushable characters.

I did, however, have to love the scene where Neytiri embraces his "real" non-avatar form (much smaller than the avatar body); it brought back all that I so loved (!) about Titanic--Cameron does seem to have a weakness for diminutive men being enveloped by larger women :D Cast opposite Kate Winslet, L though at least in this movie he did not look like a teenaged lesbian, which was all I could think when Kate Winslet smothered Leonardo de Caprio on the prow of the Titanic.

This movie has nothing, NOTHING on The Matrix, nothing on good television sci-fi (BBC and the new Battlestar Galactica); it was infinitely less fun than the new Star Trek movie, and I am amazed it's won so many people over. Maybe, as in the movie "They Live," (a B-movie I actually find more original than this one), we should look to those dark glasses...they seem to have made us all forget that we already saw Dances With Wolves once before. Which was actually more than enough.

TATONKAAAAA!

Yes, after nearly 1.5 years of near-total dormancy I've forayed back into the world of online dating...though I'm still too noncommittal to pay fot it. This way I won't feel I'm not maximizing on my investment when I just sit around and collect emails in varying degrees of illiteracy.

Not everyone who writes me is illiterate, mind you. No. Some send me long, thoughtful bursts of prose which are pointed and purposeful.

It's just that those men, with extremely few exceptions, tend to either resemble the Unabomber, or they appear as though they have spent the last 11 consecutive years eating nothing but s'mores and bacon sandwiches. Many who write me wear "do-rags" and have prison tattoos and sometimes full walrus moustaches, which leads me to suspect that they're typing their missives from the community PC in their local correctional facility. My 9-year-old son pointed this out while looking over my shoulder. "Mom, just tell them from me that they can't date you if they're in a violent street gang." Some have an unhealthy reliance on Caps Lock. Judging from others' punctuation and syntax, I can only surmise that they are blind, handless, and typing with their foreheads in a dark place. One wrote: "YOUR TO COOL WE HAVE TO MEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Then there are the Faceless / Shirtless Fuckers, those wet-from-the-shower torso shots snapped in the mirror of a bathroom whose bleak yellow lighting--subject matter of photo aside--and sad formica invariably fills me with despair. Ah, men. If only women thought like men, you'd be so close to nailing it. Too bad men go to the Internetz both for porn fixes AND to look for love; some invariable confusion can result in their pursuit of both. Still, I rather think courting online should follow at the very least the same general protocols of restaurants with regard to shoes and shirts, but what the hell do I know. I, who long long for a more sartorially-conscious era when men wore hats to go into public, have anachronistic leanings that will never be satisfied in a time where women shop at Target in pajamas and moon boots.

There are a few devotees who write me ritualistically, undaunted by my silence. One fella in particular writes every day, as if we are either courting or very good friends. I have never once replied to his messages because with men this is the best tack (when I send little "thank you but we're not a match" notes, I typically get either bile or debate, as if one can be argued into attraction. You would be amazed, or maybe you wouldn't).

Anyway, he cheerfully maintains a steady, ribald conversation entirely with himself. You see this type of person on public transportation sometimes, but in this case I don't even have to leave the comfort of my office chair to indulge in this privilege. Apparently, although I am not complicit in the relationship, he and I are great friends who share a convivial confidence.

It is not form letters, either; he's keeping me apprised of his day, and even finding parallels between what is happening and what I have written in my profile. I wrote a lot in my profile, it's true, but he's sure to run out of resonance at some point, don't you think? Won't he run out of things to isolate and find connections to in his mornings? For lack of extant material, he may have to fall back on utter fabrication, at which point it will either become genuinely amusing, or I'll be found dead in my home tied up clumsily with tube socks or something.

To give you a better idea of the candidates who flood my inbox with hopelessness, I will paint you a picture:

Exhibit A: TARDUS MAXIMUS

Exhibit B: Illiterate and insane...he will love me for "internity!"

Exhibit C: Call them crazy and they will come. Also, way to find the synergy!

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=z4JUnE7nb8k4SP3F3tGpgw