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I’ll say it again. 6 – 2.

That was the final score of today’s Seattle Sounders soccer game, our local team hammering the visiting Columbus Crew. The team set all kinds of records, and one player, Lamar Neagle, scored 3 of the 6 goals, a hat trick.

Why am I telling you this? Because Melinda and I were at the game, that’s why! Can you imagine a better way to spend an 80 degree summer afternoon in Seattle than watching the home team lay waste to the team with the best record in the Eastern Conference?

I can’t.

Want to know something else? The last soccer game we attended was exactly one year ago today and it was when we saw FC Nantes win. That’s right, Melinda and I know how to attend soccer games.

On Thursday at school, teaching staff member Liana asked if anyone wanted her two tickets to today’s game. A quick check of our home calendar indicated the appropriate void so I snatched them up. Melinda & I bussed into town, saving the hassle of driving and parking. The craziest expense of the day was paying $8.50 for a beer (but, hey, it was a “Kilt Lifter”).

The title of this post explains the picture and there isn’t a heck of a lot more to add. One signature dish in our neighborhood that we missed while in France was this dessert from Bai Pai Restaurant, mango sticky rice.

I stayed at work for two extra hours tonight, so much is there to do to prepare for the new school year. By the time I got home it was well past 7. Rather than put together a dinner then, Melinda, Ella & I decided to head to Zeek’s for a slice of pizza and then to Bai Pai for the sticky rice. Chloe has a babysitting job.

The sticky rice did not disappoint. An uncanny combination of sweet and savory, it’s the kind of thing that hits some sort of spot that is best described as “right.”

What I didn’t mention in yesterday’s post was the fact that when Melinda and Romain arrived at SeaTac Airport yesterday, they discovered that something was amiss with his scheduled flight. You know, the one for which he has had tickets for months. The short of it was fairly quickly determined. His flight had been cancelled. Now the airline was trying to accommodate a large number of stranded passengers.

To Romain’s advantage was the fact that he was a lone passenger, much easier to place on other flights. Still, the first option given him was to wait several hours at SeaTac and then fly to Boston for a 10 hour layover before catching a flight to Paris.

Um, you can do better than that, right?

Indeed. In the end, he left Seattle two hours later than originally planned and flew directly to London. He waited four hours in London and then flew to Paris. We are happy to report that he caught a Paris to Nantes train and was reunited with his whole family at our beloved train station in Nantes a little before midnight (3pm in Seattle) today, as evidenced in today’s photo, sent to me by Laurent.

If you haven’t, you might want to take a look at the blog Romain kept while he was in Seattle. In a word, it’s lovely.

Romain left this afternoon and we are all a little sad. Melinda took him to the airport after some staggered goodbyes this morning. Not only do we absolutely love Romain, we like what he brought to our lives in Seattle. He’s fun, funny, thoughtful and kind. He left us a touching goodbye note that included this line, “Thank you for the place you gave me in your family.”

And with Romain’s departure, we feel a little farther away from France…

To feel a little closer to being fully back home, Melinda & I hooked up tonight with our longtime friends Kevin & Lynn (that’s the 4 of us in today’s picture). We credit Kevin (and another friend named Bruce) for Melinda and me meeting. He & I went to high school together. And Lynn has known Melinda and Brenda from single digit grade school.

Lynn is a filmmaker gaining serious attention in the world. She told us her most well-known film, Humpday, is being re-made in France with a bigger budget and famous French actors and everything. That’s exciting, to say the least.

As if reconnecting with Romain and everyone else in France wasn’t enough reason to go back…

So at the end of our fancy Italian meal last night, the one we were treated to by Romain, we asked him what he’d like to tonight, his final evening in Seattle. Without hesitation he said he wanted to return to the Mexican restaurant in Ballard where we went on August 5th.

For the sake of accuracy, I made a point to get the name of the restaurant this time. Just don’t ask me to pronounce it… It’s spelled “La Carta de Oaxaca,” and I think the X sounds like a W or something. And I thought the French R was difficult. Whew. Anyway, you can learn more about the restaurant at its website.

I caught Romain in mid-bite of his Lamb Birria with this photo. He wanted to make sure he ate something that came with the restaurant’s delicious homemade corn tortillas. I think he was quite satisfied with this choice. When I asked him what he thought of the meal he said, “I love.”

I asked him if he would miss Mexican food once he was back home and he said yes, but that he would miss other things more. I think he was referring to us. It was such a sweet thing to say.

We will certainly be missing him, too.

Romain took this picture just as we were heading out this evening for dinner. After nearly 4 weeks with us in Seattle, he insisted that he treat us to a dinner out and suggested Mamma Melina, an Italian restaurant, as the locale. He has heard us talk repeatedly of it, and specifically for two reasons.

One, just as we were leaving for France last July the restaurant was moving from its longtime spot in the University District, not far from Melinda’s parents’ house. The new location is close to our house, on the corner of 25th & Blakely near University Village. They have a swanky new outdoor eating area that has been beckoning us since our return.

