Hey, what is there to do in Seattle?

I find myself with basically a full day in Seattle when I fly out on the 17th to join my next ship. I have friends in like 1957351843 cities worldwide, but turns out that Seattle is not one of them.

Any parks or particularly nice areas of downtown or something?

What a good girl, Kaylee!

Zen, I totally grok why you're freaking more about the D&C. I hope it works for you and the recovery is swift and as painless as possible.

I am Allyson and Jen and Connie on the immigration thing. Living in a country for two years where people immigrate FROM really gave me perspective. To all those who are self-righteous about it, I would like to arrange a Freaky Friday that lasts a year, where suddenly they are a school teacher in Moldova whose monthly salary is $20 and who hasn't received that salary in SIX MONTHS, and who comes home from school not only to grade and care for her children and cook from scratch, but to work in a garden or even larger allotment so that, by god, they have SOMETHING to eat. See how that illegal maid job in Italy looks then.

zuisa, there are quite a few Buffistas in the Seattle area. Check the Buffista map.

A quick list of touristy stuff from my trip to the 2009 F2F:

There is a good view of the city and harbor from the observaton deck of Columbia Center.

The Seattle Central Library is...interesting.

There is a monorail to the Space Needle.

I enjoyed sailing around Elliot Bay.

I did not think much of the Seattle Aquarium.

Pike Place Market is worth exploring.

The Underground Tour was very interesting.

There was a PBS special on agriculture in California that aired about 10 years ago now and man was that ever enlightening with regard to immigration. It might be on their website. But the main thing that got me about that special is how the U.S. has used immigration policies since its founding as a lever to service business interests. So sometimes for several months especially when crops needed tending to, there was a lack of immigration enforcement and the quotas from certain countries were ignored.

It is dishonest to claim a hard and fast immigration policy when the US has NEVER had one.

This is not to say that immigration affects resources in our respective states, but let's get honest about the actual costs, social and otherwise, of enforcing draconian measures to boot otherwise law-abiding people out the U.S.

Zen I had a d&c for what they thought was an uterian polyp, but turned out to be a fibroids. I was given a general and I was sore for 2 days.

It didn't occur to me to ask about anesthesia. Honestly, I don't need to be scolded and lectured at. This is not my fault.

My apologies. I did not intend to sound like I was scolding.

It's not your fault at all. I was just worried that you seemed very upset and maybe calling to ask a few questions about anesthesia and recuperative times and what will happen if this doesn't help you, might make you feel a lot better about it.

I apologize for my tone.

This is not to say that immigration affects resources in our respective states, but let's get honest about the actual costs, social and otherwise, of enforcing draconian measures to boot otherwise law-abiding people out the U.S.

Oh, but that means someone, somewhere, is "getting away with something." And god knows we can't have that in this righteous, law-abiding country.

Too many of my friends--including my landlord!--are militant about this, and really don't think I should tell my landlord he's a hypocritical bigot.

A Horseowner in Schoharie County, NY is still looking for his 22 horses that were swept away in the floods of Hurricane Irene last week.

22.

No trace.

Amazing and horrifying.

I don't know hard numbers, but my gut feeling is that this country could not survive without illegal immigrant labor. Not without a dramatic shift in how we pay people and what we are willing to pay for things, and a million other aspects of our society. And what happened in Georgia backs me up [link]