The first day of relaxation! And it was good.

I woke up at 7 am, thought, "Hell, no!" and slept until 10 am, when a long-time-no-speak friend called. It was lovely. And then I ate breakfast (Korean instant ramen -- mmm) and fielded another phone call. And then I was waiting around for my laundry and Friend called. I thanked him for packing my suitcase so well. He said he picked up my dry cleaning this morning, which I'd left with him (I had no time to do it during exams and law review, okay?) and which apparently includes a gray wool skirt with asymmetrical hem that I don't own. He said he finally got on IM and that he was going to write his first message to me, but that I wasn't on IM anytime he checked. We talked about nothing much for a good long time (like, an hour), and ... I don' t know. I just don't know. But it's nice to get calls. Hee hee!

Roommate and I went out (she had a whole plan for the day and I tagged along), first to the high school that's three doors down because it had a Native Festival, which we somehow could not find. But the place was hopping, what with the ROTC car wash (complete with eagle mascot wandering around) and some kiddie performance thing that seemed to involve little girls dressing up in tutus. Or maybe that was just the photo shoot in the hallway? It was confusing.

After that, we went down to the lagoon but picked a marshy spot and got bitten by mosquitoes for our troubles, so we went to the other side of the lagoon and sat in the warm, warm sun and read and watched the ducks. There was an adolescent-looking duck that wandered onto the bank after three adult male mallards hopped up, looking for food. Its feet seemed too big for its head, and it waddled ungracefully, even for a duck. The three adults ignored the duckolescent, which quickly seemed to realize no food was forthcoming (a big sign told us not to feed the ducks), started trudging back toward the water, and gave up and fluttered up into the air for 3 feet before splashing down into the water. The three adult mallards studiously ignored it. But they headed back in shortly after.

Roommate had the Saturday Market downtown next on the list, but it started raining, so we stopped in at a very nice cafe she'd written down as a possible alternative to the market, and read the paper and Vanity Fair (me) and the New Yorker (her) that the cafe had. It was a personable little place, and I think I've found the first coffeeshop I like here.

The rain stopped after about an hour, so we went to the market and tried fireweed jelly and birch syrup and a reindeer hot dog, which was sooooo good. Mm. Mystery meat.

Then we went to see a documentary about Somali refugees in Lewiston, Maine (the mayor wrote a letter to the Somali community asking them to tell their family and friends back in Somalia not to come to Lewiston, because it was too much of a drain on the city).

Then we went home and ate dinner.

Then we went to the theatre nearby where you can eat and drink while you watch second-run movies, and watched "Hitch," which pays lip service about respecting women but had the most unappealing, selfish, self-centered heroine EVER. The best scene was AFter the whole story ended and you get to see Eva Mendes (stuck playing this awful character made even worse because no one seems to realize that she IS awful) and Will Smith and Amber Valletta and that fat dude from King of Queens dance some funky dance grooves from the full-on eighties.

As Roommate said after the movie, the theatre's going to be our TV for the summer. At $3 a pop, I foresee multiple visits during the week, when you come home at 6 pm and there are still 5.5 hours of daylight left. And even after the sun "sets," it's still as light as the few minutes before dawn, or the few minutes just after the sun sets. We walked home from the theatre at 1:10 am, and it was -- god, I can't come up with any synonyms for light and I'm sick of saying how light it is, but you get my drift.

Okay, must sleep now. Tomorrow, hiking in the mountains. Woo woo!