Two, every time Melinda sees the restaurant she tells us she is going to drop the “D” from her name and go by “Melina.” In fact, when the girls were younger and we’d drive by the old location, I would start calling her “Mamma Melina.” It just has never stuck.

Regarding that outdoor eating experience we were hoping to have, it was a no-go tonight. It’s been raining on and off all afternoon and evening. Go figure. Rain in Seattle. Still, the meal was excellent and the company divine. Romain was the perfect host, insisting on everyone having whatever they wanted and having us practice how to say thank you in Italian before we left home.

Dwight & Michele, Melinda’s parents, invited us all over for an incredible dinner tonight. This, of course, included Melinda’s sister’s family, Brenda & Greg and their daughter, Perrin, as well as the five of us (I count Romain as part of our family unit). I’ve mentioned before that the initial connection between the Shaws and the Boudeaus was through Dwight & Michele having hosted Frédérique (Romain’s mom) years and years ago, before she married Laurent and before she had kids. As you might imagine, it was important to Dwight & Michele to have Romain and the rest of us over for dinner before he leaves on Wednesday.

I got this picture off of Romain’s camera. You may have guessed that that’s Romain with Perrin, as sweet of a picture as you’re going to see. Perrin was very cute with him. When we arrived she was too shy to bisous, but she was willing to do so by the time we left. In fact, she even gave me a bisous as we were leaving!

With Melinda’s and my work responsibilities increasing this week, Dwight & Michele and Brenda & Greg are going to take some time tomorrow and Tuesday to give Romain the last of his Seattle tours. He’s going to have lunch at/on the Space Needle tomorrow with D&M and then B&G are taking him out on Tuesday. Tomorrow afternoon I’ve set him up to visit Amazon.com. And after that, he’s taking our gang out to dinner as a thank you for hosting him.

Here’s another picture from last night’s trip to Emerald Downs, this one taken from our table in the dining room. Not only did we get this choice view of Mt. Rainier, we were situated at a table right on the finish line. Not bad.

I can’t quite explain it, but using this picture of Mt. Rainier is given me a sense of déjà vu, like I posted about it and other Seattle area landmarks before. For instance, Romain still really wants to go up in the Space Needle, perhaps THE most touristy/landmarky thing related to Seattle. Doing so is kind of expensive and, to me, not that significant. I’ve done it three times in my life. The first time was soon after my family moved to the area in 1974. And the other two were on Chloe’s and Ella’s 13th birthdays, occasions on which we even had dinner in the overpriced restaurant. So I can certainly understand Romain’s interest. But this déjà vu feeling is about not being overly excited about doing the stereotypical touristy things.

Still, look at Mt. Rainier. Pretty spectacular, isn’t it? Is just looking at it a stereotypical touristy thing?

So tonight we took Romain to Emerald Downs, the horse race track located about 45 minutes south of Seattle. And by “we” I technically mean my parents, and by “my parents” I technically mean my dad. You see, my dad, as you may know, has all kinds of connections at the local track, having worked in some capacity in the horse racing industry since the 1960’s. The other “we” involved was Chloe and Ella. All the “we’s” had a great time.

Of the many photos I could have used tonight, I chose this one that I admit to having staged a bit. I’m not sure Romain fully grasps the significance of the newspaper he is reading, the Daily Racing Form. But let it be known that I worked as a statistician for the “Form” for several years, even being responsible for some of the “expert” selections back in the late 1980’s. Talk about a time warp. Posing Romain in front of the “tote” board just adds to the “feel” of the photo.

Since my dad treated us to an incredibly fancy dinner in the Turf Club, I could have used photos of Ella with her prime rib dinner or Romain with his banana split dessert. I could have used a shot of Romain & Chloe in the announcer booth during a race with track announcer Robert Geller. Then there is the shot of a giddy Ella counting her pennies after her selected horse once again beat Romain’s and Chloe’s (I think Ella won 4 of 5 races and made 62 American cents and 5 French cents).

Like I said, we had a great time.

Oh, if the subject of horse race announcing interests you, Robert Geller was featured in a book on the subject called “They Call the Horses.”

So it’s just about 10pm and I just got back from facilitating a meeting at PSCS (Puget Sound Community School, where I am the school director) for about 30 prospective volunteers. That’s me explaining how we track attendance in school classes.

About leading the meeting, it was another one of those strange experiences after having been gone a year, like how I reported last night about feeling like we were gone for only a week or slept through an entire year. Aspects of facilitating the meeting rolled from me automatically. Other things, specifically those related to people present tonight who volunteered last year (and I therefore do not know) or procedures put in place last year that are new to me, required a more concentrated effort.

I remember thinking about these kinds of meetings, what it would be like to facilitate them after being gone for a year, before we left. I knew it would be odd but I didn’t give it much attention since it was so far in the future. Besides, there wasn’t really anything to do about it and I trust my ability to both facilitate and to adapt. But it’s just different when for 16 years I was present for everything and always the “go-to” guy.

Say, to learn more about the school’s volunteer program, take a look here.