There’s a hole in the kitchen this morning; our circa nineteen-seventies dishwasher gave up the ghost, and today a new one will be installed.

In the hole, there’s some archeology. The apartment building we live in is one of the twenty-or-so scattered around Capitol Hill in the nineteen-twenties by Frederick Anhalt, a character’s character.

This building employs a decorative rusticated plaster finish over lath for our interior walls. In the hole, unpainted and painted plaster informs us that the original color of our kitchen’s walls is a pale sea-foam green, the color of Errol Flynn’s tights in Robin Hood, released about ten years after this building was constructed.

The pattern of the paint indicates that the original cabinetry was removed, I would guess at the time the dishwasher was first installed probably in the early seventies.

The floor appears to have three layers of tiling – two linoleum and one that I can’t make out.

I had a lucid dream this morning in which Vivian and I were stuck on the wharves in Algiers on our way to Iraq. I had forgotten my sunglasses and had to run around looking for clip-ons that fit my specs.

Right next to the wharf-and-building complex we were on was a sort of historical display of old sailing ships, but mixed in with the restored and retired grandes dames were grounded and swamped old rotting wrecks, like the tall ship near Port Townsend.

As I walked by the line of old vessels, I noticed that one appeared to be a Soviet-era olive drab truck – what are they, Ladas? – on a sunken barge/trailer attached to a small boat covered with a tarp. Workers swarmed over it shouting and gesticulating.

Turning back toward the foot of the quay, I mounted a stand of wooden crates and was able to see over the cluster of gimcrack vendors selling tapestries, rugs, bags, dates, and the like. I clearly recall several 3×5 hookrugs that reproduced the covers of Tintin books, which is where a great deal of the dream imagery of the wharf originated.

Over the tents and stalls, and in contravention of the actual geography of Algiers, I was able to see down the broad boulevards lined with date palms that make up the old government quarter of the city, large French colonial buildings and wide streets shining in the mediterranean sun. In the dream, the streets reached into the heart of the city rather than running parallel to the coast.

When I first became aware of the dream the prevailing emotion was anxiety and danger. When I realized that I was dreaming of Algiers I lost those emotions and became intensely interested in remembering and seeing what I was dreaming. I have been in the actual city of Algiers twice, for a total of about three days in December 1982, and my memories of the town are jumbled and fragmentary.

The actual experience I most clearly recall was wandering through the Old Quarter, the Casbah (in North African cities that’s the generic term for the old quarter). Steep, narrow-waisted flagstone streets with a central exposed sewer trough (all dry in my memory). Three-story buildings leaning together conspiratorially as the bright sun echoed off the golden stucco walls, illuminating the neighborhood like a canyon. Curious youngsters turning.

I clearly recall the neighborhood as clean and well-kept, with none of the amazing jumble of smells I associate with other third-world cities. Only food and spices on the wind, and behind them, the sea.

A sunny afternoon in Fremont. I hear we got up to 80 degrees.

There were frites, and art, and hats. And clocks made out of hard drives.

Also, a dead crow.

Later, pho. Whilst pho-ing, I saw a SARS Chicken sticker that was peeling away from it’s placement, so I gave it a good home.

And finally, without intending that I would devote my day to Jeff’s blog topics, I ventured to the University District where I attended a press screening of the forthcoming Jonathan Demme documentary The Agronomist, about slain Haitian journalist and activist Jean Dominique.

As I walked north from the Route 43 terminus, one block west of Trader Joe’s, I spied a weathered sticker.

After the film, I had a pleasant lunch at the storied Sushi Express in the company of one Danelope, after which I enjoyed the happy sense of public morality that comes from riding the bus. Again.

As I walked toward my house from Broadway, what did I spy, high in his natural habitat of parking regulatory and instructional signage?

Sars the Chicken. You just can’t help but root for such a plucky beak. Despite this, one presumes that Mr. Chicken will be avoiding our good friends north of the border for the foreseeable future.

The powerbook that suffered brain damage as a result of martini consumption has had an emetic and while it’s not 100% it is booting and as far as I can tell is likely to recover.

Unfortunately, I think I have to disassemble and clean the keyboard, unless I can score one for cheap on eBay.

I think I just saw Jeff Bezos at a press screening for the new Punisher film.

Back again for round 2 of FTF job interviews. I think I did OK, not kickass, but decent. I erred in not bringing a water bottle as I found myself susceptible to drymouth.

I told my barber “Three and a half – four inches on top, shorter on the sides.”

He misheard that, somehow, as “Three-fourths of an inch on top, shorter on the sides.” I did not realize what had happened until he clapped clipper to pate, and by then, we were committed. Oh well. I hear the military is fashionable this season.

I had a phone interview today, which went well enough, I suppose. I was only really unhappy with my responses to one specific question, concerning freelance clients. My non-writing freelance client relationships have tended to be so very informal that I had a hard time recalling the names of the specific companies involved – I could remember the individual people involved and identify them by name but the corporate identities they employ were only muzzily summoned.

So I sat down and made a little list. Next time I have that question I should be well-prepared.

Viv and I drove up to Snoqualmie Falls this afternoon and walked around the old trains near the depot. It was obviously the off-season, and while the plants down around our apartment are beginning to think it’s Spring, the trees at the higher elevation of the Pass are under no such misapprehension.

Wait, can trees experience apprehension?

Nevermind.

The trains and the depot were interesting both for what they are and the activity around them – there were numerous volunteers, mostly sportin’ ye olde-tyme striped overalls, beavering away madly on the stock, rolling and otherwise.

Despite the volunteers’ obvious devotion to repairing and restoring the engines, cars, and miscellaneous multi-wheeled objects somewhere between the two, I found the most compelling aspect of them to be their obvious age and weathering. The most aged-appearing engine was the most interesting thing to look at.

Although the ten-foot black-painted blades of the rotary snowplow’s snout were pretty cool, too.

A few blocks away from the open and walkable area by the depot are some more old engines, mostly in even rougher shape than the easily accessible material on display.