Living Large with the Seattle Storm

Ernie's last set of grandparents came to town with Uncle Sam in tow. Adding in the fact that Aunt Zozo was already staying with us: there were a lot of new faces for Ernie to learn.

So I recently took my friend Michael along with me for some fun times with Tom Hanks. Being a real one, Michael turned around and gave me an awesome invite to sit in Symetra's Tunnel Club seating at today's Seattle Storm WNBA game. What a guy.

It was a tough situation because on one hand I wanted to make use of the fancy parking pass to park in the same lot that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy uses. On the other hand I wanted to drink my face off with complimentary wine, beer, and spirits. I chose face removal.

The Storm do a unique thing where they have children line the hall and high five the players when they come out of the locker room. Fun for them, hard to see for me. Oh well, I'll get over it. I especially love visiting the Tunnel Clubs as I used to work in them, groveling for rich people.

Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird were in attendance.

The Storm quickly showed that they were here to be just obliterated by the Los Angeles Sparks. This was unfortunate but on the bright side it made our trips back to the club for refreshments feel like less of a betrayal. Like I imagine the team would prefer we not see all of what is happening to them on the court today.

Michael and I were minding our own business, drinking everything that wasn't nailed down back in the lounge and soaking it up with free food, when one of the staff came in, closed the door behind them, and told us we weren't allowed to leave. This lasted the whole damn 4th quarter and was very lame. Apparently some nut job tried to get onto the court or something. I don't know what that had to do with us, and I don't know why it took an entire quarter to arrest said person. It must not have been too big of a threat because they continued the game as if nothing was happening. More likely it was the Climate Pledge Arena staff being the clowns I am certain that they are. On the plus side, the Storm somehow turned it around and ended up winning the game. Hurray!

An even bigger win was coming home to see my boy and give him a bottle.

Gender and Kraken Lack of Talent Revealed

Ultrasounds are fun because I get to see what's going on in there with the alleged Troll.

Very annoyingly the ultrasounds show as video but all they give you to take home are still pictures. I was going to just hold my phone up to the screen to take video but got scolded. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

I was so mad about that I started researching private ultrasound places that aren't scared of the exciting advances that have taken place in audio visual formats in the last 40 years.

We also picked up the baby's gender from a different office that does blood work. We didn't want to know the Troll's gender until we got genetic testing and some other testing done. I wanted to make sure it was a human baby and not like a rabbit or alligator or whatever. I'm not a doctor but I assume these things happen.

When we opened the envelope it was revealed that we weren't having a Troll at all but a baby boy named Ernie! What a relief. Ernesto is my great grandfather who left Italy for America, and I've been learning a lot about his life over the past few years while preparing my application for Italian citizenship. If everything goes according to plan Baby Ernie will be getting Italian citizenship too, so I thought naming them the same thing would be a fun source of future confusion.

Lydia suspiciously picked a hospital that is walking distance to her favorite ice cream place. What a coincidence. Salt & Straw had some very weird flavors on deck to celebrate Halloween.

Don Bugito’s Creepy Crawly Critters featured "chocolate-covered crickets and toffee-brittle mealworms."

Ernie has a lot of forest fires to look forward to.

At night we headed to Climate Pledge Arena where even some of the hardest working employees end up getting fired. Essentially my rule at this point is to go to every game in Seattle that features a St. Louis team.

The Seattle Kraken's opening show thing has evolved quite a bit since last season. There's even a neon tentacle thing that lowers from the ceiling.

 Recently retired Sue Bird was in attendance with her fiance Megan Rapinoe.

Ultimately St. Louis prevailed and sent the Seattle bums packing. Sad.

There's one less troll in my life now, but I'll always have Buoy.

First Seattle Storm Game

This is how I feel about free stuff:

"Because only one thing counts in this life! Get them to sign on the line, which is dotted! You hear me, you f****** f******? A-B-C. A—Always. B—Be. C—Closing. Always. Be. Closing. Always be closing!"

I spotted some sign at the Kirkland library about free WNBA Seattle Storm tickets and I got enough of them that we could bring Lydia's dad and brother with us too.

This was my first WNBA game, so that was exciting. It was also fun because it was toward the end of Sue Bird's final season. "She spent 20 years in the pros and has many accolades to her credit. Bird was a two-time national champion at UConn before becoming a four-time WNBA champion and five-time Olympic gold medalist."

Some differences between other sporting events I've been to: there was a dance team but it was comprised of little girls. There was also a kiss cam type thing but instead of kissed it was like high fives or something. My theory is that there were so many same sex couples at the game that they wouldn't be able to tell who was together, so they just sidestepped the issue entirely.

The half time show was taiko drummers which was very cultural of them. I don't like to brag but I have a bit of taiko instruction under my belt.

Evan and Sam were wowed by the Amazon One technology at the concession stands, where you can just wave your palm to get in, pick up whatever you want, and leave. The magic cameras will know what you took and email you the bill. Big Chicken is Shaq's chicken chain, so that's fun too.

Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, was in attendance. I have actually recently seen the Bellingham, Washington originated band when they opened for the Foo Fighters.

I think it's cool that since the arena is Amazon sponsored that they advertise tv shows.. not the usual beer or whatever sports arena ads.

Storm Wins!