Saturday 03/26/2022
So this is the off day between tournament sessions. A whole day to be passed in Spokane.
The La Quinta Inn has full breakfast. This morning at 7am the breakfast area was dominated by, I think, some kind of team, girls and their parents, probably high school because a college team would have fewer parents. And the make your own waffle machine was out of order. Oh well.
After breakfast I set out to walk around down town. I checked out the indoor mall where there is a multi-screen theater playing several movies I have no interest in seeing. Spent some time browsing Auntie’s Bookstore, where I found the one magazine that always soothes me: Wooden Boat. I took it back and read it cover to cover. I don’t know, I can read about making boats for hours. With that and naps and a book on my kindle I passed the afternoon.
I had a ticket for an event at 8pm. I made a reservation at a restaurant near the theater for 6:30. This was the Europa Bakery, a bar/restaurant with an Italian menu. The meal was quite good, caprese salad and tortellini in a red pepper sauce. When I asked for the check, the waitress handed back my credit card and informed me, “We have a customer who likes to anonymously buy meals for some people and he’s picked you tonight.” Okayyyy so I had dinner for free. Thanks, anonymous benefactor!
My event was a solo comedy show, Julia Sweeney: Older and Wider. She had already done the show in L.A., but it turns out she grew up in Spokane, so she came back here to tape it as a comedy special in her home town, and in fact in a theater where she worked as a teenager. It was pretty good, I had a few chuckles.
I had walked over to the restaurant and the theater, about 1.2 miles, but took a Lyft for the return trip. That’s because there are quite a few homeless people hanging around the 7-11 across the street from my hotel, and along 2nd avenue. I’d walked this area twice earlier but didn’t want to do it after dark.
Codgerville 