These Times

Random thoughts for a day in March

Kirk Ericson | Mar 06, 20250

I was at the new McMenamins in Tacoma when I asked the waiter where she lived. “Milton,” she said. “Actually, it’s kind of Puyallup, too, because the border runs through my apartment building.” She said some people in the complex technically live in Puyallup and some technically live in Milton. I’d never heard of such a thing, so I had more questions, most based on what locale she had the most affinity for. She was going back and forth on which town she liked best, so I said, “OK, OK. If a civil war broke out tomorrow between Puyallup and Milton, which side would you fight on?” “Milton, definitely,” she said.

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A lot of people seem in such a hurry to worry.

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If we could ask birds what group name humans have attached to them — and they could answer — we’d all be a whole lot better at identifying birds.

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I was talking to an ex-Marine when the conversation turned to her getting ill with cholera when she was stationed overseas. She described it as having “the double dragon.” It’s a phrase that describes being so ill you’re spewing effluent from your body’s northern and southern exposures.

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I hope this happens: Someone offers me a choice of two ladders. “You can have this ladder or that ladder,” the person tells me. I could respond, “I’ll have the latter ladder.” But what if I like the first ladder more? What a dilemma that would be.

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Many people believe we shouldn’t rewrite history, but we can, and should — if we rewrite history in the pursuit of accuracy. For instance, the more historians have learned about the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, in 1945, the more we know it was wrong, strategically and morally. A bad example of rewriting history, on the other hand, is rewriting the cause of the Civil War as being about “state rights” and “preserving our culture.”

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If an afterworld exists, I hope I get all the ideas I forgot returned to me. What a nice reunion that would be.

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What’s the proper etiquette these days for notifying your boss that you’re too sick to work? It used to be you’d have to use the phone to call your boss. And if you weren’t really sick and just wanted a day off, you’d call first thing in the morning when your voice was low, gravelly and sick-sounding. Is it OK to use a text message to inform your boss you’re sick? Email? Instagram? And if you’re not sick but want a day off, do you compose your sick note so you sound sick?

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I’ve had people tell me my column is the first thing they read in the Journal each week. That’s like eating dessert first. Eating dessert first undermines the delayed gratification theory of human happiness.

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I was kayaking Sunday afternoon in Dana Passage, far off the eastern shore of Harstine Island, when my kayak compadre, Mike, asked what I’d do if a sea lion attacked us. Sea lions had been reported in the area. “I’ve never heard of that happening,” I said. “There’s a first time for everything,” Mike said. “No, there isn’t,” I said. “Still, what would you do about a sea lion?” Mike asked again. One must accept that when you’re in the water like that and you’re up against a 2,000-pound pinniped, your options are limited. “I guess I’d try to convince the sea lion that I’ve always been a big supporter of their species,” I told Mike. “That might work.”