I met Helen after her facial (a "facial" can also involve hand and foot massages, reportedly. Probably other stuff which I'm not thinking about, too. hurm) downtown for lunch, and we went to Pike Place Market, one of those more touristy locations in Seattle, for lunch. Today's discovery is that there is a difference between the pike place brewery and the pike place bar and grill. The brewery is like a place you'd find in Cambell, California (also known as "not sunnyvale"). Lots of loud, balding tech workers slinging cell phones from intentionally obvious hardpoints. The bar and grill is more like Myhre's of Port Orchard - a proto-Denny's dineroid location where the server wears thick, metallic eye makeup that functions as a heatshield upon atmospheric re-entry and there's a big fake marlin on the wall. Fortunate that the mix up put me in a better place to eat, rather than the middle of nowhere (as seems to happen whenever I confuse similiarly named things in SF)

Later, I called my increasingly unimpressive insurance agent, who promised to call me "first thing in the morning today", as he was rushing off to an appointment at 3 pm yesterday. So, 3 pm today, he still hadn't called, so I called him and he "hadn't had a chance to get to my policy yet". Hunh. Well, he called me back soon after to tell me: a) My policy expired b) the insurance company was just holding the money I had sent them to start a new policy and c) I had to wait up to 10 days to get that money back, and it couldn't just be applied to the policy I was about to buy. Gah. I thought insurance agents were supposed to insulate me from the inscrutable behaviors of insurers. If I have to keep calling back, keeping an eye on my checks as they are cashed, and still wind up with $3200/year policies, I'm just going to deal with the companies myself. Agent shmagent.